Mail clients with name abbreviation in conversation list view

[equaeghe]

Hi,


In the conversation list view, FastMail often abbreviates names of people involved in the conversation. For example, a conversation between John Doe, Jane Doe and Fritz Frankenstein would list “John D, Jane D, Fritz F”.

I am interested in knowing which other mail clients have such a feature, and then how it is implemented. For example, I know GMail does something similar, both only lists the first names, so “John, Jane, Fritz”.

Goal: to convince a company not stop including organizational stuff after the name, in order not to confuse parsing algorithms in clients supporting this feature. (The company uses the format John Doe - Accounting, Jane Doe - Business, Fritz Frankenstein - Complaints, resulting in “John A, Jane B, Fritz C” in FastMail's interface.)


Thanks,

Erik

P.S.:
* Feel free to give other reasons not to add such info after the name in the From/To/Cc headers.
* I've already contacted FM with suggestions for making their algorithm more robust against such things.

[janusz]

Not sure what you want to achieve:
a) stop Fastmail abbreviating long/full names in conversation view
b) stop companies using (over)long names, e.g. John Doe - Accounting, in their outgoing messages.

As to (a), maybe, repeat: maybe, FM will make the change. But with so many web interfaces and email clients, there is no chance of making them all conform to your suggestion.

As to (b), good luck with dictating myriads of companies the form of their outgoing email addresses.

[equaeghe]

Originally Posted by janusz

Not sure what you want to achieve:
a) stop Fastmail abbreviating long/full names in conversation view
b) stop companies using (over)long names, e.g. John Doe - Accounting, in their outgoing messages.

b), but for one company in which a group of people that will be listened to is advocating this change. I am asking for arguments here, to bolster the chances of success for this group. Specifically, I am asking for examples regarding the possible negative effect on name shortening algorithms.

[janusz]

Originally Posted by equaeghe

b), but for one company in which a group of people that will be listened to is advocating this change.[...] Specifically, I am asking for examples regarding the possible negative effect on name shortening algorithms.

I'd be happy to provide arguments against your proposed change, but as this is not what you want, I'm not going to pursue the matter.