This article is from the Tolkien Newsgroups FAQ, by Steuard Jensen sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu with numerous contributions by others.
Generally, no. Many of us use simple text-based programs to read
news, and posts with HTML formatting can be very difficult to read.
You can generally turn off this behavior from the "Preferences" or
"Options" section of your newsreader. For some newsreaders, you will
need to change more than one setting to completely eliminate this
behavior.
 
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