Ability to "reply to author" rather than just reply to all

That is a good idea, i like it. seems one of those obvious ideas i overlooked.

I'm not sure how to handle that. The problem is that we currently only show the recipients of a thread, not a single message. So it could be confusing when you send a message to 10 users, that user only replies to you but it would be displayed in the same thread.

We could simply create a new thread with the same title...

I think creating a new thread on 'reply to one' is a good method.

This is something I would like to see. I mean you could make the list of people have check boxes and you can check who you want the reply to go to. This permits reply to one, reply to some, and reply to all.

subscribing - this would be a great new feature!
I look forward to help testing with development.

@GeekyLass: I'm not sure. The issue that we don't display for every single message who recieved it. if you can write to different users in the same thread, it might get really messy.

What I'm thinking about is a simple "reply" link, that will lead to a new message form with the subject and to field pre-filled.

+1 subscribing
taking gmail and other email services as an example, there is a 'reply' and 'reply to all' available for each message.
thanks!

Yes, the way other mail services work is 'reply' copies the whole message body and populates the To: only with the specific sender. Choosing 'reply to all' copies the whole message body and the To: with the sender as well as the other recipients of the message.

As I said above, it would be easy to allow in-thread reply to author of a message only.

BUT, the problem is that you don't see the recipients of each message when viewing a thread, so there is no way to tell if a message has been sent just to you or all participants of a thread. Since you like comparing with gmail, gmail *does* display the recipients per message/mail.

Either we solve this by showing the recipients per message or we can only add a reply link to each message which will start a new thread to just that person (Which could include a reference or the text from the referenced message)

Hi, everyone,

I was all excited when I saw that this topic was being discussed, until I looked at the dates. My heart sank. Gosh, I hope that something can be done soon.

I've got a site where this default that any reply is a "reply to all" messes people up all the time. It causes people to get lots of unnecessary notifications to come to the site to check messages that aren't really for them. And you know what happens when you cry "wolf!" too often. People stop responding. It's a problem.

At the very least, a quick fix that would make a reply to the original sender possible, even if that did not include any message content, but rather just addressed the original sender and included the subject, would be better than nothing. Can't at least that be made possible right away?

Of course, it would be MUCH better if the message content could be included in that reply to the original sender. That is the solution that maybe ought to be the aim, hopefully, relatively soon. I encourage this solution, though, without knowing what is involved.

And then, it seems to me, the Cadillac solution would be a simple reply that would go to the original sender, with message content, but ALSO with the ability to add anyone else to your reply that you want.

The current "reply to all" ability, should, of course, be kept. Let's not lose that ability.

But please, let's not let the perfect solution get in the way of some kind of solution that is better than the present situation.

Having said all of this, I do think that this module does work well for easily and quickly creating group discussions, and I thank you for developing it.

Thanks,
GKC

Sketching out an incremental phases plan based on reviews of Gmail and Facebook (which include all messages in same discussion thread - they don't spawn out separate threads which would be confusing):

Phase I - Reply (to author only)

1. Show recipients on replies (ideally only if different from original message) [per Berdir comment 3]
2. Provide "Reply to author only" checkbox option (default to current Reply All behaviour)

Phase II - Reply to some

1. Rename "Reply to author only" to be "Reply to select recipients" and display (otherwise hidden) checkboxes with all recipients in the thread. By default have only the author checked. Ideally provide a "Select all | Deselect all" option.

Phase III - Reply to any (down the road, not essential)

1. Add permission for "Add other users to message thread"
2. Allow addition of other recipients not part of original message thread.

i would like to see the implementation of this feature too!!!

Thank you.

Has there been any progress on this? It's constantly confusing people using the messaging system.

Thanks