Subject: Re: [MORG] Last Call: draft-ietf-imapext-sort (INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - SORT AND THREAD EXTENSIONS) to Proposed Standard

From: Dave Cridland <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:59:54 +0000

Dropped ietf@ietf from the CC list, and added [email-masked]... I  
think we're moving into the realms of what could usefully be  
discussed for future extension. The Mail ORGanization list was  
created to act as a venue some time ago, and I've been remiss in not  
trying to stimulate discussion. (Partly because I was waiting for  
things like this draft to be pushed through to RFC, in my defense).

On Mon Mar  3 18:44:35 2008, Mark Crispin wrote:
> On Mon, 3 Mar 2008, Alexey Melnikov wrote:
>>> (In some clients, the sorted list is scrolled to whichever   
>>> message was previously selected, so it's a fast way of finding  
>>> other  messages by the same person).
>> Yea, I do this frequently in Thunderbird.
> 
> As do I.
> 
> Note that an address sort that collates all "mrc" messages together  
> is more likely to do the right thing that one that collates by name  
> and has to figure out that "Mark Crispin", "Mark R. Crispin",  
> "Crispin, Mark", "M Crispin", "Mr. Mark Crispin", "IMAP Support",  
> etc. are all the same.
> 
> 
I can think of circumstances where sorting by the full email address  
is useful (which would also catch the above), and where sorting by  
the full name is also useful.

The case where sorting by only the mailbox is useful is where this is  
common across domains to mean the same person - true for you, not so  
for others - including myself. On the other hand, people rarely vary  
the full name they use in their From header field, even between  
accounts, in my experience - this may be true for most people and  
false for you, of course.

Equally, if you take subaddressing into account, then the local-part  
varies for a single user.

FWIW, I note that full names are sometimes varied for use in distinct  
roles ("IMAP Support"), which might even be a positive point for  
sorting only by full names.

>> I frequently sort by subject, because many clients still don't  
>> support proper threading (threads can become broken due to lack of  
>> the References header).
> 
> I also sort by Subject (although more commonly ORDERSUBJECT  
> threading than direct SUBJECT sorting) in cases where the thread  
> tree has become so complex that it has lost value.  A classic  
> example is when a new thread is started by replying to a message in  
> a thread that has little or no relationship to the thread.  Think  
> USENET.
> 
> 
Threads "changing" is indeed a problem for many cases - I'm not sure  
I see the value in ordering by subject to address it though - could  
you explain a bit more? (I'm not saying there's no value, I just  
can't visualize how this helps).

>> I also sort by IMAP flags (i.e. I want to see all important  
>> messages), size and rarely by date.
> 
> Usually for flags I would do a filter rather than a SORT, but it  
> seems reasonable to me to add such a thing in the first round of  
> extensions.
> 
> 
Hard - one has to consider what the flag's precedence is, and how to  
order flag combinations. Some cases are easy - one might say that  
(\Flagged) > (\Flagged \Seen) > () > (\Seen), but where user-defined  
keywords are heavily used, any sort order really needs to be  
client-defined.

> Date sorting seems to be pretty common with our users.  Some people  
> who prefer their mail "in order" use it instead of sequence order  
> in the mailbox (no sort) which tends to be an INTERNALDATE sort.

I've seen people doing both "Sent" and "Received" date sorts.

Dave.
-- 
Dave Cridland - mailto:[email-masked] - xmpp:[email-masked]
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