> There is no community consensus about the changes that are needed > to improve Internet Mail. The way you get consensus is through discussion. > Many individuals are convinced they know Truth in that regard, but they > have little basis for their beliefs, little understanding of the > implications for the installed base or for the range of email scenarios > that are legitimate and useful and/or are ignoring quite a bit of > experience; but in all cases haven't bothered to garner significant > community support. On the contrary, Dave, I think you have every reason to think you have a good knowledge of the truth. > Many other individuals believe that the way to get improvement is to > throw out the current mail service and start over, but that is, really, > nothing but a preference for anarchy, since they don't even have a set > of specifics they are selling. I don't know of any such individuals. I happen to believe that IMAP is not salvageable, but I'm willing to be talked around on that point. I've just never seen an implementation that behaved well, and with my understanding of the IMAP data model, really don't see any way to fix it. But my IMAP fu is weak, and as I say I'm willing to be talked into changing my mind by someone with a better understanding of the data model who is willing to address my complaints. I am not willing to simply take it on faith that there's nothing to be fixed, however. > Get the community to agree on that changes in functionality or > operations. Then we can try to figure out how to provide them. What community? gmail users? gmail operators? IETF participants? Corporate mail users? Individuals? This is a serious question--I'm not trying to be facetious. I don't expect that all of the communities I've mentioned will have the same motivations or wishes, and I don't think that means there is no work to do.