回复邮件的最佳实践

我正在运营一个启用了“邮件回复”功能的网站,但现在觉得这可能不是个好主意。以下是我打算禁用该功能的几个原因。我是否遗漏了什么?

  • 如果用户可以通过邮件回复并在不访问网站的情况下与网站互动,那么我们将损失广告收入(尽管金额不大)。
  • 我曾担心禁用“邮件回复”也会禁止向群组发送邮件,但在我的测试中似乎并非如此。(除非存在缓存问题,而我在设置真正生效之前就进行了测试。)
  • 诸如“您的消息太短,请重试”之类的提示,在邮件中比在网站上更令人烦恼。(当然,只有在极少数情况下,当某人确实有理由发送简短消息,而仅仅一个 :heart: 表情无法表达时,这种提示才会显得“令人烦恼”。)

是否有理由禁用邮件回复?这虽然是一项便利功能,但我在这里很少使用;我认为对于我们的社区来说,关闭它应该没问题,对吧?

顺便提一下另一个相关的问题……

我们遇到的另一个问题是新手错误……我公开宣传了一个邮箱地址,该地址被用于向群组发送邮件……结果这个地址被一个每天发送 100 倍垃圾邮件的发送者盯上了。如果您打算让未确认用户向群组(或分类)发送邮件,请务必确保已启用垃圾邮件过滤器!

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The main reason it’s enabled in my community is to retain the old-school life-long listserv members who otherwise would not participate at all.

It would be great to have a clear picture of how much exactly they contribute to the conversations. I’ve asked for better post by email reporting in the dashboard.

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Here’s the beginning of a data-explorer query. My intent is to do something like percent posts via email per user for each of the last 4 weeks, but my SQL-fu is a bit short of that query just rolling off my fingers.

SELECT   user_id,
count(1) as post_count
FROM posts
WHERE via_email=true
GROUP BY user_id
ORDER by post_count desc
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select username, sum(case when (posts.via_email='t') then 100 else 0 end)/count(posts.id) as perc_by_mail
from posts
left join users on users.id = posts.user_id
where posts.created_at >= now() - interval '4 weeks'
group by username

That sounds very short sighted. Having more content will bring you a multitude of visitors.

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I guess that’s why I’m asking! With this particular community, it seems that people who reply via email (as opposed to on the site) are those most disenchanted from the move from Ning.

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I have never made a post via an email, so I’m admittedly clueless. But are there any situations where someone might be able to email but not have a browser? eg. at home I have my desktop browser, but on a long commute I can only send emails. Not a matter of preference, but a matter of ability.

In other words, not that I am participating only with email, but that I participate both ways.

It’s quite rare for any site to have a ton of email-only participation. 25 years later, people are pretty darn comfortable with the concept of a web browser :wink:

The reality is that email replies capture a small percent of the time people are “on the go” and want to reply but all they have access to is email. It is a convenience feature.

If you turn it off, you turn off convenience – but it’s not essential to survival in my experience. I’d still recommend it though.

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In my community - yes. Our topics revolve around aircraft construction and flying, so a post will often be seen by a member while they’re at the hangar, away from the desktop browser.

Email is also pushed, so they are engaged on a daily basis. There are those who prefer email to stay engaged even though most have a smart phone and the Discourse mobile interface is good.

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Richard, do you have a query to find the count and percentage of all posts made by email vs in browser?

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Per user:

select 
  username, 
  sum(case when (posts.via_email='t') then 100 else 0 end)/count(posts.id) as perc_by_mail, 
  sum(case when (posts.via_email='t') then 1 else 0 end) cnt_by_mail,
  sum(case when (posts.via_email<> 't') then 100 else 0 end)/count(posts.id) as perc_not_by_mail, 
  sum(case when (posts.via_email<> 't') then 1 else 0 end) cnt_not_by_mail
from posts
left join users on users.id = posts.user_id
where posts.created_at >= now() - interval '4 weeks'
group by username

All:

select 
  sum(case when (posts.via_email='t') then 100 else 0 end)/count(posts.id) as perc_by_mail, 
  sum(case when (posts.via_email='t') then 1 else 0 end) cnt_by_mail,
  sum(case when (posts.via_email<> 't') then 100 else 0 end)/count(posts.id) as perc_not_by_mail, 
  sum(case when (posts.via_email<> 't') then 1 else 0 end) cnt_not_by_mail
from posts
left join users on users.id = posts.user_id
where posts.created_at >= now() - interval '4 weeks'
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Superb - thanks, Richard!

The result is 19% of our posts were made via email in the last 4 weeks.

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We have some long standing (and long suffering!) users who swear by reply-by-email which is why I would never turn it off. I doubt it makes up a large percentage though.

I’d be curious to know what the stats are, how does one run the SQL query on the Discourse database? Thanks!

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Very easy, just install the Data Explorer plugin:

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