Mail client feature request
Back when I received my first email account I used to pool for new messages every three minutes: that seemed reasonable as I could reply instantaneously whenever I saw the “you got mail” ticker. Even now there are some mail clients that by default pool for new messages every three minutes, but I no longer use this setting opting instead for at least half an hour and often a (lot) more.
What happened? In past times I received messages usually from actual people, sharing some common interest with me and with messages well wort responding to. That is no longer the case today, my mailbox is usually filled with junk and I have to resort to sophisticated rules coupled with adaptive Bayesian filters just to reduce my time of merely reading rather than answering mails.
And what really annoys me is that what I receive is not actually spam, rather these are mails coming from sources well known to me spreading information that might become relevant sometimes in near future. Lack of etiquette will make any not quite urgent message a top priority one simply by interrupting me from current tasks. This is how my email box becomes a message board for every nitwit who is subscribed to the same mailing list as I am. Hey mailing lists are not for that they simply don’t scale! It is irritating to be at the other end of an multiple source message stream.
What I would like is for these sources to use RSS feeds instead message board like mailing list, so that it would be possible to do a PULL for new messages when I’m feeling ready for it instead of a being suffocated by a PUSH from a numerous of sources. Nice dream but with little chance of becoming reality in a timely manner. So here is my take build the email client configurable in such way that it possible to tell how frequent should the “you got mail” ticker be shown for various types of messages. Rules that partition my mailbox to various folders should be extended by an importance rating assigned by the user explaining how much he is willing to be disturbed by the message: if older than three minutes, half an hour, two hours once a day … hoping that some Mozilla Thunderbird developer reads this message.
