More silly text/gemini spec proposals

[solderpunk]

On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 10:18:48AM +0700, poomklao at yahoo.com wrote:

> <div dir='auto'>I have a couple of silly ideas for extra formatting:<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"># Images</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Elegant form:</div><div dir="auto">IMG /static/fun.png "Alt text to display if you're in a terminal"</div>

This definitely isn't happening.  It *screams* for extension.  Even if
the spec only defined IMG, clients would immediately start also
supporting VID and SND.  It's way too slippery a slope.

Futhermore, anything which encourages clients to make additional requests
while processing the results of an earlier request is definitely not
happening.  The privacy game is over then, and many other important
games are over too.  It's the end of user autonomy.  We end up with the
current situation on the web where you follow a link and you have no
idea what's going to happen as a result and you just subject yourself to
the will of whoever authored the text/html on the other side.  Will your
browser connect to 1 host or 10 hosts or 100 hosts?  Nobody knows!  Will
one of those hosts belong to a company whom I don't want my computer
talking to because I think they're evil?  Nobody knows!  Will my computer
start making sounds, even though I'm in a library or a quiet cafe or I
have the radio on beside me?  Nobody knows!  This is a disaster we have
to avoid at all costs.  The user needs to be in control of this stuff.
Presenting links for them to follow *if* they want and *when* they want
gives them that control.  Inlining content takes it away.  We should
respect people's bandwidth and we should respect people's attention.

# Blockquotes</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Pretty much the same as in Markdown:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">>> Gemini is a new, collaboratively designed internet protocol, which 
> explores the space in between gopher and the web.</div>

I'm much less bothered by blockquotes, they are totally inoffensive,
degrade nicely if ignored and treated as text, and several people have
asked for them.  In fact, I've already said I'll probably add them to
the spec, as another optional line type.

Cheers,
Solderpunk