"Previous Replies" in email notifications needs threading

Contribute Feature

AI-generated summary

The discussion revolves around improving the “Previous Replies” section in Discourse email notifications, which currently only displays the most recent replies — potentially causing confusion when users reply to earlier posts. downey raises the issue, noting it could be seen as either a bug or feature depending on perspective, and tags @techAPJ for input. codinghorror seeks clarification on the proposal, suggesting possible solutions: (1) show only the direct parent post if the reply is threaded (not via @mention or blockquote), (2) show the immediately prior post in the topic stream above the current reply, and (3) show the next post in the topic stream below. The goal is to make email notifications more contextually meaningful by better reflecting the actual reply thread structure.

1

Not sure if bug or feature … depends on one’s view.

Background: When getting an email notification from a post, the “Previous Replies” only include the most recent replies. This can be meaningless (and worse, terribly confusing) if someone is replying to an earlier post in the topic. Paging @techAPJ or other fans of Discourse email hacking.

  • Reproduce: Have someone reply to your post in a topic later, after other replies have been added to the end of the topic.

  • Expected Behavior: Get a notification email with the “Previous Replies” starting (below the new post) with the post that reply is replying to.

  • Actual Behavior: “Previous Replies” is the last N replies in the topic overall, regardless.

2 лайка
Forcing email context - input requested
2

What are you proposing? That the email notification for the post…

  1. only shows its “parent”, the post it is a direct reply to (assuming it was a direct reply and not an @name mention or blockquote reply, one among many.. you can have five “parents” for a post if there are five quotes in it.)

  2. shows the previous (n) posts “above” this one, earlier in the topic stream.

  3. shows the next (n) posts “below” this one, later in the topic stream

I can see a case for #2, I guess, if you are getting a direct reply to a post nowhere near the bottom of the topic stream.