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List:       kmail-devel
Subject:    Re: Ideas on Reply-To-List
From:       Dirk Mueller <mueller () kde ! org>
Date:       2003-11-29 2:13:32
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On Friday 28 November 2003 21:12, brad wrote:

> Unless users are used to 'r' replying to a list, like with previous
> versions of kmail.

There is not "a" list. Many mailinglists do not set a Reply-To header, for 
very good reasons btw. So the behavior of 'r' was inconsistent: sometimes it 
replied to the sender, and sometimes to the mailing list. 

I think from the pure privacy point of view alone the default, easy to catch 
action must not go to the list, since people might post private messages to 
the mailing list then accidentally. I see that happen almost on a weekly 
basis. You don't see that on the KDE, Linux or other techie lists, but on 
those which are used by the "average" people. 

The current handling in KMail has a big advantage: it works the way you expect 
it. Its not the way you're used to it maybe, but it works reliably the way 
you would expect it to work, if you know nothing about the lower details: 

a) A Reply-To-Sender ('r') always replies to the sender. no matter how the 
list admin or whatever tried to break the mail, it will always go to the 
sender. 

b) A Reply-To-All ('a') will always reply to all interested parties, no matter 
how hard the list tried to screw it up. 

c) A Reply-To-List ('l') will always reply to the list, no matter if there was 
a reply-To or a list-id or there wasn't. if its not a list, it will behave 
like reply-to-sender.

So, in fact it replaced a very inconsistent handling (which was depending on 
the mailing list settings) with a very consistent handling: depending on 
which action you choose, it will do the thing you want. always. Thats a major 
improvement. 

Now, there are in fact a few GUI issues: 

a) the RMB on the message shows "Reply" and "reply to all", but it does not 
show "Reply to list". 

b) the default toolbar has no "reply to list" button. 

c) people who are used to broken 2-reply-mode clients, will not be able to use 
KMail the same way - they have to use the 3rd, reply-to-list action. Perhaps 
they're not able to find it. Perhaps they don't want to use a 3rd action. 

d) The "reply" action should actually be called "reply to sender". 


It seems to me that people complain about c) most, but only because there is 
b) or d) triggering their confusion. Perhaps they will be happy when b) or d) 
is fixed, perhaps not, I don't know. 

One option would it be to make 'r' invoke Reply-To-List, and maybe a different 
shortcut (perhaps 'R') to start the reply-to-sender. 

Another option would be to remove the keyboard shortcut of "reply-to-list" and 
put it on "r" instead. 

Personally, I would not be happy about this change since I'm already 
intelligent enough to choose the right one of the three options I have of how 
to reply to a mail (actually I think about it before I even start to consider 
a reply ... "will I mail this to the guy in private? or should I send it to 
the list? is the person subscribed at all, or do I have to CC the person?"). 
Thats the very initial decision, right after the "is it worth replying at 
all?" barrier was surpassed. It influences the language I type in, the way I 
write and the amount of information I give in the mail. I would be utterly 
annoyed by an email client that would try to be "smart" and do some magic 
"what did the user intended?" guessing. The mailer can't guess reliably. The 
only way is to make the user choose. 

However, it might make sense to change the defaults, so that those people who 
are used to broken 2-mode clients feel more comfortable. maybe it should be a 
wizard thingie ("can you count till three?").. I doubt that it is worth the 
hassle though. 

I think many unexperienced users do not like to reply to a mailing list - in 
fact they're most of the time afraid that a mail will accidentally end up on 
the mailing list. I think it is correct that the mail user agent tries to 
reduce the damage by default. 

I find it remarkable though that all people that complained about the change 
of behavior are using the "move the mouse to the toolbar and press the 
button" way of starting a reply. Since I use almost exclusively the keyboard 
in kmail I think it seems to be an acceptable mid-way to just exchange the 
button in the toolbar, or make it more intelligent (like asking explicitely 
which action is wanted, together with a "don't ask me again" checkbox). 

I would have expected that those people used to the keyboard would complain 
more - since they now have to press 'l' instead of 'r' to get (almost) the 
same behavior. But I didn't notice that - at least nobody complained to me. 

See, when I started to use KMail I was very annoyed that the default action 
sent a mail to the mailinglist - it was actually impossible to find an action 
that would send in private (and I never thought of right-clicking the email 
address and then select 'reply'). Instead KMail had this 'Reply-To-List' 
action which pretty much every time did basically the same thing like the 
'Reply' action. So in the past it was a good idea to hide this rather useless 
option. But now that it works it should be propagated more. 

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