27768 - Warn user of crossposts when replying

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Composition, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Garth Wallace]

It would be a good idea if, in the case of a follow-up to a crosspost, Mozilla
would warn the user that the follow-up will be sent to more than one group. This
would only happen if the user hasn't edited the newsgroup line (in which case it
can be inferred that the user is aware of its contents). I can't count the
number of times I've posted a reply, then realized later that I've just spammed
a bunch of groups I didn't intend to. This could also cut down on multipost
trolls, whose posts can turn into huge threads very quickly.

On a related note, it would be nice if Mozilla would warn the user if the group
from which the original post is being read is not in the "Follow-Up:" line when
following up. Possible options at that juncture include "OK, sure, go ahead
anyway", "follow up to suggested groups and <current group>", and "follow up
just to this group"

Comment 1

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

A way of solving both these problems in a single dialog would be to ask `Are you 
sure you want to send this message to all these groups?', with a series of 
(initially checked) checkboxes (scrollable, if the number of groups is large) 
showing all the groups that have been specified.

The original group (the one the user was reading when they hit Reply) would be 
shown at the top of the list, and would be initially unchecked if it had not been 
included in the followup-to header of the replied-to message. (The rest of the 
groups would ideally be shown in alphabetical order.)

The sticky part of this feature is that it requires that Mozilla remember which 
group the message being replied to had been posted in, even when the reply was 
saved as a draft and returned to later. So you'd probably want a temporary
X-Original-Group: header which was saved with a draft, but deleted upon sending 
after it had been used to determine whether the warning dialog was necessary.

Comment 2

[Jean-Francois Ducarroz]

Seth, do you want to take care on this bug?

Comment 3

[selmer (gone)]

Not critical for this release.  M20.

Comment 4

[Garth Wallace]

Since M20 has ceased to potentially exist, could this bug get a new milestone
assigned?

Comment 5

[Garth Wallace]

I think this is a GNKSA issue. Specifically, standard 3b: "Posting software
SHOULD prevent the user from excessive cross-posting, or at least warn against it."

The GNKSA goes on to explain: "If posting to a very large number of groups, the
user SHOULD either be forced or strongly suggested to set a "Followup-To"
header. Such a header must be subjected to restrictions that are at least as
strict as those imposed on "Newsgroups:". " While not exactly equivalent, fixing
this would probably accomplish that, unless the GNKSA reviewer is really picky
and decides that clicking in the newsgroup line is insufficient to show
awareness of the message's destination. Adding bug #12699.

Comment 6

[Garth Wallace]

Ugh. I don't know what I was smoking when I wrote that second paragraph. While 
this bug would address GNKSA section 3b (warning about crossposts), it doesn't 
have anything to do with *setting* followup-to and therefore does not address 
section 3c. That would be a separate bug.

Comment 7

[scottputterman]

moving to 1.0

Comment 8

[Brant Gurganus]

[RFE] is deprecated in favor of severity: enhancement.  They have the same meaning.