Everyone emails if they're on the internet.  It's really the lowest common denominator of internet users (though I suppose the internet can still be somewhat useful if one never emails anything, I don't want to discount folks who use google without ever setting up an email address).  Anyhow, with those edge cases out of the way, what I wanted to drone on about here is the "standards" that many place on top of what the email protocol (smtp) will allow.   First off, there's the travesty of simply marking up text (using html) which is ridiculous because the HTML specification was designed for files on a filesystem (not multipart MIME containers inside an SMTP message).  Despite the fact that most (admittedly clueless) people believe that HTML email is fine (because they've had incoming mail that was marked up and that they found readable).  But I'm getting away from the point I'm trying to make (probably because at work right now I'm embroiled in mass-mailing issues that the HTML question is a big part of).

It's all about mailing lists/forums/usenet -- in these environments there are often "rules" about ridiculous pedantry which end up generating so much noise (and mostly being personal preference and really a "control issue" for some participants in these discussion groups).  What I'm talking about specifically are guidelines with respect to:

• snipping or editing the message to which one is replying
• posting above or below the content in the message one is replying to
• how many characters per line
• posting "off-topic"
  

I find that the number of posts in various places arguing about these (completely insignificant) details usually exceeds (sometimes by several orders of magnitude) the number of other spam and/or off-topic posts.   In my estimation, it's really about a bunch of idiots "controlling" what others do.  Unfortunately some of those idiots are sometimes also the best domain expert (in whatever topic the particular list/forum/newsgroup is addressing), so if you want the best advice, it's probably best not to whine or argue too much.  Hence my rant here...