Hello dears.
I would like your advice.
I run a forum for telecom, with about 6k users. (www.telecomhall.net)
As there are a lot of topics with external links, i would like to force every user to open it in new tab - instead of leaving my website.
So, i thought i could change it in SETTINGS.
I am aware that this change only applies to new users that register, from that time on (when i change default setting to Yes).
As I said, sometime ago (i do not remember when) i changed deafult user preference to YES. (default_other_external_links_in_new_tab - YES, ticked)
Today, to test, I changed it back to NO (not ticked).
For my surprise, i received a Warning:
“Would you like to apply this change historically? This will change preferences for 2230 existing users.”
No.
Only apply change going forward.
So, i decided to set all users to NO (not ticked).
And thougth that when i checked it again, and apply, it would change it historically to all users (all my 6k users would have preference set to default_other_external_links_in_new_tab - YES, ticked).
Unfortunately, the second time, i didn’t received the warning.
And now ALL my 6k users are we default behavior (not expected by me) default_other_external_links_in_new_tab = NO, not ticked).
So, my question is:
-
Is this behavior fine? (Ask to apply historically when unchecking for part of user; and not asking to apply when all users were changed)
-
Is there a way for me (as admin) historically change default_other_external_links_in_new_tab = YES, ticked for all users?
I found this:
But i don’t have the rights to do it.
And i tried to contact my website admin.
The only other way i see is to impersonate each of the 6k users and change it one by one - impossible! 
