Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!limbo!taylor From: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm Subject: Re: Good Suggestion from Jonathan there!!!! Keywords: elm tag Message-ID: <142@limbo.Intuitive.Com> Date: 1 Oct 89 20:59:49 GMT References: <1169@ispi.UUCP> <440@hades.OZ> <9705@chinet.chi.il.us> Reply-To: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) Organization: Intuitive Systems, Mountain View, CA: +011 (415) 966-1151 Lines: 49 Dave Ihnat comments that it would make sense to have "tag" be orthogonal for all 'reasonable' commands, including 'forwarding' 'bouncing', 'replying', &c. Well, I'll tell ya, from my way of thinking, Elm *is* orthogonal with the tag command for all 'reasonable' commands... The reason that Elm doesn't currently support tagged/mass replying, forwarding, etc, is that it isn't at all obvious how one would want that to work. In other words, if I have, say, three email messages in my mailbox that I'd like to forward to you, Dave, there are a number of possible things that could happen if I "tag" them all, then press "meta-forward" [or whatever] to send them all to you. Among the possibilities; each is sent as a separate message to you, they are all bundled into a single message and sent to you, or they are added to a 'meta' message that contains further information about the group, and are then sent to you. The complexity isn't so much with forwarding, really, as it is with something like 'reply'. What does it mean, for example, to tag two messages from two different people, then choose "reply"? Should you be allowed to compose a single message that would go to both of them? Should they know of each other? Or should you be creating a 'template' message that would then be automatically sent to each of them, separately? What if you want to mass reply to a stack of messages, but also want to include a separate note to one or two of the people? The 'template' approach might be the best in that case, but if you *don't* want to personalize any, and/or you don't care that each learn about the other, it is the wrong solution. One of the big issues to me was also privacy; if I send personal email to someone about, say, a posting they made on the net, just 'cause I'm part of a group, doesn't mean that I want OTHER people to read my note to the person. If they have a mass-reply '+ include text of message' feature, then it's quite easy to do that. Plus the whole privacy/security issue of knowing who else sent mail to the person on a specific subject. It really seemed to be a can of worms at the time I added the 'tag' capabilities, which is why tagging only affects local operations, including printing, saving to files, &c. I would be interested in hearing more thoughts on this subject. Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the man to come... -- Dave Taylor Intuitive Systems Mountain View, California taylor@limbo.intuitive.com or {uunet!}{decwrl,apple}!limbo!taylor