FS#34843 - Make bugs/AUR messages more visible

Attached to Project: AUR web interface
Opened by Anatol Pomozov (anatolik) - Thursday, 18 April 2013, 14:04 GMT
Last edited by Lukas Fleischer (lfleischer) - Thursday, 18 February 2016, 20:58 GMT
Task Type Feature Request
Category Backend
Status Closed
Assigned To Lukas Fleischer (lfleischer)
Architecture All
Severity Low
Priority Normal
Reported Version 2.0.1
Due in Version 4.2.0
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 3
Private No

Details

Followup for this thread http://archlinux.2023198.n4.nabble.com/Make-AUR-notifier-messages-more-visible-td4686616.html

I found that AUR comment emails are too invisible in my mailbox. The reason is that notifier sends messages to [hidden email] and hides my email in "bcc". Thus email clients (e.g. gmail) do not mark those emails with ">" symbol and they lost in miriads of similar emails from maillists.

It would be better if these emails were sent "to" user email as it makes such emails more visible in email clients.

Yes, it is possible to create a filter specific for AUR message and messages from bugs. But forcing everyone to create one sounds wrong to me. Most people just will not do this. And I think "invisible" message by default + people's laziness to create filters is the reason why it is more difficult to get an AUR package maintainer response via comments rather than via personal email.

Most web sites (such as forums) known to me send notifications "to:" user exactly for this reason - make these messages visible by default.
This task depends upon

Closed by  Lukas Fleischer (lfleischer)
Thursday, 18 February 2016, 20:58 GMT
Reason for closing:  Implemented
Additional comments about closing:  Implemented in 4.2.0.
Comment by Hugo Osvaldo Barrera (hobarrera) - Saturday, 20 April 2013, 10:04 GMT
This issues is related specifically toward you email client, and existing filters (ie: your client has a filter to mark mails "To: you" with a ">").
Why should AUR be altered to satisfy the defaults of YOUR specific mail client?
Comment by Anatol Pomozov (anatolik) - Saturday, 20 April 2013, 12:16 GMT
Not just MINE, but EVERYONES. The idea is to make the notifications from aur and bugs websites visible by default *without* forcing users to tweak their clients. Especially ">>" is a form of highest priority in gmail (and other clients) and there is no way to achieve it using filters.
Comment by Hugo Osvaldo Barrera (hobarrera) - Saturday, 20 April 2013, 12:54 GMT
Again, this does not apply to "everyone"; only people using the same email client as you (gmail's webmail interface).

The fact that this particular client comes pre-configured with a filter to make certain emails stand out isn't reason enough for AUR to change how it sends mails.
Also, if there is no way to achieve mark an email as "highest priority" on your email client, that's an issue you should report to gmail's devs, not expect everyone else to accomodate their email to your client which, from what you say, sounds rather broken.

In other words: if I used Jmail, and Jmail maked as important emails where I'm in the "CC:" field, I wouldn't expect AUR to alter how it sends mails just to accomodate to my client.
Comment by Anatol Pomozov (anatolik) - Saturday, 20 April 2013, 13:35 GMT
It is how all websites work, check notification from github, phpbb, anyone. Actually I do not know any other website except archlinux.org that sends personal notifications and does not add user into "to:" or "cc:" field.

The issue is not Gmail specific. Sending a message "to: " by convention is a form of marking the message as important independently of mail client. And I do not have any more arguments except "it is just obvious that it should work this way". I am telling you as a former Gmail UI engineer who spent a lot of time on resolving usability issues.
Comment by Anatol Pomozov (anatolik) - Saturday, 20 April 2013, 13:55 GMT
Here is untested patch to aur.git that fixes the issue https://gist.github.com/anatol/9889c00761e1b6a2714f
Comment by Marcel Korpel (Marcel-) - Saturday, 20 April 2013, 16:36 GMT
You should submit patches to the AUR-dev mailing list according to HACKING.

Did you test your code? `foreach` works the other way around.
Comment by Anatol Pomozov (anatolik) - Saturday, 20 April 2013, 16:53 GMT
No I did not setup AUR locally and did not test the patch. It is more a proof of concept. Anyway the change is fixed.

Also I think that for mass mailing AUR/bugs should use some kind of background sender. Something like http://pear.php.net/package/Mail_Queue
Comment by Hugo Osvaldo Barrera (hobarrera) - Saturday, 20 April 2013, 18:25 GMT
A local smtp server that relays the messages is also a nice alternative.
It avoids growing the AUR codebase, and it'll handle the queue itself. If it runs locally, there's almost no delay in message submission on AUR's behalf.
opensmtpd would be extra easy and quick to set up, and pretty light resource-wise.
Comment by Anatol Pomozov (anatolik) - Sunday, 21 April 2013, 02:33 GMT
> It avoids growing the AUR codebase, and it'll handle the queue itself. If it runs locally, there's almost no delay in message submission on AUR's behalf.
Yeah, it is even better.

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