Is there any log on what was the issue that caused the admin notification?
I find the system PM with
We have some new advice and recommendations for you based on your current site settings.
Visit your site dashboard to see it.
Kind of unhelpful to see what it was. especially when another admin took care of it and I want to understand what it was.
Then view the staff action logs, so you can see.
it only shows a post edit which was credited to the system user.
to answer one question … it seems one user impersonated the system a few months more like years ago.
In my case it usually deletes full quotes.
I still wonder if that would really trigger a “please look at your dashboard” mail from the system.
No that I can not confirm.
I’d like to add my voice to the frustration with these messages. I visit the site dashboard as directed, and I never know what there I am supposed to be seeing. I am the most active admin, as the Staff Action Logs confirm for me when I visit there, and it seems like nothing unusual has happened.
Can the message include the advice and recommendations? To me, the current message might as well say, “There’s something important for you, but we won’t tell you what it is. Go to a complex noisy page and see if you can figure it out.”
I am not following. So you are saying you get these messages as the only staff member and when you go to the admin page there is literally nothing there to act on? I can’t say I have had that experience over the last few years on my own self hosted instances, but I run them totally stock / default with zero plugins.
I’m saying that the admin dashboard is confusing. Maybe there’s something to act on, and I just don’t understand. Is “You have the maximum number of staff accounts” something I have to act on? I choose not to; can I dismiss that?
The larger point is: why not put the recommendation into the system message? Why use a generic message that forces me to go somewhere else to figure out what was meant?
I had a case like that yes. Giving a hint in the mail about the topics that need attention would be helpful.
Then there are double the number of strings to translate. I struggle to understand the situation though because on my own two self hosted discourse sites — where I am the sole admin and staff — I have never seen this problem.
We need a concrete repro.
Well it is hard to reproduce “I got an admin PM ‘look at your dashboard’ and when I did there was no note about problems on the dashboard”
@codinghorror I hope this doesn’t sound too blunt, but have you considered that you are one of the top experts about the complexity of Discourse, and that others do it not as their full-time job, but as a side thing to keep communities going? You are basically saying, “As an expert, I cannot reproduce your beginner confusion.”
Can you answer my question? Is “You have the maximum number of staff accounts” considered advice or recommendation? Is that what this message is telling me to go see?
Incorrect. I am saying
As the sole admin and staff on two Discourse self hosted sites, I have never in the last five years seen a single ‘cry wolf’ notification about necessary admin actions on the dashboard, that when clicked or tapped upon, showed nothing at all on said dashboard.
That sounds plausible to me, and that is the specific example I was looking for! @neil do we nag about this? Seems to me the nag should be “just in time”, that is, when you smash the “make this person a staff member” button?
Please please consider that to a person unskilled in using the dashboard, it can be hard to tell what is what. Sure, there’s something there. I can’t tell what the thing is. I don’t know how many times I have to say: this is about confusion, not about missing information.
Maybe mark advice with an “Advice:” label.
We do both just in time and as part of your account status on the dashboard. “You have an active subscription… You are at the maximum number of staff users… To get more, upgrade and you’ll get these things…” We never send an email about this.
I think when they say “emails” they mean “PM”.