Addition of an Outbox?
I did a search, and didn't see this previously suggested, though I'm guessing it has been at some point or another. I thought I'd bring it up to see if there's any interest in it, and if it's something viable to do here.
I've seen this on other sites, and wondered if it might be something worth implementing here (if possible). Basically, your sent mail is divided into two categories: Out Box and Sent Box. Out Box holds messages until they are read by the recipient, at which point they are moved to the Sent Box. Also, messages still in the Out Box can be edited or deleted by the sender until they are moved to the Sent Box.
This has a couple of advantages that I can see.
1. Senders have a better idea if/when a message of theirs was read by their intended recipient. It doesn't help if they only read messages on their emails, but it's still an improvement. You could even modify the PM notification system to require logging in to read messages. Personally, I think this might (just a little bit) help the very-occasional problem of a member avoiding the site when they've done something shady, as they can't just sit back and read their PM's from the comfort and anonymity of their email.
2. Ever sent a message, then realized you wrote something wrong? Misquoted a price? With an Out Box, you can fix that, without the need for a second PM. Fewer PM's, I would assume, means less taxation on the servers, small though PM's might be to its load.
I've seen this on other sites, and wondered if it might be something worth implementing here (if possible). Basically, your sent mail is divided into two categories: Out Box and Sent Box. Out Box holds messages until they are read by the recipient, at which point they are moved to the Sent Box. Also, messages still in the Out Box can be edited or deleted by the sender until they are moved to the Sent Box.
This has a couple of advantages that I can see.
1. Senders have a better idea if/when a message of theirs was read by their intended recipient. It doesn't help if they only read messages on their emails, but it's still an improvement. You could even modify the PM notification system to require logging in to read messages. Personally, I think this might (just a little bit) help the very-occasional problem of a member avoiding the site when they've done something shady, as they can't just sit back and read their PM's from the comfort and anonymity of their email.
2. Ever sent a message, then realized you wrote something wrong? Misquoted a price? With an Out Box, you can fix that, without the need for a second PM. Fewer PM's, I would assume, means less taxation on the servers, small though PM's might be to its load.
Comments
On a similar train of thought, the fact that we email the content of messages to recipients rather than keeping it all on the server could be considered a privacy violation of the sender. Email accounts regularly get broken into, and a lot of personal data could be violated by emailing messages out.
If privacy was the only argument against the idea, it seems like a fairly weak one.
It might actually help people pick out users who are too impatient to wait for a reply (and might be lousy to deal with, as such).
I don't like people being able to know when I read messages, depending on the situation I may take a few days to respond even though it has been read. Imo it will lead to more messages stating I know you read my last message etc
Agreed, given the sheer volume of PMs I now receive, I'd prefer no one to notice when I read them.
As at times, I'm 3 to 5 days behind on responding to PMs depending on the severity of the PM.