On 15.01.2014 12:43, Ben Schmidt wrote:
As the maintainer of a mailing-list manager, and as a user of mailing lists, I thought I would chip in.
I think there are uses for all three scenarios: (1) reply to sender (only), (2) reply to list (only), (3) reply to all (sender, list and any CCs).
I'm not unconditionally opposed to change; far from it. But e-mail as such has gotten along very well (including mailing lists) without this "reply list".
It has no place in a mail client for the average end user.
(2) is useful for replies to the list. It can be particularly handy for continuing a conversation where the OP, who started the thread, was not the sender of the mail you are replying to, or if you are going a little off topic.
The first part of this I don't quite understand.. Replies to people who are not OP occur all the time in mailing list threads; why would you want to break the loop just because you're not replying directly to OP. The OP is not some appointed ruler of the thread.
The second part is clear: the discussion topic has drifted, and basically you want to make something like a new post to the list, but quote parts of the old thread.
However, the average user will just think, "this message is list-related, so reply to list must be the right button since it has 'list' in its name".
People understand the standard duo: "Reply (just to the person)" and "Reply (all)". Even that gets screwed up sometimes; people end up sending what was intended to be a private comment to everyone.
"Reply To List (Only)" requires a bit of mailing list education. At the very least there has to be a warning dialog
If you reply only to the mailing list foo@example.com, your
reply will not reach the sender or some of the addresses
in the Cc: list if they happen not to be subscribers of
the mailing list. Use Reply All if you suspect some of the
parties who should stay included in the discussion are not
subscribers.
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Ideally what mail clients should do is provide a single reply command with a "reply assisting wizard", at least in their newbie mode: something which guides the users toward making exactly the right kind of reply, explaining the implications of every choice.
As soon as you have two or more similar reply commands, and a program which just does what it is told, mismatches between intent and action are possible.
At the end of the day, every mailing list is different, because every community is different, and different groups will have different uses for these different features.
Exactly. And so how does the mail *client* know and fit in?
I think it makes sense to offer them all--it is clear enough what they do--and let people simply not use ones they don't need.
That's the rub. How do the users know what they need and don't need?
This is a great approach for engineering tools, programming API's and so on.
Give `em the full orthogonal set of functions, and a reference manual.
It's not necessarily a good recipe for usability though for the computer consuming public.
Good user interfaces (1985 Apple mac, etc) are not usually based on this "dump the functionality on them and let them sort it out".
Well, sometimes they are--e.g. vector graphics or painting program with a big "tool box" of goodies--but there is an Undo command so you can safely explore everything. There is no Undo in e-mail.
I think it can work if the program can provide some very pertinent, yet unobtrusive assistance in all the critical moments in every important use case.