Don't send group change emails to non DC users

[csb0730]

With every group change an event mail is sent to every receipient in the group.

But, for non DC users these emails are confusing and I got often complaints about them.

One approach could be, that these event emails are only sent to known DC users, not to all group members by default.

[testbird]

A drawback could be that without any new message, the classic email users won't get the change and continue to answer or send to the old distribution list. (Unfortunately, this also happens with the notifications. Maybe it would happen a little less, if the change email could more clearly explain to only reply to to that message.)

In any case, just as with the encryption state, remember that there also needs to be a way to reset the status again when a contact moves to another device or uninstalls deltachat. https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-android/issues/246

[adbenitez]

I think this interaction of groups with classic MUA users have troubles, for example if I leave a group the classic MUA receive a message from me saying I leave the group but if he/she reply to that email he/she will reply to me again, so why we don't set the 'Reply-to' header so when they press the reply button they reply to the rest of the group without me since I am leaving the group,

with respect of the notifications I think they are important also for classic MUA, they must know they are in a Delta Chat group, and if someone leave a group, it is good to know so they don't are talking to someone who leave the group, and reading the receipt list ins't practical

[csb0730]

The more I think about this issue I find at the end we cannot fully prevent these "troubles". The challenge is to bring classig MUA and DC together. The challenge is that DC needs these mails to organize it's group management but on the other hand, such a process is not foreseen for classic MUA. The user does it and that's it (!)

Because DC needs these mails in any case we cannot prevent them.

To mitigate the problem or even make it more transparent for classic MUA users than now, we could use these group organizing mails to (a) inform classic MUA users why this kind of mail has been sent, (b) what happened and at the end (c) user can delete it (!)

What do You think?

[csb0730]

Following informations should be clearly included to inform classic MUA user:

1. This mail is a management mail from Delta Chat messenger.
2. It is send because (for example) user xyz@domain.com was deleted from a distribution list.
3. Text: "If You are using a classic mail client You are informed about a distribution list change and may just delete this mail"

I think this could mitigate or even prevent non DC users questions and reasonable doubt about DC's group management mails.

That's it?

[testbird]

Text: "If You are using a classic mail client You are informed about a distribution list change and may just delete this mail"

I think the clause might not be neccesary, as the text is not shown in deltachat.

So it could just be

User X added/removed user(s) Y from the group Z.

And if mailto: links support longer recipient lists, these could serve well, depending on the type of action it could just be:

Please use the "new recipient list (link)" to write to the updated group, instead of replying to previous emails.

[adbenitez]

I think it isn't confusing, at least not more confusing than no notifications at all, also if a member is added how would the classic MUA users know?? -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[csb0730]

@adbenitez - The problem is simply that this kind of email doesn't exist in standard email correspondence. Users which are not knowing DC are confused about.

I more often got the question from my friends: "Why do You sent this email to me? What shall I do with?"

[adbenitez]

well explain to them they are in a Delta Chat group, this kind of email doesn't exist in standard email correspondence but they aren't in an standard correspondence group, if I am using a classic MUA and you remove someone from a group, why I would ask you "what should I do"?? isn't obvious that you removed Bob from the group? the only thing you need to say to them is that they are in a Delta Chat group, but the message basically says "hey! I removed Bob from the group" which is much better than if you remove bob and tell my nothing and I later say "Bob how are you?" and they it turns out I am talking to the wind because Bob leave the group or was removed.

[adbenitez]

the real trouble is: you remove a member and they get the message that Bob was removed but if they reply to the message they still are replying to Bob

[STPKITT]

Such a kind of E-Mail doesn't exist technically in standard E-Mail, however in practice it does, but they are just manually written E-Mails. We just recently had the case where we discussed a birthday present for someone but then someone of the mail receivers wrote an answer informing everybody that he had removed the birthday person so that he won't read about his present beforehand. What IMO is very important about those group change messages sent by Delta Chat is that they are written in a clear language so that non-tech people exactly understand what's going on and the message should be in the native language of the group members if possible since I know from a lot of Germans that every E-Mail written in English is automatically suspicious to them since a lot of spam-, fishing-mail etc. comes in English.

[adbenitez]

@STPKITT exactly!!! if you remove a member in a group of classic MUA users, isn't like you remove them silently you should inform that you removed someone to the rest of the group, it is just useful that Delta Chat does this automatically for us.

[VP-]

the real trouble is: you remove a member and they get the message that Bob was removed but if they reply to the message they still are replying to Bob

How about putting Bob in BCC for the removal message? Or maybe even send a separate mail to Bob, saying "you were removed" instead of "Bob was removed"?

[adbenitez]

+1 for BCC -1 for "send a separate mail to Bob" ;)

[csb0730]

@STPKITT @adbenitez Maybe I used the wrong words but I fully agree what you wrote here https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-core/issues/674?_pjax=%23js-repo-pjax-container#issuecomment-489080414

Explain it more to classic MUA users. That's it :-)

Maybe I should change issue description? I think this would meet more the intension.

[STPKITT]

@csb0730 If you agree with our statements & therefor keep sending group change emails maybe you could change the issue description towards something like "Improve (content of) group change emails for non DC users".

[csb0730]

Got next complaints :-(

We should not force users to an approach they not want (and in some way not need).