"Send Private Message" includes too much html for a private message
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Hello all.
I have recently realized that the email I was receiving with all the formatting and color was NOT from a discussion or invitation, but from private messages coming from members. To me a private message is something like passing a note to someone, and should be short and simple, other wise I would just write an email to the person. Also, messages with a lot of html have a higher probability of being spam blocked and if it does get in recipients think its spam anyway and toss it out without looking at it carefully. This is what members say.
I am suggesting a simpler more text-only format for private messages.
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Good point, although I think that members should be free to send images or embedded youtube videos and things like that to other members too.
We're going to be upgrading to WYSIWYG editors soon, and we'll readdress the types of formatting allowed in all areas at that time.
Just following up,
What would happen, if we decide to limit the formatting allowed in some areas, users will have less buttons on their toolbar in the WYSIWYG editor.
Hello Joe. Burning the midnight oil eh?
Seems reasonable to me. What is the end goal, however? The end goals are:
1) the email gets through better because it no longer carries teh extra attributes that instigate spam filters
2) the email stops annoying recipients who dont understand why they are getting elaborately decorated emails containing only a quick statement or sentence.
3) the mechanism has a clear and distinct purpose that is different from an email, a post, an invitation, an event, and that its use is consistent with its presentation.
4) the mechanism is super-simple and quick to use (minimal formatting, and perhaps a size/quantity limit)
You might consider not providing a WYSIWYG at all.
Hello Joe.
A member just forwarded to me a private message I sent to her and the formatting look much simpler. Did you already make a change?
Best,
Jonathan
No, we haven't changed anything yet.
But email clients often munge up HTML when you reply to a message. That happens to me all the time, regardless of whether the email is HTML generated by a website or just HTML representing rich text edited by the user of an email client.
Hi, speaking specifically about Private Messages, I think we can reformat it better. "Private Message" is huge and downplays the content which is more important. I realize it is important to distinguish if it is a private message vs email blast but I think such a huge font is a distraction and looks awkward. I left a similar comment about the Email Blasts here too on July 17, FYI: http://champions.collectivex.com/discussion/topic/show/36553?order=newest
Hello Guys,
Hope you don't midn if I "chime in" on this topic!
When I recieve an email from a fellow groupsite forum member, to me it's just another email if it comes to my regular (primary) email service inbox. The only thing that's "private" about it is that I'm not getting a newsletter or "blast", but evidently an email written only to me and nonone else, though perhaps a copy may be included to another party.
So if these are really just standard emails, then what makes a PM (Private Message) different? My best experience with a true PM is on the Just Plain Folks forum. It's powered by the classic UBB thread software.
Regardless of brand, here's how their Private Message works:
If a fellow member sends me a PM I get an email notification sent to me with nothing else but simple (one sentence text) and a link. I can use the link, or if already logged in at http://www.jpfolks.com, I can simply go to "My Messages" and read the latest private mail message.
The message let's me see a short profile (name, photo, registration date, etc.) of the member sending me the email just like on the regular forum boards. Members can send me a long or short message and also include links, etc. I can reply on the Forum and we stay on the same email "thread" which is completely private and nobody else can see or access. After my messages get a bit outdated, I can optionally delete them (singly or batch) to make it easier to scroll through and find all my latest messages.
If there's a need to send attachements (images, music files, docs, etc.), it can be done through any email address specificed in the PM, and for larger files we might use file transfer services like YouSendiT, etc.
So the bottom line is that I haven't seen any "true" PM here yet, only standard emails that get sent to me directly by some of my fellow group members who are trying to send me a message.
Hey guys,
I promise that we will be updating our email templates - we've been spending so much time updating our overall website templates for the new user interface (soon to be released) that the email templates have languished. For the time being - I have made a few font changes (and fixed a few missing border="0" attributes on images) that will hopefully work for the short term.