[Mailman-Developers] Pre-select defer/accept/discard/reject for all mails

[Dale Newfield]

On Sun, 18 Jul 2004, Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote:
> So you first approve all legitimate emails, get a new legitimate email
> and discard all spam inclusive the last legitimate mail you just got.
>
> Don't really like that idea because of that li'l race...

I agree.  From a user interface perspective, there should be a direct and
chronologically linked connection between decisions made and actions that
result.

The descisions to be made right now are "which of these are worth letting
through right now"  "which of these do I need to come back to to decide
upon later" "which of these do I know right now I want to reject" "which
of these do I know right now I want to discard".

I haven't looked at the code, so I don't know this will necessarily work,
but I bet we could start off that set of radio buttons in none of the
states without diseffecting the server-side processing.  I propose that
we leave the same 4 radio buttons, but have 4 corresponding selections at
the bottom for Do THIS (for the four values of THIS: Defer, Accept,
Reject, Discard) to all unmarked ones. (or correspondingly at the top
"default all answers to THIS.)  This makes all the decisions
immediate.  As you look at an entry, you decide what it's fate should be.
Depending on your list you might want any of the actions to happen to
"most" messages, and only pick out the oddballs for other actions.  It
prevents there being potential for other messages coming in inbetween two
loads of the page and painting that new message with the wide brush
reserved for spam or whatever category you're sweeping with this time via
javascript.

I propose two ways this can work, and it will work whether or not people
have javascript turned on.  The buttons at the top/bottom can be
javascript that flips all the other radio buttons into the same position
(assuming they still are in the "none" default state), and is itself
submitted so the python code can know what the user expected the default
to be.  So the javascript is just making the decision that the python code
will already make visible to the end user immediately.

This is very similar to what we already have in 2.1.5.
Basically I would just expand the "Discard all messages marked Defer"
checkbox into a whole additional section with all the choices that can be
made for any--this then turns into a "set everything to THIS" global
section.  So one could do anything from forwarding all messages to someone
or banning all posters represented from subscribing to the list.  Any
decision that can be made on an individual basis can now be made globally
(for all the messages/posters/etc. currently presented as being in the
admindb).

-Dale