On Sun, Sep 28, 2003 at 09:25:42PM +0530, Saswata Banerjee & Associates wrote: [snip]
With an attitude like that, Linux will remain a geek's OS and stay confined to the sidelines of comuting history. If you want to see Linux grow, it needs more users and support from users. That will not happen till you are willing to tollerate so called "1000 idiots" and help them become something more than just idiots, make them better users.
Using text-based email doesn't make anyone a geek. At the same time, using GUI based HTML email doesn't make anyone a newbie. I vote for blocking HTML for the simple reason that it's not too hard to deal with and the advantages, that others on the list have so ably described, are not insignificant. At my university, we have virtually everyone using pine in the administrative offices. Using pine is a brain-dead job and I've succesfully got people, using computers for the first time when they're 40, to use pine. If people can cope with pine, navigating through a few options in their favorite email program shouldn't be hard.
If you want only 10 interested people (here are actually talking of Technically Advanced people, not Interested per se), then you should make the ILUG a Techies Only group, dont bother to pretend that you are going to help new users move in and adapt to the OS.
Geez, using text-based email is NOT techinically advanced. If anything, it's technically backward since those were the first kind of emails that were flying around the new.
Vote: Block.
-Bhargav.
P.S: Solve the P=NP question, and you'll rightfully earn the title of a geek/god.