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From: Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>
To: Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se>
cc: ietf-drums <drums@cs.utk.edu>, moore@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Re: User's choice of whom to send replies to 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 29 Sep 1995 17:08:36 BST."
             <Pine.SUN.3.91.950929165201.1528A-100000@ester.dsv.su.se> 
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 1995 14:09:00 -0400
Sender: moore@cs.utk.edu

> The problem is that users want things to be simple, they do not want
> to be forced to make an explcit decision on which are the correct
> recipients of a reply.

Right.  In other words, users don't want to have to think about what 
they're doing, even if thinking is what's needed...

> The way we have chosen to implement it is that when writing a
> reply, there is a radio button with choices:
> (*) Group reply
> (.) Personal reply
> (.) Message             ; not a reply at all
> (.) Contribution        ; to a conference, not a reply
> 
> When the user pushes the "send" button, the user is shown
> a list of the recipients of the message with default button
> "OK" and alternative button for modifying the list of recipients.

The last part is crucial.

> This is a compromise between forcing the user to select
> recipients and making it easy for the user to send replies.
> It is not ideal, but there is no ideal solution to this
> user interface design issue.

Agreed.  And as far as the standard is concerned, I don't think 
we can do any more than recommend that when replying to a message
that has multiple recipients, user agents ask the user for 
confirmation of the reply-recipient list before sending.

Keith