On 12 Apr 2012, at 2:16, Niels Kobsch?tzki wrote: > Hi, > > today I tumbled over this article: > http://dewith.com/2012/this-is-the-mail-system/ > tl;dr: MUAs could interpret Mailer-Daemon mails and make them easier > readable. > Even so MailMate is a poweruser-MUA I think the idea is great :) > > What do you guys think about this article?
My comment awaiting moderation there is: There?s nothing wrong in theory with trying to interpret standard mail failure messages and presenting a more clear message to the user. Unfortunately, theory and reality don?t always match. Microsoft tried this already, and in doing so earned the scorn and hatred of all mail support workers who have been presented with the results that users bring them from broken-by-design Exchange+Outlook mail systems and asked to fix the obfuscated problem made unknowable by those bits of malware replacing the user-hostile but info-rich standard NDR with an often-wrong one-line report that doesn?t even specifically identify the point of failure. One might hope that Apple would be able to learn from Microsoft?s mistake, and not obliterate the original NDR while doing a better job of translating the standard codes into user-comprehensible explanations. Unfortunately, the Mail.app powers that be have demonstrated with their abandonment of the standard ?format=flowed? line breaking strategy *IN ORDER TO ACCOMMODATE OUTLOOK USERS* that they don?t understand any concept of standards, only that of following the crowd. It would be unsurprising to have Apple attempt what you suggest by replicating Microsoft?s mapping of the standard extended status codes to semantically identical vagueness and automated deletion of the original NDR. There is evidence that Benny is wiser than the bozos writing Mail.app, but he isn't perfect. As someone whose job sometimes includes users bringing me error messages seeking solutions, I would hate to have yet another MUA obfuscating the details of a standard NDR. All of that user-hostile stuff is there for a reason and hiding it from uses so that they send a screen shot of the "clear" message that they still don't read instead of a copy+paste of the text they couldn't comprehend is a step backwards. And yes, I've had users submit screen shots of simplified "Your message is too large" error messages asking what is wrong with the mail system.
