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Issue 311: Improve formatting of emails for faster reading/filtering
29 people starred this issue and may be notified of changes. Back to list
Status:  Released
Owner:  mf...@codeaurora.org
Closed:  Aug 2010
Cc:  m.bn...@gmail.com


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Project Member Reported by bklarson@gmail.com, Oct 29, 2009
Gerrit sends out a lot of email by default.  I'd like to change it (or 
provide a setting) so that it won't email me when I:

- add a reviewer
- publish comments

I already know what I've done in Gerrit, getting a confirmation email isn't 
necessary (at least for me).  I've had a few users complain about the volume 
of Gerrit email and I think this would help.

Oct 29, 2009
#1 sop+code@google.com
(No comment was entered for this change.)
Status: Accepted
Nov 3, 2009
Project Member #2 bklarson@gmail.com
Is there a use-case for needed emails of my actions in Gerrit?  I can't think of a 
reason for a user needing a copy of the email that they requested a review or 
commented/rated a change.  Maybe it could protect from a malicious user hacking an 
account and requesting lots of reviews without the user's knowledge? ;)

I don't mind adding a setting, but less work = better.
Nov 3, 2009
#3 sop+code@google.com
Gerrit auto-CCs you on everything it writes, because originally it was sending those 
emails with your name/address as the From in the message header.  To stay honest 
about what we are saying on your behalf, we CC'd you.

We've since changed the behavior such that it is no longer the default.  So there is 
less of a need to keep you in the loop when we say something on your behalf, its most 
likely not coming from you, but is instead coming from the generic service address 
the administrator has configured for the daemon.

I think we could do:

If sendemail.from = USER:

  CC unless sendemail.ccsender is explicitly false.

Else:

  CC only if sendemail.ccsender is explicitly true.

Does that make sense?
Nov 3, 2009
Project Member #4 bklarson@gmail.com
Yep sounds good to me.  I'll try to get to it soon.
Nov 6, 2009
Project Member #5 m.bn...@gmail.com
I was trying to think of other ways to reduce the time I spent reading Gerrit emails
(which is sometimes about 1email/minute). I had been thinking that removing my own
actions would help (this ticket), but I think all of the other emails are necessary.

One way might be to improve the subject lines, e.g.:
Commented; ../foobar-project - <summary>

- Give an action out front, so that merges and people just changing scores can be
ignored on most changesets being watched
- Don't write the branch name and changeset id. I don't think these have ever helped
me. I doubt many people recognize the SHA ids, and each changeset will only be for
one branch, so the email body or just the Gerrit changeset can show that. I've never
found a situation where I change my action based on which branch it is going to.
(Maybe others using more branches find this helpful, though)
- Don't write the full project name. Some of our projects are pretty long and it
takes up a large portion of my subject area in Thunderbird to show it. Right now with
the other information, the summary is normally cut off.

Ideas/suggestions?
Nov 6, 2009
Project Member #6 m.bn...@gmail.com
(No comment was entered for this change.)
Cc: m.bnovc
Nov 6, 2009
#7 sop+code@google.com
@m.bnovc: You don't have to modify the issue to CC yourself, just star it.

Regarding your idea in comment 5 to alter subject lines by action, this breaks
threading in lesser email clients, especially GMail.  Everyone I know at $dayjob
(including myself) feels that its more important we keep all messages from the
same change in a single conversation thread.

- We could reword the body slightly so the first sentence is more clear about the
  action taken.  This would make skim reading faster.

- The branch name in the subject has been heavily requested by peers at $dayjob
  because it helps them to filter "important" (next release) vs. "unimportant"
  (the release after the next release).  Removing it is probably not possible.

- The Change-Id abbreviation in the subject is likely overkill.  We might be
  able to get rid of it.  It takes up 8 or 9 characters and being a big jumble
  of hex digits makes it nearly impossible for a human to follow.  I don't copy
  them out of my inbox subject list, I open the message and click a link within
  the body to jump to that change.  Most people probably do that, especially in
  GMail where its hard to select subject text due to 1-click being 'read thread'.

- Full project is probably also overkill.  Most projects are unique with just
  the tail portion.  But I do know of someone who has 3 different Android trees
  loaded on their server.  In such an environment the 1st path component and the
  last path component would be necessary to help sort reviews.  It might still
  be worth trying just the last component and see if they complain.  :-)

So I think we can take a few specific actions on this:

- Do what I said in comment 3 above with sendemail.ccsender to try and reduce
  sending yourself a copy of actions you have performed.

- Remove the Change-Id from the subject line.

- Show only the last component of the project name in the subject.

- Consider rewording the first sentence of each message template to help users
  more quickly skim read and decide how much attention to pay to this message.
Cc: -s...@google.com
Nov 6, 2009
Project Member #8 m.bn...@gmail.com
I would much rather have subject information than threading. I don't think threading
is important in this situation or JIRA because the history is recorded in the
product, and I can get to it by clicking the link. If I want to see what someone was
replying to, etc., then I do so in Gerrit. Granted others may use it differently.
Perhaps this could be some option in the future, which would also cover the case of
the person you mentioned with three trees.

I agree with the rest of the changes listed at the bottom of your post.
Apr 5, 2010
Project Member #9 bklarson@gmail.com
 Issue 525  has been merged into this issue.
Apr 5, 2010
#11 dav...@codeaurora.org
I would just like to add that in my particular situation, Gerrit ends up
sending me so much email that I really have no choice but to filter all
email from Gerrit to /dev/null.  We have a lot of developers, and all of
their changes funnel through a fairly small number of approvers.  The
approvers tend to get so much email that they fail to notice the messages
that would actually be important.  The ones, to me, that I actually should
be notified about:

- There is a new upload for something that I've given a negative review
  for.  I need to respond to this, in order for this change to get
  anywhere.

- Someone has explicitly added me as a reviewer to a change.

Basically, it would be nice to be able to only get email from gerrit about
things I actually need to do something about.

Just as a statistic, for the month of March, I averaged 62 emails a day
from Gerrit.

For the most part, everything else is just noise.  As it stands now, I've
had to tell people to notify me out of band (as in an email directly to me)
about something I need to act upon.

David

Apr 8, 2010
#12 nas...@chromium.org
 Issue 530  has been merged into this issue.
Jun 15, 2010
#13 nas...@chromium.org
@bklarson Have you made progress on this or would you like someone else to take a crack at it?
Jun 15, 2010
Project Member #14 bklarson@gmail.com
Hi Nasser,

I started work on the "Don't CC me on changes I make" improvement, but got sidetracked with other projects.  If you can take it over that'd be great - I'm not sure if/when I'll get to it.
Jun 15, 2010
#15 nas...@chromium.org
(No comment was entered for this change.)
Owner: mf...@codeaurora.org
Jul 13, 2010
#16 sop@google.com
https://review.source.android.com/15765 adds a flag
"CC Me On Comments I Write", with the default being
off on user accounts.  So you now have to opt-in to
being spammed by yourself.

I'm leaving the bug open and assigned to mfick as
he's also working on other formatting issues related
stuff mentioned in comments above.
Summary: Improve formatting of emails for faster reading/filtering
Jul 27, 2010
Project Member #17 m.bn...@gmail.com
I was curious if any progress has been made on this in the last month? Does this need to get re-assigned again?

I think someone at the office I work at could probably investigate this issue if Qualcomm/CodeAurora hasn't had time.
Aug 12, 2010
#19 sop@google.com
mfick's series was merged, it will be in 2.1.5.
Status: Fixed
Labels: FixedIn-2.1.5
Aug 12, 2010
Project Member #20 m.bn...@gmail.com
Thanks mfick (and sop as always)! This will be great to have.
Aug 19, 2010
#21 sop@google.com
(No comment was entered for this change.)
Labels: -FixedIn-2.1.5 FixedIn-2.1.6
Aug 24, 2010
#22 sop@google.com
(No comment was entered for this change.)
Status: Submitted
Aug 25, 2010
Project Member #23 mf...@codeaurora.org
Now that the template approach has been merged, here are my proposed fixes to the templates.  I attempt to address some of the complaints in this thread, and took some liberties with my approach:

https://review.source.android.com/#change,16690

Aug 26, 2010
#24 nas...@chromium.org
 Issue 693  has been merged into this issue.
Dec 15, 2010
#25 sop@google.com
(No comment was entered for this change.)
Status: Released
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