In short:
don't do it. You'll be
flamed. You'll be called a
troll. You'll be a
troll on fire.
HTML in
usenet posts is bad, bad bad bad bad. Don't get caught doing it. Check your
newsreader's options to see if it wants to do this. If you're using
Outlook Express, DEFINITELY check. HTML in usenet posts is bad for a lot of reasons, namely:
- HTML is a lot of extra padding: a five line post (around 200 bytes) is a lot fricking smaller than a comparable five line post in HTML (about 8000 bytes).
- HTML isn't supported in all newsreaders. It isn't supported in MOST newsreaders. In a lot of the ones it is, you can disable HTML rendering. That leaves a lot of gobbledy-gook and little text. Very, very few people will bother to find a post inside of HTML, so if you're asking for help, and using HTML, don't expect much of it.
- HTML posts, being that much larger, take a LOT longer to download, especially in parts of the world where Internet access is still very slow, and very expensive. Usually in these places people pay by the minute, and if they have to wait to download your pretty 900 KB background image and and 350 KB animated GIF of your dog snuggles for your signature, they're going to be mighty pissed and mighty broke.
- Some vision impaired persons use software which reads text to them or software which will enlarge the text for them. If you're posting in HTML and their reader doesn't render HTML, their text-to-voice software won't work, and if you're typing in H6 instead of plaintext while they use something to enlarge the text, on their screen your post will appear one letter to a line, the size of a Dodge RAM.
Thanks, and remember,
usenet was around before your newsreader was
a twinkle in Bill Gate's non-borg eye.
Show some respect.