Thursday 20th October 2005
Emails
For all the arguements about different email applications (and whether they are “enterprise” applications or not), there are two problems with email apps that I haven’t seen fixed anywhere - and both are to do with having conversations. Which is pretty fundamental really, since that’s what email is primarily used for.
The first things is the Sent Items folder (or whatever your application / mailbox calls it). I don’t like it. I don’t like the concept. Sure, knowing which emails were sent by me is important, but it’s trivial to work out. What I would much prefer is to keep all the messages in a conversation in the one place, so I can look at the screen, and see all 10 emails in a 10 email conversation. Mailing lists are great for this, since I get a copy back of what I sent, and it ends up nestled in amongst the rest of the conversation. If I reply to an email, I want the reply to be shown right beside the original. Anyone know of an email app that does this? I don’t really care where the email is filed, since that’s just an implemenation detail, I just want it displayed the way I want.
Secondly, ad-hoc groups of addresses are very poorly handled by email. For a growing list of people trying to arrange something, I need to make sure to include the most up-to-date list of CC’s in the conversation, which is a pain if I want to reply to a suggestion made a few hours previously. Sure, there are mailing lists, but setting them up just to arrange a theatre visit one week is a bit overkill. Micromanagement of lists of address is surely a solvable problem. Suggestions? (Preferably ones that don’t involve changing the fundamentals of SMTP or requiring everyone to use the same application…)
The first point is trivially solved if people actually used eMail in the way it was intended. (RFC 1855: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html) This includes quoting properly and not top posting. Remember: GIGO.
The second point is a bit harder, but better use of the facilities provided by LDAP (such as address books and global mailing lists) would be help no end.
Comment by @ndy — 20/10/2005 @ 2:22 pm
No, the first point isn’t trivial. If A posts, B and C each individually reply to A, how does D quote the conversation so far?
Quoting only works for sequential replies to the latest part of a conversation, which isn’t how life works. Half the time I think quoting is a hinderance to following a conversation, due to having so many orphaned replies.
Comment by Andy — 21/10/2005 @ 9:39 am
Well, like I said, if people learn to use eMail *properly* then it’s not a problem. i.e. Understanding what CC is actually for, understanding when to use reply all and when not to and how to quote *properly*. i.e. quoting the correct bit, in the correct context, judicious editing, summaries and deleting of the irrelevant stuff. You’re never going to be able to fix stuff in software that is a symptom of people pressing random buttons on their computer without a clue as to what they’re doing or the subsequent implications. To paraphrase Balmer: Education, education, education! Orphaned replies are a symptom of people not understanding how to quote.
It’s also important to know when to use eMail and when to use something else, such as a mailing list, web forum or usenet. It’s called the right tool for the right job and all the necessary tools are out there and have been for a very long time.
Like you said: If A is in a bar and B and C whisper to A behind D’s back, how in the world is D supposed to participate in the conversation?
OK, all these things involve a bit of effort and a bit of thought, but there’s this thing called entropy and it tends to cause things to decend into chaos unless people put a little bit of effort in. Effort is something that most users cannot be bothered with.
Comment by @ndy — 21/10/2005 @ 10:44 am
Doesn’t Gmail do the first one?
Comment by Nia — 21/10/2005 @ 11:50 am
Sorry @ndy, maybe I wasn’t clear enough.
A sends and email to B,C and D.
B replies to A, with C and D cc’d
C replies to A, with B and C cc’d. C also adds E to the cc list.
D wants to reply to B’s post. But now he has to manually add E to the cc list. No amount of “learning how to quote” helps deal with these ad-hoc groups, and you should listen to how arrogant you sound!
What everyone wants to do, by default, is reply to everyone involved in the conversation, whether or not they happen to be on the CC list of any particular email.
Comment by Andy — 21/10/2005 @ 3:38 pm
Nia: I’ve no idea - I just use it for reading mailing lists.
Comment by Andy — 21/10/2005 @ 3:39 pm
I’ve just tried, and it looks like Nia is right - so now I need to change my above request to say “a bit like gmail does”.
Comment by Andy — 21/10/2005 @ 4:22 pm