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<p>I'm extremely confused by this proposal. What other piece of
software runs a poll when there is a proposed change? Does Gmail
run a survey everytime they change their UI? No. Is Gmail
"mission-critical" for many people? Oh, yes.<br>
</p>
<p>If you're trying to modernize Thunderbird, then this is not going
to help. What you're proposing is basically that everything be set
in stone, and that we cater to an audience of users who want their
email client to remain exactly the way it was in 1994.<br>
</p>
<p>- People who are upset are people most likely to navigate the
communication channels of Thunderbird, find out about this mailing
list and figure out how to make their voice heard on every single
possible bug in Bugzilla. I claim that the feedback you're hearing
about the Correspondents change is not representative of the
general userbase.<br>
</p>
<p>- Who's going to test the 2ⁿ combinations of options? Options
have a cost. You're increasing the technical debt and complexity
of the software because a handful of people have been very vocal
on Bugzilla.</p>
<p>- You're deterring potential contributors, because in addition to
the technical burden of making things opt-out, now contributors
will have to manage politics and make sure they don't end up
starting a flame war because they changed some people's habits.<br>
</p>
<p>- It's debatable whether design by committee is good or not; but
"design by democracy" is even worse. Please, don't send out a poll
every time we need to change the user interface. You're sampling
hardcore, opinionated users who lurk on this mailing-list.<br>
</p>
<p>It's easy to get emotional, but a few heated discussions on
Bugzilla are not a good indicator of what the general direction of
Thunderbird should be.<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">~ jonathan</pre>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 04/27/2016 10:33 PM, Jim Porter
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:d56a7633-10d9-6151-1ba0-19c39a9886de@gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Given the user outcry around the upgrade from the From/Recipients column
to the Correspondents column (see
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1152706"><https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1152706></a> for example), I'd
like to propose some new guidelines to our review policy to prevent this
from happening again. To be rather blunt, I don't think we're upholding
the minimum standards of quality that people should be able to expect
from us.
It's an especially stark contrast when you compare the Correspondents
column issue to another change in 45.0: the new default in composition
to create new <p> elements every time you hit enter. A number of people
have also been dissatisfied with the latter, but the fix for that is to
uncheck a single checkbox.
Undoing the Correspondents column upgrade, on the other hand, involves
setting a hidden pref and then fixing all the folders that were
"upgraded". Worse, we can't automatically roll the column state back
because we've actually destroyed data! If a user had *both* the From and
Recipient columns shown, the upgrade code hides them[1], and there's no
way I know of to look at the current state to determine this.
Therefore, I'd like to propose the following: any change to
Thunderbird's defaults should have a super-review before landing.
Super-reviewers would be especially focused on making sure that changes
meet most or all the following conditions, in descending order of
importance:
1) No data/program state should be lost.
2) Before changing a default, we should be sure the new default is
fully-operational.
3) Users should have an easy path to roll back to the previous UI/UX if
they don't like the new version. If possible, ask the user *before*
upgrading them.
4) It should be easy for users to find out what's changed, along with
instructions for how to adjust the new behavior to their liking.
Of course, I understand the desire to ship new features, especially if
we think they're better than the old ones, but we need to be very
careful. Email is mission-critical for many people, and as such, we have
a responsibility not to break things. Hopefully with a few more eyes on
changes like this, we can come up with ways to satisfy existing users'
needs while still working to modernize Thunderbird.
Thoughts?
- Jim
[1] Full disclosure: this is based solely on inspection, not actually
running the code.
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</pre>
</blockquote>
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