Eliminating quoted text in email & web replies

RT Users
1

Is there any way to remove or delete quoted text in email replies or
replies from the self-service web interface?

Whenever a user replies to a ticket notification, usually their email
client quotes the original text. When the reply is received by RT and
notifications sent to ticket owners, it includes the quoted text. This
ends up making a real mess of replies and becomes difficult to see the
new information.

I can see in the web interface how RT tries to hide the quoted text.
This helps with the web interface and self-service, but email updates
are still are polluted with unnecessary quoted text from previous replies.

We include this text in the top of our email templates:

“## For best results, when replying to this email, first DELETE the
quoted message body before entering your reply ##”

But most users ignore those instructions.

Is there any way to force RT to delete any quoted text for an update
from a prior RT email notification?

2

I have been trying to watch this ticket to see if someone has a solution,
but there have not been any replies. Does anyone know how to remove the
quoted text in an email sent to RT, so the tickets don’t get as flooded.

Thanks,
JosiahOn Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 6:08 PM, Subjected subjected@subjectedtochange.com wrote:

Is there any way to remove or delete quoted text in email replies or
replies from the self-service web interface?

Whenever a user replies to a ticket notification, usually their email
client quotes the original text. When the reply is received by RT and
notifications sent to ticket owners, it includes the quoted text. This ends
up making a real mess of replies and becomes difficult to see the new
information.

I can see in the web interface how RT tries to hide the quoted text. This
helps with the web interface and self-service, but email updates are still
are polluted with unnecessary quoted text from previous replies.

We include this text in the top of our email templates:

“## For best results, when replying to this email, first DELETE the quoted
message body before entering your reply ##”

But most users ignore those instructions.

Is there any way to force RT to delete any quoted text for an update from
a prior RT email notification?

3

Hi Josiah,
we have the same problem.

I don’t think RT can do anything about this problem, as MUAs used several different ways to indicate quoted text.
The worst of all is Outlook, and in fact RT very often cannot correctly identify quoted text when coming from it.

So I have been thinking (since a long time) that there should be a way to tell MUAs not to quote. I don’t know why nobody thought this before.
I am thinking about a new mail header that tells the MUA not to quote text when replying to a message.
This header could be used by all kinds of automated softwares that use email to communicate bi-directionally, like RT.

MUAs could then decide what to do: blindly obey the header or ask the user or use some pre-configured parameter or… any of a number of possibilities.

I was thinking about sending an RFC to request implementation of this new header, but finally I decided otherwise for a number of reasons.

First, sending an RFC seems a complicated issue. Second, I have very little time to understand how this is done and then to do it. Third, it would be a very slow process before the RFC is approved (if it is approved) and implemented by a good number of MUAs.

I am sharing these thought because maybe someone will find it a worthwhile idea and decide to go on and present an RFC to the IETF. Who knows?

TIA
CrisOn 10/08/2015 22:55, Josiah Philipsen wrote:
I have been trying to watch this ticket to see if someone has a solution, but there have not been any replies. Does anyone know how to remove the quoted text in an email sent to RT, so the tickets don’t get as flooded.

Thanks,
Josiah

On Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 6:08 PM, Subjected <subjected@subjectedtochange.commailto:subjected@subjectedtochange.com> wrote:
Is there any way to remove or delete quoted text in email replies or replies from the self-service web interface?

Whenever a user replies to a ticket notification, usually their email client quotes the original text. When the reply is received by RT and notifications sent to ticket owners, it includes the quoted text. This ends up making a real mess of replies and becomes difficult to see the new information.

I can see in the web interface how RT tries to hide the quoted text. This helps with the web interface and self-service, but email updates are still are polluted with unnecessary quoted text from previous replies.

We include this text in the top of our email templates:

“## For best results, when replying to this email, first DELETE the quoted message body before entering your reply ##”

But most users ignore those instructions.

Is there any way to force RT to delete any quoted text for an update from a prior RT email notification?

4

I don’t think the solution is to have Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, etc rewrite their MUA’s. I think the solution is a new feature to RT.

RT is already parsing and filtering quoted text on the website. It should be only a moderate amount of development effort to do the same thing before sending out emails.

I would recommend contacting the developers about this as a new feature request.

Joseph WagnerFrom: rt-users [mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of Guadagnino Cristiano
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2015 3:28 AM
To: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Eliminating quoted text in email & web replies

Hi Josiah,
we have the same problem.

I don’t think RT can do anything about this problem, as MUAs used several different ways to indicate quoted text.
The worst of all is Outlook, and in fact RT very often cannot correctly identify quoted text when coming from it.

So I have been thinking (since a long time) that there should be a way to tell MUAs not to quote. I don’t know why nobody thought this before.
I am thinking about a new mail header that tells the MUA not to quote text when replying to a message.
This header could be used by all kinds of automated softwares that use email to communicate bi-directionally, like RT.

MUAs could then decide what to do: blindly obey the header or ask the user or use some pre-configured parameter or… any of a number of possibilities.

I was thinking about sending an RFC to request implementation of this new header, but finally I decided otherwise for a number of reasons.

First, sending an RFC seems a complicated issue. Second, I have very little time to understand how this is done and then to do it. Third, it would be a very slow process before the RFC is approved (if it is approved) and implemented by a good number of MUAs.

I am sharing these thought because maybe someone will find it a worthwhile idea and decide to go on and present an RFC to the IETF. Who knows?

TIA
Cris

5

Thanks for the information and I will see what I can do about getting a
request for a new feature off.

Thanks,
JosiahOn Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 6:30 AM, Joseph D. Wagner joe@josephdwagner.info wrote:

I don’t think the solution is to have Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Gmail, Yahoo,
Hotmail, AOL, etc rewrite their MUA’s. I think the solution is a new
feature to RT.

RT is already parsing and filtering quoted text on the website. It should
be only a moderate amount of development effort to do the same thing before
sending out emails.

I would recommend contacting the developers about this as a new feature
request.

Joseph Wagner

From: rt-users [mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On
Behalf Of Guadagnino Cristiano
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2015 3:28 AM
To: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Eliminating quoted text in email & web replies

Hi Josiah,
we have the same problem.

I don’t think RT can do anything about this problem, as MUAs used several
different ways to indicate quoted text.
The worst of all is Outlook, and in fact RT very often cannot correctly
identify quoted text when coming from it.

So I have been thinking (since a long time) that there should be a way to
tell MUAs not to quote. I don’t know why nobody thought this before.
I am thinking about a new mail header that tells the MUA not to quote text
when replying to a message.
This header could be used by all kinds of automated softwares that use
email to communicate bi-directionally, like RT.

MUAs could then decide what to do: blindly obey the header or ask the user
or use some pre-configured parameter or… any of a number of possibilities.

I was thinking about sending an RFC to request implementation of this new
header, but finally I decided otherwise for a number of reasons.

First, sending an RFC seems a complicated issue. Second, I have very
little time to understand how this is done and then to do it. Third, it
would be a very slow process before the RFC is approved (if it is
approved) and implemented by a good number of MUAs.

I am sharing these thought because maybe someone will find it a worthwhile
idea and decide to go on and present an RFC to the IETF. Who knows?

TIA
Cris

On 10/08/2015 22:55, Josiah Philipsen wrote:
I have been trying to watch this ticket to see if someone has a solution,
but there have not been any replies. Does anyone know how to remove the
quoted text in an email sent to RT, so the tickets don’t get as flooded.

Thanks,
Josiah

On Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 6:08 PM, Subjected < subjected@subjectedtochange.com> wrote:
Is there any way to remove or delete quoted text in email replies or
replies from the self-service web interface?

Whenever a user replies to a ticket notification, usually their email
client quotes the original text. When the reply is received by RT and
notifications sent to ticket owners, it includes the quoted text. This ends
up making a real mess of replies and becomes difficult to see the new
information.

I can see in the web interface how RT tries to hide the quoted text. This
helps with the web interface and self-service, but email updates are still
are polluted with unnecessary quoted text from previous replies.

We include this text in the top of our email templates:

“## For best results, when replying to this email, first DELETE the quoted
message body before entering your reply ##”

But most users ignore those instructions.

Is there any way to force RT to delete any quoted text for an update from
a prior RT email notification?

6

Any RT specific solutions out there for this yet?

7

Sorry to bump such an old thread, but I’d like to hear from you: how’s everyone dealing with this issue?

AFAIK, every user using MS Outlook is subject to this problem. And it’s making ticket history very confusing to navigate.

We had some success using Thunderbird, keeps everything nice in RT. But on the user side (our received correspondence) it’s been very difficult finding a solution.

Thank you.