Personally, I always thought the idea of "send to a friend" was to get people to actually click on a link and visit your forums - to be used to allow one person to say "Hey, I really like this discussion, come her eand get involved in it." Not, "Hey, I like this discussion... read it in your mail box, we'll talk about tomorrow on the phone." The idea is to INCREASE traffic on your site. But then again, that's just how I personally see it.
Sending the entire thread is too much IMO. As far as sending the entire page being viewed, that too can become excessive if someone sets their default value to list 40 or so messages per page. Now, a single message, that is certainly acceptable. Although, I think the feature needs to be approached from the standpoint of it being a tool to increase use of your forums. Not send content on your site out to the world.
That is why I like the idea of sending partial information. It forces the reader to visit your site in order to finish the rest of the thread. I think the problem with a lot of these "wishes" and the varying points of view is that a number of us are running our sites in a completely different manner with differing ideas of what helps to build communities. []/w3timages/icons/smile.gif[/]
So again, my vote is for either a partial message or the single message. Not the entire thread. I can see the feedback already, "Why are you sending this to me!! Stop spamming me!" If it is a single post, it does not appear as excessive to the ones receiving the messages. If they get a five page long email from 20-40 posts, then they get irate.
Now, MTO's point about the print option is a very good one. I like that idea of being able to print a single message. I also like the idea of being able toprint an entire thread. So I'm torn on that concept. A mini printer icon on each message and one at the top/bottom... those nicluded with each post print only the message, the ones at the top/bottom print the entire page.
Jhariden (aka Strategist)
Stratics Forums
