Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!bigsur!bnr-rsc!bcarh149!christo
From: christo@bcarh149.BNR.CA (Mark Christopher)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Confirm on open in elm ?
Message-ID: <3737@bnr-rsc.UUCP>
Date: 23 Nov 90 02:46:03 GMT
References: <1990Nov19.162037.7631@amd.com> <1990Nov19.182044.14572@DSI.COM>
Sender: news@bnr-rsc.UUCP
Reply-To: christo@bqneh2.bnr.ca
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.
Lines: 45

In article <1990Nov19.182044.14572@DSI.COM>, syd@DSI.COM (Syd Weinstein)
writes:
|>Electronic mail, using most full feature MTA's, such as MMDF, sendmail
|>and smail support the idea of the 'Return-Recept-To:' header  which
|>will tell the sender that the letter was  delivered, and when it was
|>delivered.  This is like the US Postal Services green post card.
|>
|>However, their is nothing to say I ever opened your piece of mail and
|>read it, perhaps it was signed for and I just threw it out.
|>I could let it sit for days or weeks and then read it.
|>
|>With the concept of the MUA automatically telling you when and what I
|>did with your mail, you have implimented a 'computer watchdog' to keep
|>an eye on me and 'reduce' my privacy rights.  This is 'Big Brother'ism
|>and it bothers me.  (Personal opinion)


I agree with both viewpoints that have been raised in this discussion
thread.

Syd's comments bring to mind a 'previous life', where a certain prof
had the most annoying habit of putting the X-reply-to: in every message
he sent. Ahh, but this was on an ibm, and the 'mail' was just delivered
as a file to your reader (how quaint) and the reply message was actually
generated by the MUA.  I hated this 'big brother'ing with a raging head of
a thousand suns so when I received messages, I checked if they were from
him.  If the messages were from him, I looked at them via 'rl' bypassing
his beloved acknowledgement messages.  (He did occasionally ask me why he
didn't always get acks.  I usually blamed it on a buggy mailer or
something like rscs didn't guarantee delivery... :-)

However, in a corporate environment, it is sometimes useful to know if
a particular message has been read.  However, simple acknowledgements
just don't cut it in my opinion.  I would find it far more useful to
have a certified message (or confirmed-delivery message, whatever
name you like) to be put in a special mailbox (or maybe just left
in the spool file) and have the status flagged as sent but not
acknowledged.  And when the ack came it, the message would be flagged
as having been seen at a certain time.  Manually co-ordinating message
ACKs is a waste of time and b o r i n g...

--
Mark Christopher				christo@bnr.ca
Bell-Northern Research			..!uunet!bnrgate!bmerh471!christo
     Just adding my thoughts.  There, now my brain is empty again.