Re: question/suggestion
On Mon, Oct 25, 2021 at 08:13:15PM -0400, John Hawkinson wrote: > Derek Martin wrote on Mon, 25 Oct 2021 > at 19:00:12 EDT in <20211025230012.gc9...@bladeshadow.org>: > > > Cost? I see no cost, other than the time needed to physically check > > My Oct. 7 email, to which you replied, enumerated several costs that I > perceived. > That you go on to state that you perceive no costs, without > addressing the costs explicitly raised by others I did actually, at some length. You enumerated two: Subject line length, and mantenance/usability concerns. Regarding line length, I indicated I agree entirely, and also later pointed out this lends support to dropping the address from the subject line by default... Regarding the second, you yourself already had pointed out it's a one-time change, which I felt no need to repeat. I did explicitly say I strongly suspect that a large majority of Mutt users have already set forward_format to something akin to what I was proposing--directly implying it very likely would be a no-op for many if not most users. I also pointed out the ubiquity of having "Fw:" or "Fwd:" at the start of the subject, from which it follows that this is not something that users would need to "figure out how to get used to..." So yes, I addressed both of your enumerated perceived costs, though perhaps I did not spell out that I was doing so as expressly as you apparently needed. [I also doubt very much that most users care AT ALL how forwarded messages get attributed by default. I myself only care what the default is because I care about design principles in general, and specifically their application to Mutt, and see "Fwd: %s" as a better default from a design perspective for reasons I've already argued.] > I'm not clear if there the proposal on the floor is the initial one > to add Fw:, or the subsequent one to "conform" to Gmail and Outlook > by removing the email address I admit this could've been made clearer. I nearly sent clarification of that after I sent that, but decided the intent was clear enough from what I said, if the reader read the whole message, since I explicitly stated what I supported in the last paragraph. > To add something new without repating my prior comments: I find > value in having the address of originator of the forwarded message > appear in the Subject line, because it makes clear, deep into an > ensuing thread, that "we're talking about [Steve]'s message." It's easy enough to infer this from your argument, and I already addressed this point as well. The address is already in the attribution (and typically again in quoted envelope headers), so it's redundant; redundant info has no additional value, by definition. You might argue it saves you the cost of pressing enter to render the first screenful see the attribution, but that's just about as close to zero cost as it gets. Slightly more expensive over IMAP but typically not much. In almost a decade of supporting e-mail users, not one ever asked me if there was a way to get the original sender's e-mail in the subject line (regardless of their chosen e-mail client). I don't think in the typical case it has any value whatsoever to the typical user. An additional point, which I did not make, is that in a long thread as you describe, there are likely multiple messages from the same sender, all of which may have been forwarded, and any of which may have been forwarded multiple times, leading to cases where the e-mail address in the subject line truly adds no useful context, and may even detract from it if that info is somehow valuable to the user. It does not uniquely identify which message from that sender was forwarded, nor does it even accurately indicate who the author of the principal content actually was. It merely indicates who the last person who touched the thread was when your sender forwarded the message. > > In the context of a subject line, a leading "fwd" (regardless of > > case) is very unlikely to be confused with anything else, due to > > ubiquity of the convention. > > Confusion seems a red herring. No one has credibly suggested that > any of the options, current or extent, proposed or in use, are > confusing to anyone at all. I specifically called out the case of FW: (which may well refer to firewalls, and indeed in messages I frequently received in the past did mean exactly that.) So not a red herring, though YMMV, and I would certainly agree that my (genuine) past confusion was fleeting, but nonetheless did occur on a somewhat regular basis, as the manager of my company's firewalls. -- Derek D. Martinhttp://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail due to spam prevention. Sorry for the inconvenience. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: question/suggestion
Derek Martin wrote on Mon, 25 Oct 2021 at 19:00:12 EDT in <20211025230012.gc9...@bladeshadow.org>: > Cost? I see no cost, other than the time needed to physically check My Oct. 7 email, to which you replied, enumerated several costs that I perceived. That you go on to state that you perceive no costs, without addressing the costs explicitly raised by others, makes your email seem disingenuous. I'm not sure what to make of it. Reasonable people can disagree as to whether a particular cost is significant or not, but you seem to be doing something else. I'm not clear if there the proposal on the floor is the initial one to add Fw:, or the subsequent one to "conform" to Gmail and Outlook by removing the email address,as well as adding Fw/Fwd. The discussion we had, such as it was, was not particularly clear aobut which of those cases it was responsive to. To add something new without repating my prior comments: I find value in having the address of originator of the forwarded message appear in the Subject line, because it makes clear, deep into an ensuing thread, that "we're talking about [Steve]'s message." YMMV on that pro, of course, as it may with all. > In the context of a subject line, a leading "fwd" (regardless of > case) is very unlikely to be confused with anything else, due to > ubiquity of the convention. Confusion seems a red herring. No one has credibly suggested that any of the options, current or extent, proposed or in use, are confusing to anyone at all. -- jh...@alum.mit.edu John Hawkinson
Re: question/suggestion
On Thu, Oct 07, 2021 at 11:52:02PM -0400, John Hawkinson wrote: > ಚಿರಾಗ್ ನಟರಾಜ್ wrote on Thu, 7 Oct 2021 > at 23:32:00 EDT in : > > > Any email client (including mobile email clients) worth its salt is > > going to wrap the subject line (at least in the email view, if not > > in the index view), so that shouldn't really be an issue, right? > > My principal concern is with the index view. And none of the 4 email > clients I use wrap the index view (mutt, Gmail web, Gmail mobile, > Outlook web), nor would I want them to (because then they'd be > taking too much vertical real estate, too). I completely agree with this. > > That's true. However, convention is *also* important, > > Unsupported argument. Hardly... "Principle of least surprise" is so well understood a design principle that not explicitly mentioning it can hardly be considered failing to support the argument. It's very nearly a tautology: Honoring convention is one of the most obvious ways to avoid surprising the user. > > and Mutt's convention is...unconventional. > > Not particularly. I completely disagree with this. The length of time and extensiveness of context in which I've used e-mail suggests that it's pretty unconventional, even amongst Mutt users, despite it being the default. > > Why shouldn't Mutt do the same? > > We should do the best we can, and if there is a situation where > there is strong value in conformance, we should consider the costs > and benefits to conforming. The benefit of conforming is: 1. Principle of least surprise. 2. Clearly indicates the message is forwarded with a relative minimum of extra information (minimal subject line pollution). 3. Avoids additional pollution of the subject line with redundant information (the original sender's e-mail address). When Mutt forwards a message it produces an attribution line, which by default contains the original sender's address. It need not be in the subject line--in fact it has no place there, as it has nothing to do with the subject, and only pollutes that already real-estate-deprived field. That is, unless the forwarder feels the need to call out the identity of the original sender, as more important than the actual content of the message, which can happen but should be exceedingly rare. Presumably what is being said is far more important than who originally said it, in the vast majority of cases. I've had my forward_format set for so long I'd forgotten it wasn't what the Mutt default was, as I suspect most people have. I think it was set in one of the typical places people copy their base Mutt configs from, and I, like probably many Mutt users, simply copied it. That brings us to the purpose of defaults: Good default configuration values should save the typical user time and reduce exceptional cases, making your software easier and less time-consuming to configure for the most people, and easier to support for developers, by reducing the likelihood that some obvserved bug is caused by some obscure setting that really ought not to have been set. This is, FWIW, in large part why I have vehemently argued against configuration variables being added to Mutt for the last ~25 years, except when there's a clear case of benefitting a fair number of users. The fewer variables you have, the less of this is possible. Cost? I see no cost, other than the time needed to physically check in the change, and the small chance of botching the change along with the consequences of that. As far as I can tell using some variation of Fwd: %s is what the overwhelming majority of e-mail users are already doing. I would personally prefer "Fwd" to "FW" because years of admin/support cause me to associate the latter with firewalls. It's slightly less ambiguous at the cost of one character. In the context of a subject line, a leading "fwd" (regardless of case) is very unlikely to be confused with anything else, due to ubiquity of the convention. I don't know if this warrants the effort to change the default; however if someone is intent on making a change, I think that the above makes the case that it should be "Fwd: %s" (or some similar variation of an abbreviation of "forward"). -- Derek D. Martinhttp://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail due to spam prevention. Sorry for the inconvenience. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: question/suggestion
On Fri, Oct 08, 2021 at 06:50:24PM +1100, raf wrote: > My advice is, don't worry about the default. > If you don't like it, just change it. > > "man muttrc" and look for "forward_format". > > I think you want something like this in your ~/.muttrc: > > set forward_format = "Fwd: %s" > > or: > > set forward_format = "FW: %s" > > They are both common patterns. > > And they are both much shorter than the default, > since they don't include the forwarder's email > address or the enclosing square brackets. > > Don't get me wrong. You have a good point. The > forwarder's email address doesn't need to appear in the > Subject: header because it also appears in the From: > header (even though many mail clients don't show that > for some reason which is a bad thing), and if it > matters that an email was forwarded, that fact can be > indicated in the Subject: header. > > But changing defaults affects others that might like > things the way they are. Although, I suspect that many > users probably wouldn't mind one way or the other. > I admit that I've never liked "FW:". "Fwd:" is better. > But I'm also OK with it how it is. I don't think I > forward emails very often, so my opinion probably > doesn't matter. > > cheers, > raf Sorry, I just realised that the default forward_format contains the *original* sender's email address. That's not what ends up in the From: header of the forwarded email like I said earlier. That shows how often I forward emails. :-) I think I prefer that to the dominant convention of adding FW: or Fwd: and not including where it is forwarded from. cheers, raf
Re: question/suggestion
My advice is, don't worry about the default. If you don't like it, just change it. "man muttrc" and look for "forward_format". I think you want something like this in your ~/.muttrc: set forward_format = "Fwd: %s" or: set forward_format = "FW: %s" They are both common patterns. And they are both much shorter than the default, since they don't include the forwarder's email address or the enclosing square brackets. Don't get me wrong. You have a good point. The forwarder's email address doesn't need to appear in the Subject: header because it also appears in the From: header (even though many mail clients don't show that for some reason which is a bad thing), and if it matters that an email was forwarded, that fact can be indicated in the Subject: header. But changing defaults affects others that might like things the way they are. Although, I suspect that many users probably wouldn't mind one way or the other. I admit that I've never liked "FW:". "Fwd:" is better. But I'm also OK with it how it is. I don't think I forward emails very often, so my opinion probably doesn't matter. cheers, raf
Re: question/suggestion
So, in my opinion, communication is most effective if the recipient easily comprehends what is conveyed to him/her. I suspect most recipients of our e-mails do not know much about mutt except that you likely get it from a place other than a breeder. So, [mutt-users@mutt.org: Email Subject] makes a lot of sense if the recipient has a clue what the first part means. Most of my recipients get a forward using mutt likely only from me. So, the original email address' import (which I think is a great idea) is lost. Hence I was suggesting putting in: FW Frm mutt-users@mutt.org: Email Subject Yes, it takes a few more characters but brings the benefit of greater clarity. Another option is to drop the [ ] and instead put in a >> at the very beginning. Might address the concern on adding characters. So, So, [mutt-users@mutt.org: Email Subject] could become: >>mutt-users@mutt.org: Email Subject In the header, would be clearer? Would this be a better default? Thanks again!
Re: question/suggestion
12021/06/39 09:94.47 ನಲ್ಲಿ, John Hawkinson ಬರೆದರು:
> ಚಿರಾಗ್ ನಟರಾಜ್ wrote on Thu, 7 Oct 2021
> at 23:32:00 EDT in :
>
> > Any email client (including mobile email clients) worth its salt is
> > going to wrap the subject line (at least in the email view, if not
> > in the index view), so that shouldn't really be an issue, right?
>
> My principal concern is with the index view. And none of the 4 email clients
> I use wrap the index view (mutt, Gmail web, Gmail mobile, Outlook web), nor
> would I want them to (because then they'd be taking too much vertical real
> estate, too).
That's fair, I guess. Though I'm wondering how many forwarded emails you get
that you're more worried about these subject lines than the reply ones...or are
those in your crosshairs too? :)
>
> > That's true. However, convention is *also* important,
>
> Unsupported argument.
Convention (in an abstract sense) helps shared understanding and facilitates
communication.
>
> > and Mutt's convention is...unconventional.
>
> Not particularly.
> It's not Outlook's and it's not Gmail's, so it's not the market leader, but
> its difference is not particularly confusing or difficult to understand.
To quote you: Unsupported argument.
>
> > Most email systems usually use FW: at the beginning to indicate that
> > the email has been forwarded (if I'm not mistaken).
>
> No, if we're going to be pedantic.
> And "not quite" if we are going to be flexible on case sensitivity.
>
> Outlook uses "Fw: ", and Gmail uses "Fwd: ".
> Between them I think they dominate the market ("most email systems").
Ah, okay. Apparently ProtonMail uses "Fw: " as well, so I guess they're
sticking to Outlook's convention? Either way, both make it explicitly clear
(using a well-understood abbreviation) that the email is a forward.
>
> > Why shouldn't Mutt do the same?
>
> We should do the best we can, and if there is a situation where there is
> strong value in conformance, we should consider the costs and benefits to
> conforming. Here, I haven't seen any meaningful argument beyond the idea that
> the current behavor might be confusing. But I've never heard of anyone being
> confused by it, and my experience is that nobody is confused. You haven't
> even suggested that you have found a single person to be confused (and I
> think we'd need a lot more than one example).
>
> Indeed, even were there confusion, it would be fleeting, because it's obvious
> what's going on upon viewing the context of the message, regardless of
> whether the "Forwarded message" text is present (as it is when mime_forward
> is unset).
>
> If some people were confused, then we'd have to evaluate the seriousness of
> that confusion against the costs of change. Line length is one cost I
> articulaed. Another is that absolutely any change has a cost, and causes
> people to have to figure out how to get used to it. That's mostly a one-time
> cost and sometimes it's easy to argue it's worth it for the greater good, but
> that's a tough argument to make here.
>
> But of course you're free to set your own configuration. Or we could include
> a sample commented line in the muttrc labelled "# Make forwarding look like
> Outlook's" or whatever. But I think a much more compelling case is required
> to change the default.
>
> Of course, others may disagree.
I think this gets to the crux of the disagreement. Your assumption is "No one
is practically going to be confused," so it doesn't matter even if it doesn't
stick to convention. And we'd have to weigh the length cost against the benefit
of sticking with what "most people" know already (thereby lessening cognitive
load and facilitating communication).
To be perfectly honest, I genuinely don't care either way. I don't forward
emails enough that it really matters at all, so it's entirely a theoretical
question from my standpoint. I just found it interesting that sticking with an
"emergent" convention (if you will) doesn't seem to be an intrinsic good,
especially when there is very little downside to doing so.
- Chiraag
--
ಚಿರಾಗ್ ನಟರಾಜ್
Pronouns: he/him/his
publickey - mailinglist@chiraag.me - b0c8d720.asc
Description: application/pgp-keys
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: question/suggestion
ಚಿರಾಗ್ ನಟರಾಜ್ wrote on Thu, 7 Oct 2021
at 23:32:00 EDT in :
> Any email client (including mobile email clients) worth its salt is
> going to wrap the subject line (at least in the email view, if not
> in the index view), so that shouldn't really be an issue, right?
My principal concern is with the index view. And none of the 4 email clients I
use wrap the index view (mutt, Gmail web, Gmail mobile, Outlook web), nor would
I want them to (because then they'd be taking too much vertical real estate,
too).
> That's true. However, convention is *also* important,
Unsupported argument.
> and Mutt's convention is...unconventional.
Not particularly.
It's not Outlook's and it's not Gmail's, so it's not the market leader, but its
difference is not particularly confusing or difficult to understand.
> Most email systems usually use FW: at the beginning to indicate that
> the email has been forwarded (if I'm not mistaken).
No, if we're going to be pedantic.
And "not quite" if we are going to be flexible on case sensitivity.
Outlook uses "Fw: ", and Gmail uses "Fwd: ".
Between them I think they dominate the market ("most email systems").
> Why shouldn't Mutt do the same?
We should do the best we can, and if there is a situation where there is strong
value in conformance, we should consider the costs and benefits to conforming.
Here, I haven't seen any meaningful argument beyond the idea that the current
behavor might be confusing. But I've never heard of anyone being confused by
it, and my experience is that nobody is confused. You haven't even suggested
that you have found a single person to be confused (and I think we'd need a lot
more than one example).
Indeed, even were there confusion, it would be fleeting, because it's obvious
what's going on upon viewing the context of the message, regardless of whether
the "Forwarded message" text is present (as it is when mime_forward is unset).
If some people were confused, then we'd have to evaluate the seriousness of
that confusion against the costs of change. Line length is one cost I
articulaed. Another is that absolutely any change has a cost, and causes people
to have to figure out how to get used to it. That's mostly a one-time cost and
sometimes it's easy to argue it's worth it for the greater good, but that's a
tough argument to make here.
But of course you're free to set your own configuration. Or we could include a
sample commented line in the muttrc labelled "# Make forwarding look like
Outlook's" or whatever. But I think a much more compelling case is required to
change the default.
Of course, others may disagree.
--
jh...@alum.mit.edu
John Hawkinson
Re: question/suggestion
12021/06/39 09:52.97 ನಲ್ಲಿ, John Hawkinson ಬರೆದರು: > I'd object to the proposal to add the "FW: " characters to the default. Space > is at a premium in modern Subject lines, especially with the prevalence of > mobile devices that have limited screen real estate, and cutting out 3 > characters is very undesirable. Any email client (including mobile email clients) worth its salt is going to wrap the subject line (at least in the email view, if not in the index view), so that shouldn't really be an issue, right? > I think it's pretty clear from context that an email address followed by a > colon is indicative of forwarding — email addresses are identities and an > identity prefixing something else (such as here, a Subject line), has good > affordances for associating that identity with what follows, and that's the > essence of what forwarding is. That's true. However, convention is *also* important, and Mutt's convention is...unconventional. Most email systems usually use FW: at the beginning to indicate that the email has been forwarded (if I'm not mistaken). Why shouldn't Mutt do the same? Sincerely, Chiraag -- ಚಿರಾಗ್ ನಟರಾಜ್ Pronouns: he/him/his publickey - mailinglist@chiraag.me - b0c8d720.asc Description: application/pgp-keys signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: question/suggestion
I'd object to the proposal to add the "FW: " characters to the default. Space is at a premium in modern Subject lines, especially with the prevalence of mobile devices that have limited screen real estate, and cutting out 3 characters is very undesirable. I think it's pretty clear from context that an email address followed by a colon is indicative of forwarding — email addresses are identities and an identity prefixing something else (such as here, a Subject line), has good affordances for associating that identity with what follows, and that's the essence of what forwarding is. Indeed, I sometimes wonder if we'd be better off without the leading "[", but I haven't brought myself to try to save that single character. -- jh...@alum.mit.edu John Hawkinson On Thu, Oct 7, 2021 at 10:24 PM ಚಿರಾಗ್ ನಟರಾಜ್ wrote: > 12021/06/39 09:27.23 ನಲ್ಲಿ, Globe Trotter via Mutt-users < > mutt-users@mutt.org> ಬರೆದರು: > > When I foward my mutt-composed email, I have something like the > following, which I believe is the default behaviour: > > > > [mutt-users@mutt.org: Email subject] > > > > which I think is very nice because it gives the recipient an idea of > whether the originator of this email is someone s/he should even bother > reading from. > > > > However, most e-mailers are not mutt, so most people probably have no > idea what this means. > > > > May I suggest the following default that clarifies better what is going > on, or something like that, in the subject line? > > > > [FW: from mutt-users@mutt.org: Email subject] > > > > Thoughts? > > > > Thanks a bunch! > > > > GT. > > > > Ooh, that gets an upvote from me (I'm also going to go set that variable > in my config...even though I don't forward many emails, it's useful to have > it set when I do). > > - Chiraag > -- > ಚಿರಾಗ್ ನಟರಾಜ್ > Pronouns: he/him/his >
Re: question/suggestion
12021/06/39 09:27.23 ನಲ್ಲಿ, Globe Trotter via Mutt-users ಬರೆದರು: > When I foward my mutt-composed email, I have something like the following, > which I believe is the default behaviour: > > [mutt-users@mutt.org: Email subject] > > which I think is very nice because it gives the recipient an idea of whether > the originator of this email is someone s/he should even bother reading from. > > However, most e-mailers are not mutt, so most people probably have no idea > what this means. > > May I suggest the following default that clarifies better what is going on, > or something like that, in the subject line? > > [FW: from mutt-users@mutt.org: Email subject] > > Thoughts? > > Thanks a bunch! > > GT. > Ooh, that gets an upvote from me (I'm also going to go set that variable in my config...even though I don't forward many emails, it's useful to have it set when I do). - Chiraag -- ಚಿರಾಗ್ ನಟರಾಜ್ Pronouns: he/him/his publickey - mailinglist@chiraag.me - b0c8d720.asc Description: application/pgp-keys signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
question/suggestion
When I foward my mutt-composed email, I have something like the following, which I believe is the default behaviour: [mutt-users@mutt.org: Email subject] which I think is very nice because it gives the recipient an idea of whether the originator of this email is someone s/he should even bother reading from. However, most e-mailers are not mutt, so most people probably have no idea what this means. May I suggest the following default that clarifies better what is going on, or something like that, in the subject line? [FW: from mutt-users@mutt.org: Email subject] Thoughts? Thanks a bunch! GT.
