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Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

theatlantic.com

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Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#31

Post by bklaasen »

cmiles74 wrote: post #12
xte wrote: post #6

I think there is a different problem: people do not know how to use email. 1) people do not know how to properly quote messages 2) people do not understand that mail are quick "mail", not chats 3) people do not know that mail are not file sharing solution Personally I have inbox zero via notmuch-emacs, and I use mails for nearly anything feeds included (RSS2Email) mails are automatically filtered on remote via IMAPFi…

The automatic quoting that email applications perform gives me a headache. 90% of the emails I receive require no quote, yet contain like 20 levels of indented quotes from the chain of messages that add nothing but noise. Modern mail readers already chain the messages together, but are not perfect when it comes to filtering out the quotes. In my opinion, people should be more involved with the quoting of the previous…

> In my opinion, people should be more involved with the quoting of the previous message. Perhaps the customer could highlight the part of the previous message they want and have that become the quote. Or maybe a button when we write an email that will pull in the messages we're responding to as a quote.

Thunderbird supports that. Highlight the part of the original message that you want to become the quote, and hit 'Reply'.

Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#32

Post by magnetic »

bklaasen wrote: post #31
cmiles74 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The automatic quoting that email applications perform gives me a headache. 90% of the emails I receive require no quote, yet contain like 20 levels of indented quotes from the chain of messages that add nothing but noise. Modern mail readers already chain the messages together, but are not perfect when it comes to filtering out the quotes. In my opinion, people should be more involved with the quoting of the previous…

> In my opinion, people should be more involved with the quoting of the previous message. Perhaps the customer could highlight the part of the previous message they want and have that become the quote. Or maybe a button when we write an email that will pull in the messages we're responding to as a quote. Thunderbird supports that. Highlight the part of the original message that you want to become the quote, and hit '…

So does macOS' Mail.app

Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#33

Post by c_r_w »

prlambert wrote: post #22
c_r_w wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually would assume the usage stats would be very good on the feature. I am not sure if you can turn it off on the web, I will look again. Unfortunately it is a bit of a Pandora's box situation; just knowing it is happening is the problem. That said, out of sight, out of mind. As much as I like to think I'm driven by principle, I haven't stopped using Gmail yet.

You can disable Smart Reply from the mobile apps, the setting isn't there on Web yet. Honestly we just haven't prioritized it yet. Here's some info on how it works if it helps address your concern: We've transformed the language generation problem into a labelling problem. From a systems point of view it's not any different from spam filtering, or tabbed inbox, and we use the exact same features. Smart Reply uses a w…

Thanks very much for the reply, that is very interesting. It is really a very smart feature, and I cannot explain rationally why that is the one thing that pushes me over the line into "this is too creepy."

Do you record what responses people choose? If so is that data used to personalize the responses or just stored in aggregate?

Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#34

Post by bradknowles »

aaronarduino wrote: post #30
CalRobert wrote: post #27

Is email even broken? Seems fine to me. I'd love to use it more, actually, over the abomination that is Slack and constant notifications and distractions. Also, it will never be focused on your needs if it's free. Just pay the damn five bucks a month for fastmail or protonmail, etc. Or roll your own server. You'll get a nice clean interface and nobody shoving crap like AMP for email (aka embrace, extend, extinguish)…

One way that email is hugely broken for the industry I am in is the inability to send attachments exceeding 25mb without using a file sharing service. If that could be fixed I'd be happy as a clam.

No one should be using e-mail as a file transfer protocol. There are better solutions for that.

I’m glad I could help fix that for you!

Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#35

Post by cmiles74 »

bklaasen wrote: post #31
cmiles74 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The automatic quoting that email applications perform gives me a headache. 90% of the emails I receive require no quote, yet contain like 20 levels of indented quotes from the chain of messages that add nothing but noise. Modern mail readers already chain the messages together, but are not perfect when it comes to filtering out the quotes. In my opinion, people should be more involved with the quoting of the previous…

> In my opinion, people should be more involved with the quoting of the previous message. Perhaps the customer could highlight the part of the previous message they want and have that become the quote. Or maybe a button when we write an email that will pull in the messages we're responding to as a quote. Thunderbird supports that. Highlight the part of the original message that you want to become the quote, and hit '…

I wish it was compulsory. The default in most mailers (specifically GMail) to quote the entire body in the reply is, in my opinion, terrible.

Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#36

Post by jorisw »

jorisw wrote: post #17
s3r3nity wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The #1 feature I've been looking for is just manual sorting of threads in the inbox and/or folders (via drag-n-drop or the like.) This was such a sneaky-good feature with Mailbox (before Dropbox shut it down) and solves a bulk of my priority / triage problems with email. I've surprisingly had a difficult time finding any other client that can do this. ...Though, knowing HN, I'm sure someone probably has one up their…

FWIW, I do this in Mac's Mail.app by assigning different colors of flags, and sorting my inbox by flags, then received date. This allows me to have business actionables on top, then personal actionables, then unfiled bills, then new incoming messages.

To illustrate: https://jor.is/mail-flow.jpg
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