I run a forum for my website and I can’t always keep track of every single topic so I want to mute some that are not relevant to me.
But every now and then something will come up which needs me to look over (maybe someone makes a suggestion for a feature of the website halfway through a conversation) and someone will @ mention me, hoping to get my attention.
But if I’ve muted the thread it won’t come through, will it? That’s what it seems to suggest in the text. I think muted topics should still notify you if you get @ mentioned. Is there a setting for this?
I don’t understand why anyone would ignore @ mentions.
But there may be a little archaeology to do before we make any changes here to better understand the rationale for the current design so we take that into account.
So what is the difference to “normal” where you are only notified about @mentions and replies to your own post when muted also notifies about @mentions?
If I mute a topic because I don’t want to be reminded of it under any circumstances, for example because it triggers me, I don’t care if someone mentions me.
Just like I don’t want to receive any notifications from users that I have muted
Well for example we have a topic about a TV show that I’m not interested in, I don’t want to see it as “unread” and have it clutter up my screen, but then as I’m an admin someone might want to get my attention about something in there and @ mention me, so I want to see that.
I don’t want to seem like I’m ignoring someone. They have no way of knowing I muted the topic so they will think I just never bothered responding.
If a topic is so noisy, fiery or annoying that I will not to want to see it by using mute, I don’t want either that someone pop it up by mentioning me. If mentions come thru it gives a tool to bother too.
Just like, even differently, in Facebook where one has disabled notifications from a topic, and then someone uses mention, and notifications are back again.
But I feel like this is a different thing - that’s for when you’ve had enough of a conversation and no longer want to be involved.
Maybe there should be another option for when it’s not a topic you’re particularly interested in but you want to know if someone mentions you specifically.
I think there are legitimate needs for both things, but per Moin’s and Jakke’s points above, we’ve historically leaned towards designing Mute for the purpose of “I really don’t want to see anything about this anymore.”
There’s certainly more to unpack here, though, and it’ll take some care to address both needs while trying to avoid introducing too much additional complexity (or ideally, simplifying things further and making them more clear).
If you really didn’t want to have a category just for topics that one user, such as the admin of the forum, doesn’t want to see.
It might be a good feature to have a “topic suppress” option, or if people don’t want the extra clutter/confusion that would cause; perhaps it would be best to make sure that the relevant users of these forums are using the flagging/moderation system to reach out to their admins, etc.
maybe the “topic suppress” option would be best delivered by a plugin, so the extra clutter is a decision each community can make about whether they want that.
