Re: Dual content (text/plain and text/html) on xen-devel (was Re: Linux PV domU with >1 vCPU never resumes after xl save/restore)

[George Dunlap <gwd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Aug 5, 2026 at 3:03 PM Jürgen Groß <jgross@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 05.08.26 15:28, Jan Beulich wrote:
> > On 05.08.2026 14:15, George Dunlap wrote:
> >> You're asking every person who sends an email to xen-devel to remember to
> >> take an action before sending the mail
> >
> > You're by far not the first one to be asked this; you're the first one to
> > have an issue with being asked, beyond some companies' IT getting in the
> > way.
> To put it differently: there is a statement on the Xen wiki asking to send
> only text emails to xen-devel. I'm not the one to ask to relax that rule.
> If you want this rule to be dropped, you probably should raise this topic
> for discussion.
>
> IMHO it is fine to question such guidelines, but just saying you don't
> believe they make sense and therefor ignoring them, especially after having
> been asked to obey them, is kind of rude.

The rule seems ambiguous to me.  Here it is for those following along
at home [1]:

> Please post in plain text (i.e. not HTML), word-wrapped to somewehere around 
> 72 characters.

It never says "only".   Recall that frequently, mailers are configured
to send *only* HTML emails; or, they send HTML emails with plain-text
attachments that do not reflect everything in the HTML version of the
email (perhaps because people actually use the mark-up to convey
information).  Given that, the rule could mean two things:

1. Please post at least plain-text, and expect that the plain-text
version will be the only one read.  Do not post HTML-only, and do not
post an email where the plain text is difficult to read (mis-formatted
or garbled) or is missing information present in the HTML version.

2. Please post in *only* plain text; mail to xen-devel should contain
no HTML attachment whatsoever.

Either way, it seems to me like the expectations could be clarified.

It looks like I can send plain-text only by selecting it for each
individual message.  I may try to do that, but knowing the way my
brain works, I wouldn't be surprised if I frequently forget.

 -George

[1] https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Asking_Developer_Questions