Re: [Evolution] Reply for list messages should go back to the list

[Pete Biggs <pete biggs org uk>]

On Thu, 2010-07-15 at 11:57 +0200, Kåre Fiedler Christiansen wrote:
> First: Apologies, Pete, I accidentally replied off-list. Honestly, I
> didn't mean to. I just clicked the wrong reply button (the one I used
> the most).

:-)


> > I would be strongly against any implementation that automatically,
> > whether through option or not, allowed people to "reply to list" with
> a
> > CC: added.
>
> Those are two interesting statements to make right after each others.
>
> First a complaint that one poster only wants to implement the solution
> he thinks is right, and then an ultimatum about what should be
> implemented.

No, it wasn't an ultimatum - it was an opinion. I didn't say "if you
implement it in that way I will nuke the Evolution server from space".
All I said was that I am strongly against it - because I think it is
wrong.  

> I think Nick's suggestion was to make "The Right Thing" configurable,
> whereas you _demand_ that one behavior should be impossible in
> Evolution.

There was no _demand_.  There was only a strong opinion.

> I'm still hoping this will evolve into something where I can have _one_
> reply button do what I want, but I'm more or less giving up hope on
> that. It seems that suggestion is simply ignored without discussion, as
> everyone keeps talking about the different ways to reply to mailing
> lists, munged or not.

Because it is seen as being "wrong" that a single button is overloaded
and silently changes it action depending on the message.  Take for
example a CC: of a mailing list message - to all outward appearances
that message is a mailing list message, however there are no mailing
list headers and so the "magic reply" button wouldn't know it's from a
mailing list and would just reply to the originator; whereas an almost
identical message that was received via the list would have its reply
sent to the list.

> Are there any usability experts in the Gnome community we could pull in?
> It seems to me we are discussing Evolution usability from the point of
> view of a few expert users, rather than trying to figure out what
> behavior would be best for the majority of users of Evolution.

Evo currently has all the functionality it needs to deal with mailing
lists.  Much of what is being talked about is trying to second guess
what a user wants or intends to do, or trying to push them in a certain
direction.  Fair enough.  But there is little point to it if there is no
consensus over what that direction should be.  I have my opinions and
others have theirs (as is right and proper).

My current inclination is to head down the KISS route - just put a
Reply-to-list button on the toolbar that might possibly be greyed out if
there is no list info.  That seems to be simple, quick and easy to
implement - it's just a patch to an XML file.

P.