This discussion revolves around a proposed feature to remind users to reply to questions in topics they’ve participated in, especially when a post under theirs ends with a question mark or they’ve received a reply. DeanMarkTaylor outlines the logic for triggering such reminders, while elberet questions the necessity, noting existing notifications already prompt replies. sam expresses discomfort with attaching special behavior to replies, and Mittineague raises concerns about reminders becoming nagging, especially for staff who already feel obligated to participate. brucellino seeks a plugin to tag topics for later response, suggesting a “self-assignment” reminder system with future dates — a feature codinghorror acknowledges could be added as an optional bookmark reminder dialog. elijah and sam discuss bookmark interface improvements, with elijah surprised by the existence of the bookmarks page. sam prefers the compact, sortable topic list interface over the user-centric bookmark page, noting the need to normalize both. brucellino later confirms their need was met by a Discourse tweet about a new feature. codinghorror confirms enhancements by @tgxworld. mcwumbly asks if the feature is available to normal users; codinghorror clarifies it’s currently staff-only. Anna_Berns asks about topic timers, noting they’re restricted to staff-only categories.
… remind users to reply to questions in topics they have participated in.
IF
you get a reply
or the post under yours in a topic “asks a question” (ends a sentence with a question mark “?”)
AND
you haven’t replied to that topic since that post
THEN
display a reminder or suggestion to continue the conversation - or you may have forgotten to reply to.
This feature may have to be more intelligent - but that explains the basics.
Perhaps when you have no notifications this could be displayed.
EDIT:
This could also work well for Private Messages and possibly be included in periodic emails, items that are more specific to a user are more likely to drive users back to a community.
When someone quotes, mentions or replies to me, I get a notification. When I haven’t replied after clicking the notification, wouldn’t it be right to assume that I do not wish to continue that particular discussion?
Nevermind that the question I should have replied to doesn’t necessarily have to be at the end of the post. And how would you even handle a post ending with an interrobang‽
As Staff at my forum I make my best effort to participate in discussions, especially when I am explicitly mentioned.
But there have been a few times when I have said everything I could say in every way I could think of, and if a member has a problem but refuses to accept or even try my offered solution(s) I sometimes see no use in reiterating to deaf ears.
Cold? Perhaps, but nobody, not even Staff, is obligated to participate in a discussion. We do so voluntarily not out of obligation.
I arrived here looking for a reminder plugin. Looks like the thread is really old, so maybe this is i implemented in a new plugin or feature…
In my case, I need a reminder plugin to add a list of topics to my “respond to this later” list, similar to the /remind function of slackbot. This would be a kind of “self-assigning” reminder - you are only reminded of things which you yourself have asked to be reminded of. Kind of like bookmarks, but with a date attached.
Hi @codinghorror and thanks for the response to such an old topic. Bookmarks have the date when they were bookmarked, but I need a future date at which a PM or Notification will be sent to me, reminding me of that topic and the fact that I need to address it. I am way out of my depth here, but it feels like there could be a sidekiq job to send these notifications, if they could be included in the user’s bookmarks metadata in some way.
I don’t oppose a dialog that pops up when you bookmark offering to remind you, but it feels much more like a plugin than something that should be default on for everyone.
Personally I much prefer the topic list interface cause it is far more compact and sortable, plus its not on the user page so information density is much higher.
But yeah we need to normalize these 2 somehow.
Topic list interface does allow you to sort by category, sort by oldest newest, number of replies, views and so on. It is in many ways a much richer interface if you have lots of bookmarks.
It’s an edge of the system, very few people use bookmarks, of the people who do very few need access to this kind of rich interface. The topic list interface does not show PMs which is a hole, and does not allow you to sort by the date that you made the bookmark which may bug some people.
We do want to normalize this and will get to it eventually.
Is topic timer available (even to staff) in any category? I have used it to schedule posts in a staff-only category, but don’t see it as an option in regular categories…
