Re: Delete contacts from Privacy list

Greetings Joe,

Getting suggestions through into the actual Messenger product is hard -- none of my
suggestions have ever made it in the 8 years I've been dealing with Messenger.

But there is a benefit to the feature; it allows you to maintain status control on contacts
that aren't on your contact list. I'll admit nowadays that really isn't that much of a
concern, but back when Messenger had a smaller contact list size limit, this let you keep
contacts around which you didn't necessarily need to know the status of.

My personal opinion is that this one will be shelved until there is another reason to
re-design this aspect of the service.

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
(c) 2009 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
--



<> wrote in message
news:6ead11c2-381e-448c-8548-...
> Hi Jonathan (or other Microsoft MSN rep),
>
> Four years ago I had requested the ability to delete contacts from the
> privacy list or at the very least the ability to deny someone from
> adding themselves to my privacy list at the time of addition.
> Apparently this was taken down as a request for the development team
> but nothing came out of it. This is a vicious privacy problem and I
> am flabbergasted at the inability of the development and program leads
> to comprehend this problem.
>
> Let me state the problem again: if someone adds me as a contact, I
> have the "choice" to accept them or block & delete them. In the
> recent incarnation of messenger I also have the ability to mark them
> as a spammer. Inspite of all this they still take up a slot in my
> privacy list. Why? If I don't know the person and want to have
> nothing to do with them I also don't want them on my privacy list.
>
> Think children. If a porno website adds my kid as a contact - and
> they do add anyone and everyone - I want the ability to remove them
> altogether not have them sitting around in the privacy list waiting to
> be added back to the contact list.
>
> Every IM client gives the user the ability to permanently delete
> someone from their list except for MSN messenger. There is absolutely
> zero benefit of this "feature". If there is a benefit please do let
> me know, I am all agog waiting for why this is still around.
>
> regards,
> Joe

Hi,
I find this type of functionality extremely unfortunate and your answer that
" it will be shelved until there is another reason to re-design" is puzzling.
If this is not reason enough to make a change, what reason will there ever
be? I know I am not the only one who has abandoned Messenger for this reason,
and this reason only.

"Jonathan Kay [MVP]" wrote:

> Greetings Joe,
>
> Getting suggestions through into the actual Messenger product is hard -- none of my
> suggestions have ever made it in the 8 years I've been dealing with Messenger.
>
> But there is a benefit to the feature; it allows you to maintain status control on contacts
> that aren't on your contact list. I'll admit nowadays that really isn't that much of a
> concern, but back when Messenger had a smaller contact list size limit, this let you keep
> contacts around which you didn't necessarily need to know the status of.
>
> My personal opinion is that this one will be shelved until there is another reason to
> re-design this aspect of the service.
>
> --
> Jonathan Kay
> Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
> MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
> MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
> Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
> (c) 2009 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
> --
>
>
>
> <> wrote in message
> news:6ead11c2-381e-448c-8548-...
> > Hi Jonathan (or other Microsoft MSN rep),
> >
> > Four years ago I had requested the ability to delete contacts from the
> > privacy list or at the very least the ability to deny someone from
> > adding themselves to my privacy list at the time of addition.
> > Apparently this was taken down as a request for the development team
> > but nothing came out of it. This is a vicious privacy problem and I
> > am flabbergasted at the inability of the development and program leads
> > to comprehend this problem.
> >
> > Let me state the problem again: if someone adds me as a contact, I
> > have the "choice" to accept them or block & delete them. In the
> > recent incarnation of messenger I also have the ability to mark them
> > as a spammer. Inspite of all this they still take up a slot in my
> > privacy list. Why? If I don't know the person and want to have
> > nothing to do with them I also don't want them on my privacy list.
> >
> > Think children. If a porno website adds my kid as a contact - and
> > they do add anyone and everyone - I want the ability to remove them
> > altogether not have them sitting around in the privacy list waiting to
> > be added back to the contact list.
> >
> > Every IM client gives the user the ability to permanently delete
> > someone from their list except for MSN messenger. There is absolutely
> > zero benefit of this "feature". If there is a benefit please do let
> > me know, I am all agog waiting for why this is still around.
> >
> > regards,
> > Joe
>
>
>