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w3c / mailing-list-archives

Modernizing W3C's mailing list archives
https://w3c.github.io/mailing-list-archives/samples/
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add support for inline replies? #29

Open gosko opened 8 years ago

gosko commented 8 years ago

This may be a little feature-creepy but we might consider adding support for inline replies, for authenticated users.

Here are a couple screen shots from google groups' implementation (from a thread on linux.debian.bugs.dist):

screen shot 2016-03-19 at 11 52 47 am

clicking Reply produces an editable textarea:

screen shot 2016-03-19 at 11 53 14 am

Adding a feature like this might help make our archives more useful for people who hate email.

tripu commented 8 years ago

I would like that.

gosko commented 8 years ago

One thing @shepazu pointed out in a chat just now is that since we can't forge email from people's usual addresses we would need to send it from some generic role address in which case replies might not get to the right place, among other disadvantages. So it's much better if replies are sent using the user's usual MUA. Maybe we could make the existing reply-via-mailto links more prominent, and provide some documentation on browser/MUA integration if needed.

tripu commented 8 years ago

We would need to send it from some generic role address in which case replies might not get to the right place, among other disadvantages.

Do you think those messages could reach the mailing list with a custom Reply-To: header, with the author's address? That would solve the “reply” issue, at least…

Maybe we could make the existing reply-via-mailto links more prominent.

I think that would be very good, regardless of what happens with this proposal.

liamquin commented 8 years ago

On Thu, 2016-03-24 at 11:51 -0700, Gerald Oskoboiny wrote:

One thing @shepazu pointed out in a chat just now is that since we can't forge email from people's usual addresses we would need to send it from some generic role address in which case replies might not get to the right place, among other disadvantages.

Although there can be disadvantages quite a few other Web sites do this, acting as an intermediary and forwarding messags as needed. It does add potential load and there's questions about what to do with errors.

I don't think the idea should be rejected entirely.

If the Web user was authenticated to their W3C account the page could display a "send as if from" drop-down of their registered email addresses (or a checkbox if they can only have one) and the message could be displayed in the archives as coming from them. Sure, people on the mailing list might see,     authenticated-user-liam@webmail.w3.org (Liam "Evil XML" Quin) or whatever, as the "From" line, but I'm not sure that disadvantage would outweight the benefits.

Just an opinion ;-)