On 10:58 AM 4/8/01, Bernie Cosell wrote:
>On 8 Apr 2001, at 12:04, Tom Neff wrote:
>
>> I've said this here before, but since the question's on the floor: "MIME
>> Digests" stink. RFC1153 is the way to go. Plain text, space saving, a
>> single daily read. ...
>
>Well, I"ve said this here before and... Why are there still digests?
>5) You can't filter/sort/highlight **KILL**.. you're stuck just
>shuffling through "day's batch".. if you're not interested in a thread,
>you can't kill it, skip it or ignore it, since the replies on the thread
>are scattered through the digest...etc, etc... [you've basically
>crippled all of the nice tools your mail client has to help you deal with
>your incoming mail efficiently and effectively.
>
>The 'single daily read' is a real red herring of course: with even crude
>[but modern] mail clients, you can sort the list traffic into a folder
>and have it there for reading at YOUR convenience [and have all the
>sections and MIMEs just-right, and have everything threaded properly,
>even if the threads cross several days].
Digests are useful to, and primarily/frequently used by, those who are too
clueless to configure their email client to filter single messages into a
list folder (which is a huge percentage of Internet users). Because they
don't know how to filter *at all*, the ability to filter/sort per message
is something they don't miss.
These users like the digest format because they usually receive all of the
list's daily email in one "message" and can delete or save that single
message for later viewing. This helps them prevent list messages from
cluttering up their inbox full of individual messages, such that numerous
individual list messages interfere with them finding and responding to
their other, presumably more time sensitive messages.
It's a lot easier for list administrators to provide this class of users a
digest than it is to teach them how to setup a list folder and filter for
the individual list emails in their particular email client version.
It would be much better to teach them to filter, but who has the time?
A possible solution: Create a plugin for the most common email clients
(Netscape, Outlook, Eudora, etc.) that automagically creates a
mailbox/folder with the list name and a filter that filters off email sent
by the list server (that way private replies stay in the inbox, none of
this "subject line" filtering garbage). List subscribers who inquire about
a digest version could be told that the solution provided by this list is
to send email to "listname-digest-solution@domain.com". The server would
pre-configure a plugin with the listname variables and for the particular
client that was used to send the email, and email the plugin back to the
subscriber. When received, the user would have to click on an "OK" to tell
the plugin to install, then the plugin would create the folder/mailbox and
add the filter into the client's settings. Voila. Now we no longer need
digests.
jc
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