[imp] Controlling the reply in IMP 5

[Luis Felipe Marzagao]

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 10:03 AM, D G Teed <donald.teed at gmail.com> wrote:
> I write this message using Gmail.  It provided two linked text options
> for reply.
> They were Reply and Reply to all.
>
> On my desktop for IMAP I normally use Thunderbird.  It also supplies
> buttons for Reply and Reply All.
>
> I checked Outlook 2010 and it also supplies Reply and Reply to All options.
>
> The argument about dynamically figuring out how to reply from one button
> doesn't add up to me.
>
> If I click on Reply in dimp to a message from a Mailman mailing list, it
> set up a reply to the sender and cc's the mailing list.  That is Reply to All
> in any other mailer.  Furthermore, if I click on the red X to "reply to
> the original sender instead", nothing changes - it is still cc'ing the
> mailing list.
> I have to manually delete the mailing list from cc:.
>
> Just give us two buttons like every other email client (like IMP, and like
> tiny the drop down option).  It will avoid costly/hurtful mistakes.
> That is reason enough to make replies with a safety where the user
> actively chooses and not the software.
>
> If you have never seen a Reply to All that was done in error and caused
> difficulties or embarrassment, you are either young, have limited experience
> with email in the typical work world, or have lived a special life.

I think it would be safer to let the "reply to all" be a conscious
action. Simply because you cannot take back a message accidentaly sent
"to all", whereas you could always send again a msg wrongly sent just
to the original sender.

So making "reply to all" automatic when there are a lot of addresses
in the email might be dangerous in my opinion.

Developers must understand the regular user often does not think with
logic or in terms of best practices. The normal user tends to think
the way he was induced by some (usually) bad program. I´m not saying
it´s ok to perpetuate bad practices, but in this special case
defaulting a "reply to all" action when there is more than one person
in the msg might lead to problems, even more if we consider the button
says "reply" and not "reply to all".

Also, the regular user, in general, doesn´t even know what a mailing
list is and his need for the "reply to all" action is less needed.

Of course, I find it absurd the user not noticing the arrow drop down
option next to the "reply" link and, worse, not using it. But that´s
just the way regular users are. Imagine convincing a 60-year lawyer or
economist that, after years of consciously clicking "reply to all",
now he´s gonna have to  be careful not to click just "reply" because
it may send the email to everyone. It´s a hard task for the poor IT
guy in the company, who will surely suffer with complaints. Email
tasks, because they are executed a lot of times, tend to be
"automatic", so the users is not careful enough about what he´s doing.

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