edit: apparently this is a real app and the related thread about the app can be found here. But the email messages sent were indeed unsolicited which is something not a lot of people enjoy.
Hi. I’m the admin of a discourse community and I’ve just received an email targeted at my organization, which I add bellow. I’ve replaced the name of my community with [community-name] and disabled links by replacing a “.” with “[dot]” just to make sure nobody clicks.
Has anybody else been targeted?
Hi [community-name] Admin,
We wanted to let you know that we released a native client app for your Discourse based community. Fig app is a powerful and simple to use forum client that allows you to browse [community-name] and other communities right from your iOS or iPadOS device.
Download from the App Store: https://app [dot] fighq [dot] io/c/[community-name]
Share this link with your users as it allows them to download Fig and automatically add your community to the top of their list of communities without the need to search for it. For users who already have Fig, the link will quickly add your community to their communities list.
Regards,
Mo
P.S Let me know if you have any questions or would like to modify the special URL for your community.
They are not affiliated with CDCK and sent out this mailing themselves. The application is legitimate, though slightly limited - e.g. most theme customization won’t make it through, but it suffices for basic reading.
“Legitimate marketing” is a stretch. It’s a cool app, but I agree with above comments and mentioned it myself on the meta thread, unsolicited email isn’t cool.
I don’t know how they’re collecting the email of the community admins or maybe just scraping the contact email from about but this looks super shady to me. I never expect any unwanted email message to reach my inbox.
Context would have helped I suppose. I’m my case there are no email addresses on our site. The about section on discourse points back to the contact page. The plugin author guessed at an address, picked an inactive one, and it went to my catch-all.
Thanks Justin, I did ping Jonathan about his grievance and noted that we do not spam or guess emails. We only reach out to communities that have a public contact email.
I’ll just add a quick caution that in some countries it is illegal to send marketing emails without obtaining express consent first (Canada, possibly the UK and Germany too). It’s also against the terms of some email marketing services (largely because spam reports can impact their service’s email deliverability).
Facing fines is unlikely, but these laws exist because people generally don’t like unsolicited email! YMMV.
I contacted folks using public contact email. Claims about we guessed emails, etc. are false. This was not secret and have noted so when asked.
That being said, my intention is not to upset community admins and the greater Discourse community. The error on my part is not realizing it is only for support only. I apologize to everyone who got this email and was bothered by it and will suspend doing this immediately.
I’ve received a lot support and love from many folks here, across many communities, and from the Discourse Team in the past. I am sorry if my actions has bothered you.
