Re: [Evolution] IMAP and Expunge

[Al Niessner <Al Niessner jpl nasa gov>]

Thanks for the advice and suggestions.

I must say that it is interesting that the point of view taken is the
mail administrator and that you are assigning some importance to the
word Trash. I would be remiss if I did not point out that if trash were
Trash, then why do we have the Junk folder for spam? It is really
unimportant, but I am just pointing out that there is odd arbitrary
association being attached to the Trash folder. You are taking your
ordered life and blending it with the tool in some way to have a
satisfactory interaction with Evo. It is good that you have a productive
interaction with the tool because it means it is helping you. However,
it does not mean it the only way to productively interact with the tool.
In other words, please do not think your users are insane because, like
me, they are too lazy to create yet another folder to collect all the
mail that is already in the Trash folder.

You are correct, Peter, that having a an arbitrary button and key stroke
to simply move my mail to a collection pile would make the new folder a
perfect substitute for the trash folder. In fact, it would be so perfect
that I would call it Trash or Junk if the names were not already taken.

I am not trying to be a pest, even though I am probably doing a
spectacular job of it. I am simply pointing out as a user and not an
administrator that using the Trash as a search-able collection of stuff
is the best use of the email tool for me -- and probably many others.
Fancy filters and some other folder are really nice suggestions, but I
already have filters that I have do not function like I want. The last
thing I want is more filters that I have to train and debug over time.

In the end, I think Evo is just fine I will expunge the directory by
hand occasionally. It will work well enough until something else changes
that is out of my direct control.

I do appreciate your help and discussion.

On Mon, 2008-10-20 at 06:46 -0700, Art Alexion wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-10-20 at 05:37 -0400, Pete Biggs wrote:
> > *My* way of dealing with things is as follows:  *all* mail is filtered
> > by the MTA on receipt, before anything else, into a dated archive
> > folder
> > - I can thus retrieve any piece of mail I have ever received
> > (including
> > spam!). Non-important incoming mail is then filtered by the MTA into
> > specific folders, the rest is delivered into my Inbox.  Evo does some
> > more filtering and I'm left with about 20 or so messages in my Inbox
> > per
> > day (out of 200-300 received).  I *delete* (and expunge) those I
> > really
> > don't want, all other messages are left, unmolested, in my inbox.
> > Periodically I move/rename my Inbox and start again.
>
> I guess I sympathize with Pete, and probably the opposite of Albert.  As
> a mail administrator, I have the same experience (except "Sent" is also
> cluttered with trash).
>
> For my personal accounts, I filter every piece of expected mail using
> filters.  I even have a filter called "People I know" that catches all
> mail not otherwise filtered which comes from someone in my address book.
> I flag as important, things I want to keep, and delete everything else
> more than 15 days old (30 days if its still unread).
>
> For my work mail, system messages and mail lists go to respective
> folders.  Everything else comes to the inbox.  I read threaded.  Always.
> When a job is done, the thread moves to a folder called Done.  Anything
> more than 6 months old in Done gets deleted.
>
> I "Empty Trash" at minimum once a day, and occasionally every couple of
> hours.
>
> I remind myself that I don't need to archive valuable list mail, because
> the list generally does it in searchable archives.
>
>
> --
> Art Alexion
> Resources for Human Development, Inc.          215-951-0300 x3075
> 4700 Wissahickon Ave.                                 art rhd org
> Philadelphia, PA 19144                                www.rhd.org
-- 
Al Niessner
818.354.0859

All opinions stated above are mine and do not necessarily reflect those
of JPL or NASA.

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