"Jason R. Mastaler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> I think respondents are answering as if you had asked ``which option
> would you prefer, A or B'', but that is ok too.  Regardless of whether
> it is intuitive or not (it isn't, and no poll will change my mind on
> this), we should go with what behavior users would rather see
> (obviously B).

I think, from a strict and logical perspective, "whitelist" means "add
an address to the file I have designated as my white list" and nothing
more; it has nothing to do with the disposition of the associated
message.  However, and this is a big "however", when you're talking
about user interfaces, you're talking about users expectations
regarding a particular action they take.

In TMDA's case, that action is related to a message, not an address.
At least, that's how both of our user interfaces are slanted (we show
a list of messages, not a list of addresses).  Given that context, our
users clearly feel that "whitelist" means "I want this message and any
future messages (and probably any past messages still in the queue)
from this user to be delivered."

I think Jim's earlier message captured the problem well.  User
interface design is all about that very fuzzy area of user expectation
based on the context of the application, which often is very different
from the clean, logical view of the code.

"Whitelist", for us on the developer's side, should mean appending an
address to a user-specified file.  "Whitelist", or any other word we
agree upon (the suggested "accept" seems reasonable), means something
different when applied to messages in UI programs and that's not a
problem.  A UI should save time and reduce repetitive actions; that
often means combining several discrete steps (from the point of view
of the underlying code) into one user action.

I don't think that either whitelisting or releasing should imply the
other, in the base TMDA code, but for a UI to combine the concepts
into a single action is good.


Tim

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