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Re: [Mutt] #3464: Provide means to classify addresses expanded from aliases



#3464: Provide means to classify addresses expanded from aliases
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 Reporter:  madduck                   |       Owner:  mutt-dev
     Type:  enhancement               |      Status:  new     
 Priority:  major                     |   Milestone:          
Component:  mutt                      |     Version:          
 Keywords:  aliases cc qualification  |  
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Comment(by derekmartin):

 Replying to [comment:2 madduck]:
 > Replying to [comment:1 derekmartin]:
 > > This just seems like a bad idea... very probably leading to including
 people on e-mail that you didn't intend to, at some point.
 >
 > Could you please give an example?

 I started to write an exaggerated over-dramatic example, but it's
 pointless and silly.  This is kind of obvious... Your team needs to be
 informed about something that no one else should know about.  You quite
 naturally send e-mail to "myteam" -- you're in a rush so you momentarily
 forget that this CC's eric an fiona, and don't notice that they're in the
 recipient list until an oh-no-second (like a nanosecond, only with that
 sinking feeling of failure) after you hit send.  eric and fiona gain
 knowledge they are not meant to have, leading to some sort of
 embarrasment.

 Maybe you think this can't happen to you, and maybe it wouldn't... but
 having worked as a sysadmin for a long time, I've seen e-mail sent to the
 wrong recipients cause embarrassment or worse on any number of occasions,
 sometimes leading to disciplinary action, and rarely even termination.
 Adding features that could make such things more likely is IMO folly.

 Regardless, alias lists are meant to group recipients that are one logical
 unit.  As soon as you want to have some recipients in the TO field and add
 a CC to that list, it's no longer one logical unit. And as you yourself
 pointed out, from a UI perspective, it leads to problems when you want to
 CC the alias. [They're fairly easy to solve, but still highlight the
 uncleanness of this UI design.]  You should instead create two alias lists
 and use them separately, or use one of the other features that's been
 discussed.

 I think this proposed feature is only marginally useful at best -- you can
 already accomplish this in other ways -- and potentially dangerous, and
 from a UI standpoint kind of gross.  As such, I don't think it should be
 considered. It adds code complexity to a feature that doesn't need it, for
 essentially no real benefit.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://dev.mutt.org/trac/ticket/3464#comment:4>
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