Talk:Gmail/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

→

Archive 5

Date format

3/21/04 is an ambiguous date format. BrendanH 09:28, 2004 Apr 1 (UTC)

In this case, actually, no it isn't. Sorry to sound like a smartass ;)

Anyway, is this just a stupid april fools joke? Dysprosia 09:31, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Being very pedantic, I'll point out that I said "date format". The date is in this case is not ambiguous. Thanks for the change. BrendanH 15:17, 2004 Apr 1 (UTC)

You're right, and I was being annoying ;) Dysprosia 22:32, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The Gmail subject, as of April 5th, is gaining coverage in the media. We'd all appreciate someone adeptly polishing this article, especially the last paragraph which borderlines a gossip column. Keyword: encyclopedia. And is the April Fools controversy sincerely worthy of being mentioned repeatedly? Usedbook 17:57, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Roughly 1 GB? What metric are we using? There's two standards for measurement according to the gigabyte article.

A couple of gmail accounts

I have created a couple of gmail accounts, with usernames wikiwiki and wikipedian, the passwords are easy to guess (hint they have to do with Wikipedia, and they're both all lowercase), so whoever can do it can have them. I suggest you change the password soon afterwards though :) Quick in the draw 00:35, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and if someone guesses them, please post here, so others don't continue to try uselessly (or I might do it at some point). Quick in the draw 00:42, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Isn't there some danger that, seeing a bunch of wrong password submissions, google will automatically disable logins for that account? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:00, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Maybe, for the first one, you have to be a pretty addicted to editing to get it, and for the second one, the password changes by only one letter from the login :) Don't grab them both please. Quick in the draw 01:03, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! That was fun, and I hadn't had the chance to try it out before, so I grabbed the first one. Rasmus (talk) 10:21, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I got wikipedian. The password was wikimedian. Guanaco 19:54, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Competition between different providers

Maybe what we need is to enlarge Webmail to include a list of current providers, showing the features which each offers; a possible alternative would be to create a new article at Webmail providers. Wherever we put it, this might then provide a useful resource for Wikipedians seeking such a service, allowing them to compare and contrast and eventually choose. Obviously a certain amount of policing will be necessary to avoid pollution by fans or detractors of the various services :-) --Phil | Talk 14:08, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)

The gmail.com domain

Does the note about gmail.com previously belonging to Garfield refer to the Gmail software, or to the gmail.com domain? My guess is that it's the domain, but perhaps this could be made clearer?

Gigabyte = 1000 MB?

Please stop disputing this fact on this page. While I understand the controversy surrounding this measurement, this page is not the place for that discussion. If you have concerns over the way that Gigabytes are measured, please argue on the Talk page for Gigabyte. As long as the gigabyte article says that 1 Gigabyte = 1000 Megabytes, this page should reflect the same. Thanks. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 13:35, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)

Incorrect Date (sort of)

The article says Gmail was announced on Mar 31, 2004, however it was actually announced on Apr 1, 2004 UTC. Local time would've been Mar 31, but Google obviously wanted it to be announced on Apr 1. You'll notice none of their press releases specify timezones except for the Gmail one. I think the article should simply state that it was announced on Apr 1, since that is when the press release was.

• List of Google press releases: http://www.google.ca/press/pressrel/
• Gmail press release: http://www.google.ca/press/pressrel/gmail.html

Gigabyte of storage

I sent the following email to google regarding the 1000 or 1024MB of storage because unless we really know for sure users here will probably keep on having this minescule edit war forever. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 14:50, 2004 Jul 23 (UTC)

I'm confused as to whether gmail actually has 1GB of storage, which
would be 1024MB or if it has 0.9765625GB of storage, which is 1000MB.
The support pages conflict on this:

http://gmail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6833
[...] A measure of data storage. A gigabyte equals about 1,000
megabytes (MB) [...]

http://gmail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=7187
Because you have 1,000 megabytes of storage, you don't have to [...]

Could someone tell me just which it is, i myself think that it's 1024
because obviously that has to be kept track of using computer
hardware, and i myself doubt any programmer would artificially measure
a gigabyte in powers of 10 instead of the right binary powers of 2.

Thanks in advance.

Reply on 2004-08-02 11:47

Hello Ævar,

Thank you for your message.

Each Gmail user is given one gigabyte of storage. That means your account
has the capacity to store 1,024 megabytes of storage. Please note that the
number and the percentage located at the bottom of your Gmail account are
rounded figures.

Sincerely,

The Gmail Team

Unfortunately, the basic premise of your e-mail is that 1GB != 1000MB, which is the heart of the contention. The very first line assumes that they also equate 1GB and 1024 MBs, which is not the case with many hard drive manufacturers, etc. Once again, this is a debate for gigabyte, not this article. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 14:55, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)

Hey, I have a Gmail account and it has 1000mb, not 1024. Also, from there press release:

Storage: Google believes people should be able to hold onto their mail forever. That's why Gmail comes with 1,000 megabytes (1 gigabyte) of free storage – more than 100 times what most other free webmail services offer.

Of course the next question is are they measuring using real MB, 1Mb = 1024Kb = 1048576b. Gmail doesn't show the size of individual emails so it's hard to tell how they're measuring. - sik0fewl 21:47, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

New info in on this :) Kevin Rose of the Screensavers did a load test on Gmail by getting viewers to send him email with 5mb attachments (story here). His account ended up maxing out at 102% instead of 100%, most likely because the account limit is 1024mb (102.4% of 1000mb). Google is probably advertising 1Gb as 1000Mb so as to not confuse non-technical users. - sik0fewl 05:10, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, i saw that, we should put sources for that in and change it to 1024. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 13:58, 2004 Jul 27 (UTC)

That doesn't mean that the real limit is 1024MB. It just means that Gmail was being nice and allowed a little overflow buffer space. In fact, Gmail plainly states that you have 1000MB at the bottom: You are currently using X MB (Y%) of your 1000 MB.. Dori | Talk 14:45, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

Yes it does, this is the last remaining hint that confirmed that it indeed is 1024 ( e.g. a GB ) rather than 0.9765625GB. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 15:32, 2004 Jul 27 (UTC)

AAB, this is a very controversial subject, and the fact that your comments continue to assume that 1GB = 1024 MB on this talk page will only cause more and more of these revert wars. If you want to continue using that notation here, can you please argue that on Talk:Gigabyte? Most hard drive manufacturers will use the 1000 MB definition, and as we are talking about mass storage, that is the one that seems most appropriate. What I am most concerned with is that Wikipedia uses one standard definition of gigabyte. If you can convince the Gigabyte article to be changed to match your definition, I will have no problem with you using that notation here and on the article page. Until then, you should continue to use the notation that 1GB = 1000MB, and 1GiB = 1024MB. Thanks, DropDeadGorgias (talk) 17:13, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

So what if i think 1GB = 1024MB and you think 1GB = 1000MB? it doesnt matter, i'm not saying that we should put gmail offers 1GB (1024MB) of storage in the article, or that we should put gmail offers 1000MB (0.9765625GB) in there, i'm saying that we should in the light of recent events mention that this has been found to be in fact 1024MB, whether you think 1024MB is not one GB not one Xibilluglubb or anything else is really irrelivant, so is whether i think it's anything else.

Look at it this way, HappyPeanuts Inc. say they sell 1000Peanuts in a bag, however some guy went through counting all those peanuts and found them to indeed be 1024, now, it doesnt matter if we disagree on whether 1000 or 1024 peanuts to be the equivalent of one HappySquirrelMeal™, we shold nonetheless state that it has been found that in one bag of HappySquirrelMeal™ there are indeed 1024 peanuts rather than 1000 as it says on the bag. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 18:01, 2004 Jul 27 (UTC)

See reply to the original email above. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 00:24, 2004 Aug 3 (UTC)

1000 Megabytes is one Gigabyte. 1024 Mebibytes is one Gibibyte. See Binary prefix. The google person who responded probably didn't understand the question. --TIB (talk) 20:47, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)u

It rather appers that you do not fully understand what a gigabyte is. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 21:35, 2004 Oct 9 (UTC)

No it isnt, it's to clarify whether they really have 1024MB of storage or 1000MB as they claim, if it indeed is 1024 then that should be in the article. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 16:43, 2004 Jul 26 (UTC)

It originally bothered me that the definition of a gigabyte on this page differed from the central definition of a gigabyte on the Gigabyte article, but after asking around some techies, it seems like both definitions are used so often that it doesn't really matter. Thanks for the legwork, AAB. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 04:46, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

Username handling

I have tested this on my account, say snafu@gmail.com.

Sending email to snafu+test@gmail.com works fine.

Sending email to sn.afu@gmail.com didn't work.

So I think that the adding dots everywhere bit should be left out.

Did you send it to yourself or did you use another account? I've already tested it with Solitude who also didn't believe it at first, and it seemed to work for him too. I'll send you a test email to see. Dori | Talk 19:01, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

On a second thought, how did you manage to get an account with only 5 letters? Dori | Talk 19:02, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

I tested that myself now. It does not work when I send the mails to myself, but it does work when the emails get send from another email-adress. --Conti|✉ 19:47, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I (Iain, I don't have a wiki username) just tried sending myself an email with added and missing dots and a +foo.bar from the same gmail account and it worked fine. Perhaps someone else could try and then update the article?

Invitations

The whole thing about needing to be invited isn't on this page at all. Can we get something about what that's all about?

I joined gmail through an invitation from my sister.You can invite maximum 6 people to join gmail.I started using the account last week but still haven't got the facility to send invitations.Is there any specific time frame after which you get that facility? Jam2k 11:37, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps, we do not know, contact google. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 13:34, 2004 Sep 17 (UTC)

6 invitations is not a max. There is no time frame in which you get new invites to give out. Apparently, the whole process is random. Just be patient, one day you will log in and discover you have an invite or two to give away.--Will2k 03:06, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

You do not know that, the giveaways could be made according to some algorithm you are unaware of, in particular frequent users seem to get more of them than those who just hold an account. Stating that it is random without having looked at the source code (unless you have) is a pretty tall claim. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 15:41, 2004 Sep 18 (UTC)

Google says "Gmail invitations are available on a limited basis and are randomly distributed." - John Fader

I finally got to send invitations and found that the more I used Gmail the more invitations I had to give away. One day it was 4 invitations as balance and the next day it was 6 again. So this is the inference I can make Jam2k 18:36, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Google says the invites are randomly distributed, and I don't see reasons not to believe that. For example, a long time after I created my account I got a single invite (not having any for quite a while), but then I waited for a couple of days and I had six. I didn't do anything to get more (didn't send or receive email). Then, it went down to five. I then handed over two invites and it fell down to three, then it went up to five again.

Sounds random to me. – Kaonashi 19:59, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Saying something is random is a statement we are not in the position to make, first of all you have (most probably) not looked at the source code for gmail's invite distribution system and would therefore be basing this claim on one source which has a good reason to dumb down these things, just like they did by saying 1GB = 1000MB, if it is to be added say google claims invites are distributed randomly rather than invites are distributed randomly. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 02:20, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)

Hahaha. It's not like they're "dumbing" anything down, sir. They show the storage space as being 1000MB for means of ease, simply. That's a common practice in many places, to simplify data. Take a look at those CD-R packages we can buy at stores, for example. Usually, they won't show the exact space you have on those discs. It'll show an approximate value only.

Saying just "Google claims invites are distributed randomly" sound good enough to me, but I don't see many reasons for so much distrust. Sure, nobody knows what lies behind their code. So? That's not much of an argument. It's a service talking about itself. You can't have arything more reliable than that. Now, if they're lying about their own service, none of us has the obligation of knowing, and thus, this encyclopedia is not entitled of saying anything. It's an encyclopedia, not a detective agency. – Kaonashi 06:07, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There is a difference, the statement that they have 1024MB of storage can be verified, this one cannot, just because a corporation says something about their services we cannot disprove does not mean we should take it as the truth, to the contrary we should be very sceptical about anything they say as to not sound like a copy of their PR page. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 18:17, 2004 Oct 5 (UTC)

GMail trademark in dispute

There's some information on: http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3394361

Oddpost came before Gmail

updated the article where it mentioned Oddpost. Oddpost came before Gmail, and was the first service to perfect having a Javascript front-end that required minimal data to be sent from the server. --mincus

Spam filtering

Where did the 60% figure come from? What is the claimed equivalent for Yahoo and HotMail? --Phil | Talk 08:40, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

I think that the figure came from one of those independent spam filter testing sites, but those all appear to be defunct at the moment, and unreliable. I think we should take that note out until some more reliable numbers can be found. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 15:36, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Invites

Didn't GMail just change its invite system so that people can now sign up? If so, this should be reflected in the article.

• It appears so, at least when I access Google's homepage there is a from which I can sign up.

no. see [1] -- getcrunkjuice^contribs 18:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• As I understand it, gmail is as open to the public as it will ever be. Anyone with a mobile phone can register, in order to prevent spammer's from creating masses of accounts. The article should reflect that Gmail is open to the public, but limited to invites and mobile phone users.

GMail and HTML

GMail doesn't fully support HTML e-mails, I just encountered this with a mailing that I'm doing. From my workaround it seems that they only look in the body of the HTML and ignore anything that's in the HEAD portion, swiping all styles.

If someone with more insight could add a piece to the article it'd be swell.

Encyclopedia

I dont know where to write this but this is editorializing: "The assumed reason behind this is that the idea was, in effect, an invasion of privacy. Considering the sheer magnitude of this mess, Google will do a lot of squirming before it's over. "

Well,is this topic worth being added to an encyclopedia? If every new product of a certain popularity was added, what an encyclopedia this would be? (I.e. the latest renting models of XY which has an monopol in your country.)

That's actually a very good point.

I, myself, am not sure if this article should be an encyclopedia, just as much as I'm not sure what encyclopedia means for most people.

To me, it means it's a place where you go to find relevant information about a subject.

So, to me, anything can fit into an ecnyclopedia, it's all about the way of organizing it.

To me, even the dictionary should have an "encyclopediatic" article for each word and each letter.

But, this article did get too big and it does need a better organization. The first page should be shorter and more clear. Well, just clean and bold.

That's why I've already said I'm going to organize it as soon as I get the time to do it. I just hope someone can help me on this, but I'm not really waiting for it. :P

I also should read that encyclopedia article to make sure I'm not following the wrong place. Maybe it's actually a controversial word and definition... But I like to believe most of wikipedians agree with my definition of encyclopedia at least if applied to wikipedia, which probably is a new definition of a whole new encyclopedia concept.

This is so the wrong place to talk about it. XD

--Cawas 16:48, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm going to reorganize this whole article this week. I just hope if anyone has anything against it to tell me before I do it. But I think it's going to be good. :)

I just want to leave a "pre-warning" notice. I would be doing it right now, but I want to give some time before I do it to anyone who might want to add something before I do it.

Thanks for understanding.

--Cawas 19:36, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Restructuring Article

reference: Wikipedia:Article size

As announced here last week, I finally made it to shorten the "features" section. I put the username handling in the "limitations" section and omitted a lot of the information that was redundant in my eyes. I'd like to see someone doing kind of the same with the "Development" sections; here, however, it might be worth considering to put all the detail information on another page "Development of Gmail" or something like that and leave only a summary here... --Krueschan 19:26, 29 August 2005 (UTC) ...the "lockdown in sector 4" thingy should (if not deleted alltogether) be moved to this new page as well... --Krueschan 19:35, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

I think it's a pretty good idea, even being so "obvious" :)

I'll take care of this as soon as I get the time, if nobody does it before.

I just think all big topics should move to something like gmail/development instead of Development of Gmail as you've proposed. Although the second could still exist and redirect to the first. ;)

The lockdown should go to gmail/history. And a gmail/current or maybe gmail/development/current could also be welcome.

Thanks for the insight, and damn you for the extra work you've just "gave" me! :P

Now, for something out-of-topic, I wonder if creating those "folders" is actually a good idea... Folders, as we can see in gmail and many other places, are bad way to associate information. Rather use labels... Maybe the next step would be either using labels of labels or grouping labels, which is folder + labels... This is soooo off-topic. :P

--Cawas 18:08, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Please, look the talk at #Encyclopedia --Cawas 19:38, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Ok, this is Cawas. I just did it. At least a first step. Hopefully this will turn out good. Most likely, it will be soon reverted and nobody might even notice what I just did (pessimist me). --Caue (T | C) 16:42, Friday 2006-03-31 (UTC)

This is an ad but it should be an encyclopedia entry

Sorry, guys, but this article goes definitely beyond the scope of an encyclopedia article! When editing the page the hint "This page is 37 kilobytes long. This may be longer than is preferable" appears, and that's definitely true. The whole page reads nearly the same as Gmail's page when they praise all the cool features they have. I think the "Features" section should be summarised to 6-7 sentences and not 17 (!!!) sections. If there are no objections against that, I'll do that soon. --Krueschan 12:52, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

And this is not an ordinary encyclopedia either. I object, and would like it like it is. EliasAlucard|Talk 15:04, 26 Aug, 2005 (UTC)

Yes. That is true - it is not an ordinary encyclopedia. But the fact remains that it's an encyclopedia which should contain concise information. It is said, that too long articles are tiring for the reader and might be regarded as bad style. Just read the "Features" section and ask yourself for each sentence: "Does this tell me what Gmail is?" In most cases the answer will be "Well. Not really. It is rather telling me how it works." (e.g. the section on filtering and searching). That is alright for a manual, but we are speaking about an encyclopedia here - it should be alright to list the features; maybe one or two more worlds about features that are gmail specific (labels, stars...) and that's it. Furthermore the article is full of redundant information such as the fact that threads split into chunks when they consist in more than 150 emails, that there are 10 different gmail notifiers out there, that the message storage increases by one meg evert 7.44 hrs, that some dudes had a "Lockdown in section 4" and suchlike... --Krueschan 14:37, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. There is too much detail in this article, and some of it isn't organized properly. Go for it Krueschan. —Cleared as filed. 15:48, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

All right, I can agree with you that there are redundant stuff in this article. But you do realise that the reason for that is because Gmail is so popular, right? EliasAlucard|Talk 17:03, 29 Aug, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I realise at least that some people are pretty excited about the service. And that's why they think every standard email features and error screen deserves its own section and screenshot in wikipedia... But that's the good thing about this project: whenever people get off the ground and a bit too excited about the articles, there are some others to bring the article back to earth. --Krueschan 17:49, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

There are redundant information in just about every article here on Wikipedia. Gmail is no exception. Could you start a vote-poll to determine the consensus here about abridging the content in this article? EliasAlucard|Talk 22:40, 29 Aug, 2005 (UTC)

Well. I agree: there is unfortunately a lot of redundant information in wikipedia. However, I'd rather draw the conclusion that we should work on solving that issue than using that fact to justify redundant information. Anyway. I created a vote-poll for that issue, where I also suggest that all the very detailed stuff should be moved to new articles to achieve both a concise article on Gmail and the conservation of all the work users put into describing how all those Gmail features function. I'd say, a week should be alright for the vote? I also posted it on the current surveys page --Krueschan 15:23, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. It's just that I do agree that it's a lot of redundancy, but still, I think it's very useful as long as it's accurate. That's why I don't want it all deleted. EliasAlucard|Talk 19:36, 30 Aug, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there's a need for abridgement. The 32 kb size for articles is pretty much a general recommended size for articles, or as it says: "preferable". It's not like it's not allowed to have articles longer than 32 kb. There are many articles on Wikipedia that must have more content than that. Examples to look at are:

• Jesus
• Mozilla Firefox (very similar in content to the Gmail article)
• Cat

And there's a lot more than that. Some articles are rich in content due to the interest of the contributors, and, not to forget, the subject itself, and how much publicity it generates; some articles just don't have enough material to write about, some do.

While surely the Gmail article has some redundant information that's quite not worth to preserve in history, I think that most of the stuff in it is quite interesting for those who really want to learn more about Gmail. I've learned a lot about Gmail and other useful stuff from the Gmail article. I wish the same for everyone else, and frankly, a lot of people would miss out on it if they had to go through the trouble to click on yet another wikilink (yes, there are people who happen to be that lazy).

Also, something worth mentioning is that this is NOT a normal encyclopedia. In normal encyclopedias, they don't have a virtually limitless amount of contributors, therefore, they can't waste too much time on writing a lot about less important subjects like Gmail. We on the other hand can. We shouldn't squander that ability by conforming too much to real encyclopedias. That's why Wikipedia kicks ass. This is how a perfect encyclopedic article would've been about Gmail:

Gmail is a free webmail from Google. It is famous for its huge storage of over 2 GigaByte. It requires invitations to get an account.

And that's it. They honestly wouldn't write more than that. They don't have time. EliasAlucard|Talk 14:01, 02 Sept, 2005 (UTC)

Well. As I said, the fact that other articles are too long as well should not justify having long articles but should rather be a reason to better organise those as well. Similarly the people who're not clicking the "for more information click here" link are not a good excuse for not having a too long article - maybe those people are not loo lazy (as you interpret it) but not interested in more detail? Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia. For me that also means that the reader should be free in their decision how much information they want. Therefore there should be a page with a concise overview and links to more detailed (sub)pages for those who want to learn more. --Krueschan 13:55, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I haven't read everything, but I believe Krueschan is right.

Although I think we might need a better definition of encyclopedia, it seems to me that everyone agrees that anyone looking for an encyclopedia is looking for information. So, if we can provide more and more information, that's not a bad thing. It's just something that needs organization, because just add information can, as we can see on internet, get hard to find something in specific when it grows too much.

Anyway, it's a wise choice to keep a good standard size per article (not too big, not too small) and divide into more pages as it grows, just to keep it clean and organized.

This Gmail article definitely needs that.

--Cawas 13:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Please, look the talk at #Encyclopedia --Cawas 19:36, 30 November 2005 (UTC)