Additional HTML Tuning List?

Here's a discussion question for you folks, kinda-sorta along the same
lines as the extended-ASCII question:

As you all know, many of us have gone to really crazy lengths to do
these hideous ASCII-text graphics of, for example, lattice diagrams or
musical scores even. I'm amazed at how good some of us have gotten at
that, but the truth of the matter is that ASCII graphics is fundamentally a
really bad solution to that problem.

But there's an even bigger problem. We're talking about music here, and
quite a few people have tried and given up on the tuning list because
there's just too much talk and not enough actual music. The ideal medium
for the tuning list would be in HTML so that we can send, not only text,
but also graphics and sound. Conversing in HTML would let us send more
sophisticated text (lists, italics, etc.) as well.

I'm starting to think that it's time for us to put our money where our
mouths are - or at least those of us who use Netscape or Internet Explorer,
or (presumably) AOL and CompuServe as well - and start sending actual music
and pictures of musical concepts. I mean, heck, isn't music what this list
is all about anyway?! Under Netscape at least, you can, in essence, send a
web page as Email, which in turn means that you can include graphics and
sound with your Email.

Here is the best way I can think to administer such a thing, considering
that such messages take a fair amount of space and time to download, and
considering that some of us don't have HTML capability or even worse, pay
by downloaded Kbyte:
1. If it's feasible, start up a second tuning list, perhaps through the
same "onelist" server, or I could investigate whether my company
(Motorola) would be interested in providing this as a community
service.
2. If you use Netscape, or otherwise can send and receive HTML
Email, then you'll want to subscribe to this list. If not, then don't
subscribe.
3. We should decide also upon some standard formats, in the sense
of what plug-ins and helper-apps we nominally use with HTML.
For that I would propose that we, unless it's necessary, limit
ourselves to *no* plug-ins. That is to say, whatever Netscape,
Internet Explorer, and AOL can view.
4. I believe that that would mean HTML, GIF and JPEG for
graphics, and WAV for sound.
5. Furthermore, to keep download times from going totally bonkers,
I'd also recommend that we shoot for two other rules:
a. For line-diagrams, use GIF, and JPEG for photographic-style
images.
b. Usually anyway, limit WAV sounds to (eek) 8-bit, monaural,
8KHz-sample-rate. That may sound drastic, but when we're
posting to a lot of people, we have to be very economical.

So, waddaya folks think? Would such a thing even be possible (e.g.,
would a typical list processor barf on HTML or the attachments that form
the graphics and sound)? If we were to start such a list, would you post
things to it at least occasionally? Is there an alternative approach?

I think it's probably appropriate to discuss this over the entire list.

I think Gary Morrison's proposals for an HTML list are good.

However, I have had some bad experiences with send data from my PC to a Mac
or receiving data from a Mac in my PC. Downloading an HTML file from a
website is no problem for either platform, but data sent from a Mac tends
to be sent out in Binhex which can be very fussy to decode. Has anyone else
had this problem?

One more consideration -- before we commit to Netscape/Internet Explorer
format, we should survey the list membership more carefully. I know of one
subscriber who is still using his Amiga and I would guess that a few
admirable folk are in the Gnu/Linux world. We should accomodate them as
well, and if ASCII is the only way, then fine.

> Downloading an HTML file from a
> website is no problem for either platform, but data sent from a Mac tends
> to be sent out in Binhex which can be very fussy to decode.

As long as we stick with HTML I'd think we'd be consistent with each
other..
.
.

> One more consideration -- before we commit to Netscape/Internet Explorer
> format, we should survey the list membership more carefully.

There are also some settings within Netscape, and presumably Explorer as
well, that need to be set right to send and receive web pages as Email. I
would think that those could be figured out fairly easily.

I think that is a nice start to a wonderful concept.
How about having a site to visit with multiple sound bites,etc hosted by you?
To house Faqs diagrams-releases-whatnots so insteda of running into lots of
wackiness with setup you could have a completely seperate site. members to
submit things onto a guestbook and regular surfers could download all kinds
of wonderful musics. I am ready to put my money where my mouth is --and if you
began the process I would donate zips,jazz,etc to help out.
Resonate and Extenuate
Pat pagano,Dir.
SEJIS
Gary Morrison wrote:

> From: Gary Morrison <mr88cet@texas.net>
>
> Here's a discussion question for you folks, kinda-sorta along the same
> lines as the extended-ASCII question:
>
> As you all know, many of us have gone to really crazy lengths to do
> these hideous ASCII-text graphics of, for example, lattice diagrams or
> musical scores even. I'm amazed at how good some of us have gotten at
> that, but the truth of the matter is that ASCII graphics is fundamentally a
> really bad solution to that problem.
>
> But there's an even bigger problem. We're talking about music here, and
> quite a few people have tried and given up on the tuning list because
> there's just too much talk and not enough actual music. The ideal medium
> for the tuning list would be in HTML so that we can send, not only text,
> but also graphics and sound. Conversing in HTML would let us send more
> sophisticated text (lists, italics, etc.) as well.
>
> I'm starting to think that it's time for us to put our money where our
> mouths are - or at least those of us who use Netscape or Internet Explorer,
> or (presumably) AOL and CompuServe as well - and start sending actual music
> and pictures of musical concepts. I mean, heck, isn't music what this list
> is all about anyway?! Under Netscape at least, you can, in essence, send a
> web page as Email, which in turn means that you can include graphics and
> sound with your Email.
>
> Here is the best way I can think to administer such a thing, considering
> that such messages take a fair amount of space and time to download, and
> considering that some of us don't have HTML capability or even worse, pay
> by downloaded Kbyte:
> 1. If it's feasible, start up a second tuning list, perhaps through the
> same "onelist" server, or I could investigate whether my company
> (Motorola) would be interested in providing this as a community
> service.
> 2. If you use Netscape, or otherwise can send and receive HTML
> Email, then you'll want to subscribe to this list. If not, then don't
> subscribe.
> 3. We should decide also upon some standard formats, in the sense
> of what plug-ins and helper-apps we nominally use with HTML.
> For that I would propose that we, unless it's necessary, limit
> ourselves to *no* plug-ins. That is to say, whatever Netscape,
> Internet Explorer, and AOL can view.
> 4. I believe that that would mean HTML, GIF and JPEG for
> graphics, and WAV for sound.
> 5. Furthermore, to keep download times from going totally bonkers,
> I'd also recommend that we shoot for two other rules:
> a. For line-diagrams, use GIF, and JPEG for photographic-style
> images.
> b. Usually anyway, limit WAV sounds to (eek) 8-bit, monaural,
> 8KHz-sample-rate. That may sound drastic, but when we're
> posting to a lot of people, we have to be very economical.
>
> So, waddaya folks think? Would such a thing even be possible (e.g.,
> would a typical list processor barf on HTML or the attachments that form
> the graphics and sound)? If we were to start such a list, would you post
> things to it at least occasionally? Is there an alternative approach?
>
> I think it's probably appropriate to discuss this over the entire list.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription
> to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and
> select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> You do not need web access to participate. You may subscribe through
> email. Send an empty email to one of these addresses:
> tuning-subscribe@onelist.com - subscribe to the tuning list.
> tuning-unsubscribe@onelist.com - unsubscribe from the tuning list.
> tuning-digest@onelist.com - switch your subscription to digest mode.
> tuning-normal@onelist.com - switch your subscription to normal mode.

> How about having a site to visit with multiple sound bites,etc hosted by you?

Hmmm... Well, the beauty of an internet list is that nobody has to host it,
in the sense of only one person being able to edit a web site. I'd never get any
sleep if I were to accept HTML messages from hundreds of people and post them to
a web site (and delete old ones too).

The other beauty in a list, perhaps a double-edged sword here, is that you
always get the messages if you're subscribed; you don't have to go anywhere.
Perhaps that's a little like taking a class in something rather than studying it
on your own just so that you'll force yourself to do the work.

Yes Gary I see your point -- sleep is good Having everyone get the same thing seems
very nice. I was just thinking to avoid certain setup probs you could have an
auxilliary site w/features. I know fellas who setup sites with soundclips etc in
several hours but I guess the maintenance is the hard part. Let me know what you
decide

Gary Morrison wrote:

> From: Gary Morrison <mr88cet@texas.net>
>
> > How about having a site to visit with multiple sound bites,etc hosted by you?
>
> Hmmm... Well, the beauty of an internet list is that nobody has to host it,
> in the sense of only one person being able to edit a web site. I'd never get any
> sleep if I were to accept HTML messages from hundreds of people and post them to
> a web site (and delete old ones too).
>
> The other beauty in a list, perhaps a double-edged sword here, is that you
> always get the messages if you're subscribed; you don't have to go anywhere.
> Perhaps that's a little like taking a class in something rather than studying it
> on your own just so that you'll force yourself to do the work.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription
> to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and
> select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> You do not need web access to participate. You may subscribe through
> email. Send an empty email to one of these addresses:
> tuning-subscribe@onelist.com - subscribe to the tuning list.
> tuning-unsubscribe@onelist.com - unsubscribe from the tuning list.
> tuning-digest@onelist.com - switch your subscription to digest mode.
> tuning-normal@onelist.com - switch your subscription to normal mode.

Patrick Pagano wrote:

> Yes Gary I see your point -- sleep is good Having everyone get the same thing seems
> very nice. I was just thinking to avoid certain setup probs you could have an
> auxilliary site w/features.

Thanks for the thoughts. Anybody else have any comments on the idea?

Wouldn't it be better to put such things on ones own website, and just send a URL and brief description to the (ASCII) list, as people already do. I sure don't want to wait for some huge HTML list digest to download only to find I'm not the least bit interested in the huge HTML thing it contains.

Are there a lot of people with email access but no web space? Can't anyone who wants it get free web space from advertisers such as Geocities.com and others?

Regards,
-- Dave Keenan
http://dkeenan.com

> Wouldn't it be better to put such things on ones own website, and just send a URL and brief description to the (ASCII) list, as people already do.

That's another possibility, but it's not as convenient as Email. In the sender's case, s/he has to ftp the page to a web site, figure out what the resulting URL is, and insert it into an Email message. For the viewer, s/he has to go back on line (I at least read my mail off-line). It also
wouldn't be quite as easy to comment on particular pieces of text by inserting comments in among the original text, as I am doing now..
.
.

> I sure don't want to wait for some huge HTML list digest to download only to find I'm not the least bit interested in the huge HTML thing it contains.

I presume then that you'd not want to subscribe to the HTML tuning list; that of course is the point of making it a separate list: If you're interested in receiving HTML-coded tuning messages potentially including sound and graphics, you'd also subscribe to this new list, and if don't want to
see such messages, you subscribe only to the existing text-only list this message is being sent over.

Download times for each message from an HTML tuning list would be roughly the same as for a typical web page.

I'm not sure, but I suspect that subscribing to an HTML tuning list in digest form would have only marginal value. That because the volume of messages on that list would be low compared to this existing text-only list, and because digesting HTML may cause it to no longer be interpreted as HTML
(I don't know; I'm just guessing).

In hindsight, perhaps I didn't make clear enough what I meant by "additional" HTML tuning list. Let me emphasize that what I'm proposing is in fact a separate, supplementary tuning list in addition to this one that you'd subscribe to or not subscribe to, depending on whether your Email program
can view HTML messages, and want to accept the download times for comparatively large messages.

The questions clearly are:
1. Would you be likely to subscribe to this supplementary list?
2. Would you be likely to post to this supplementary list?
3. Does anybody know of technical reasons why this would not
work (e.g., list processors screw around with headers or
whatever so that HTML mail is no longer interpreted as HTML
by some popular Email program)?

Having thought about this a bit more, I believe that more extensive files
should be uploaded as webpages rather than send to the entire list. The
entire list could then be sent content descriptions and URLs as is
presently done. If someone would like to sponsor webpages for such files,
that'd be great.

One main reason for doing it this way is that in many, if not most,
countries, local telephone service is not unlimited with a flat fee as it
is in much of the US. A subscriber in Germany, for example, must pay
dearly by the minute for net access AND the telephone connection.
Subscribing to a list with large files (i.e. MacLaren's essays) would be
the equivalent of writing blank checks payable to the phone company.

Furthermore, subscribers in countries where the telephone service is often
disrupted would be at a serious disadvantage. While a review of the
subscribers' address list shows only a few addresses in countries where
this may be the case, it is worth keeping in mind if we are interested in
maintainly a really international subscription base.

Message written at 6 Jan 1999 09:58:31 +0000
CC: tuning@onelist.com

In-reply-to: <3.0.2.32.19990105111726.00961970@uq.net.au> (message from Dave
Keenan on Tue, 05 Jan 1999 11:17:26 +1000)
References: <3.0.2.32.19990105111726.00961970@uq.net.au>

>>>>> "Dave" == Dave Keenan <d.keenan@uq.net.au> writes:

Dave> Are there a lot of people with email access but no web space?
Dave> Can't anyone who wants it get free web space from advertisers
Dave> such as Geocities.com and others?

That does rather miss the point. To access web pages one needs web
access, and that is slow and expensive. In a previous message someone
suggested that this pages woudl take as long to load as a typical web
page -- ie minutes on a telephone with teh costs building up. E-mail
can be read at home when I have time (like now over breakfast) but web
pages require a connection at teh time of reading.

And yes there are many many email systems which treat HTML as text
which is what it is. I usually use Emacs to read mail which rightly
shows me teh text sent. For quick glances at mail I use msg, which
also does not know anything about HTML. BSD mail which i also use
knows nothing about HTML. Are there any mailers which do know
anything about it? I have never seen one.

==John ffitch

Message written at 6 Jan 1999 09:58:31 +0000
--- Copy of mail to tuning@onelist.com ---
In-reply-to: <3.0.2.32.19990105111726.00961970@uq.net.au> (message from Dave
Keenan on Tue, 05 Jan 1999 11:17:26 +1000)
References: <3.0.2.32.19990105111726.00961970@uq.net.au>

>>>>> "Dave" == Dave Keenan <d.keenan@uq.net.au> writes:

Dave> Are there a lot of people with email access but no web space?
Dave> Can't anyone who wants it get free web space from advertisers
Dave> such as Geocities.com and others?

That does rather miss the point. To access web pages one needs web
access, and that is slow and expensive. In a previous message someone
suggested that this pages woudl take as long to load as a typical web
page -- ie minutes on a telephone with teh costs building up. E-mail
can be read at home when I have time (like now over breakfast) but web
pages require a connection at teh time of reading.

And yes there are many many email systems which treat HTML as text
which is what it is. I usually use Emacs to read mail which rightly
shows me teh text sent. For quick glances at mail I use msg, which
also does not know anything about HTML. BSD mail which i also use
knows nothing about HTML. Are there any mailers which do know
anything about it? I have never seen one.

==John ffitch

> Having thought about this a bit more, I believe that more extensive files
> should be uploaded as webpages rather than send to the entire list.

> One main reason for doing it this way is that in many, if not most,
> countries, local telephone service is not unlimited with a flat fee as it
> is in much of the US.

That's certainly a meaningful concern, but just to make sure that there
are no misunderstandings here, my proposal is that these posts would go to a
additional, supplementary tuning list that normal-list subscribers may either
subscribe to or not in addition to the regular list.

Probably the more basic question is how many people participate in this
supplementary list, more than the reasons why those who don't wouldn't. It's
probably worth considering that I'd guess that the typical traffic rate on
this supplementary list would probably average about 3 messages a week. For
many people the time to download those messages would be very small compared
to even a modest web-surfing session.

Let me ask you folks this question: When URLs are cited in tuning-list
messages, how many of you actually "take them up on their offer"? With a
list, you'll already have downloaded the sound and pictures, so viewing or
auditing them becomes free rather than having to go back on line and all
that. Speaking for myself in particular, I suspect that it being "free"
would more than double the percentage of such things I'd actually take
advantage of.

Further to my message today I have loaded 1 web page. It took 9
minutes. I real waste of time and money
==John

I wrote:
>> I sure don't want to wait for some huge HTML list digest to download only to find I'm not the least bit interested in the huge HTML thing it contains.

That goes for individual messages as well as a digest.

Gary Morrison <mr88cet@texas.net> replied:
> I presume then that you'd not want to subscribe to the HTML tuning list; that of course is the point of making it a separate list: If you're interested in receiving HTML-coded tuning messages potentially including sound and graphics, you'd also subscribe to this new list, and if don't want to
>see such messages, you subscribe only to the existing text-only list this message is being sent over.

It's not that simple. I wouldn't subscribe to such a list because of download-time concerns. However I'd like to know about those HTML messages so I could choose to download some of them. i.e. those that seem like they might be of particular interest to me. This might be 10% of them. So I'd rather people put them on a website and told me about them in the ordinary list, as many already do.

> That's another possibility, but it's not as convenient as Email. In the sender's case, s/he has to ftp the page to a web site, figure out what the resulting URL is, and insert it into an Email message. For the viewer, s/he has to go back on line (I at least read my mail off-line). It also
>wouldn't be quite as easy to comment on particular pieces of text by inserting comments in among the original text, as I am doing now..

These are good points about convenience. Particularly the one about readers having to go back on line. I read my mail online so I hadn't considered this. I personally don't find it very hard to ftp a file and copy and paste a URL. Nor do I find it hard to copy text from my web browser and paste-as-quotation into my email. But I guess it's convenience vs. reaching a wider audience. Don't let me stop you.

Regards,
-- Dave Keenan
http://dkeenan.com

> However I'd like to know about those HTML messages so I could choose to download some of them. i.e. those that seem like they might be of particular interest to me. This might be 10% of them.

Yes, that would be an advantage of using a website or newsgroup.

> Further to my message today I have loaded 1 web page. It took 9
> minutes. I real waste of time and money

Wow. I've never seen anything take that long. What was on that page?

>>>>> "Gary" == Gary Morrison <mr88cet@texas.net> writes:

Gary> From: Gary Morrison <mr88cet@texas.net>
>> Further to my message today I have loaded 1 web page. It took 9
>> minutes. I real waste of time and money

Gary> Wow. I've never seen anything take that long. What was on that page?

http://www.werewolf.net/~hljmm/Ezine/
which is the Csound Net magazine
==John ff

At 11:17 AM 1/5/99 +1000, Dave Keenan wrote:

>Are there a lot of people with email access but no web space? Can't anyone
who wants it get free web space from advertisers such as Geocities.com and
others?

Geocities prohibits pornography, so people who write bawdy lyrics to
microtonal songs would have to find an alternative.

--Charlie Jordan <http://www.rev.net/~aloe/music>