There has been recent discussion on ICON about how different email clients, cut & paste methods, etc. can affect how individual messages appear in the digest. Today a list of rare insulators was posted. Several people replied to the poster. Most replies included the list of rare insulators. On my computer, the list appeared as a neat column in most of the messages, as shown in this picture.

For reference, I subscribe in Digest mode. I use a web email client called Squirrel Mail. I can view messages as text, or HTML. I toggled both views, and the "list" of rare insulators appeared the same in both views... as a nice column... with one exception that I'll post in the next picture.

I've always wondered how/why some messages get scrambled, or get random characters inserted willy-nilly in some messages. Everyone I've asked blames my Squirrel Mail client. That may be true. But I know this happes with othe email clients too. Most people don't seem bothered by the "messed up formatting" phenomenon. Still, I wonder how many other ICONers suffer from messed up text formatting in their ICON messages... whether in individual message mode, or in digest mode?

I do a LOT of emailing, at work and at home, using various email clients. Invariably, these formatting issues crop up from time to time. I certainly do NOT expect to change email as we know it. I'm just making an observation, and I know some of you will simply chuckle at this. Still, these formatting issues are real (and sometimes bothersome), as you'll see in the next picture I post.