Page Comparison

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Features / Considerations

Is it truly a requirement not to reveal users' email addresses to each other?

Authorization:  Who can send a message to whom?  Is it OK to allow any user to contact any other user, or should there be some kind of acceptance first (as in Facebook)?

Do users want a web-browser based email experience, or should messaging be relegated to users' mail clients?

Event notification:  Is this just for messages initiated by users, or should it support notification of events in Synapse (e.g. entity deletion, entity sharing...)

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Is it sufficient to allow sending messages to principals (users and Teams) or do we need other targets?  E.g. users might "follow" an entity and other users could "notify" all followers of that entity with a message.  Or users could "follow" a user and each user can then send a message to all their followers.?

Design

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Alternatives:

1. No proxy:  Synapse just provides the user an email address.  Email is sent OOB.  (Might generate temporary email address to hide actual user address.)
2. Simple pass through:  Message goes through Synapse but Synapse doesn't retain any record.
3. Message history.  Synapse keeps each message.
4. Web mail client:  Synapse implements full-blown web-based mail client with folders, trash can, search, sort.

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Existing systems

• myregence.com simply provides
  • in box
  • out box ("sent messages")
  • display a message
  • compose / send a message
  • reply
  • delete
• discovercard.com is similar to myregence:  in box, display, sent messages, compose, NO delete (messages deleted after 30 days)

A possible design

include:

• add message object to synapse.  Body is text, no attachments; services for create, read, delete, and various queries (get all messages I've created, get all messages sent to me, optionally filtered)
• add message status/annotation for <message,recipient>, esp. "READ", i.e. a user can mark that a message (possibly sent to them as well as others) has been read.  Could also implement "DELETE" in this way (i.e the message is 'deleted' for a user though it is in the system).
• delete old messages (e.g. older than a month)
• authorization:  any single user can send a message to any other single user, but to send to a Team requires MESSAGE permission on the Team, typically granted only to Team members.
• users controls whether message is sent by email or whether they go to their 'in box' to see messages (3rd option would be to be notified by email to go to Synapse in-box).

defer: 

• messages and in-box quotas
• "following" entities and users
• notification of system events (e.g. deleting an entity)
• blocking senders
• distribution to groups other than individuals and teams

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