` "?
Hmm. What do you think @awesomerobot?
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### Author:  [@mpalmer](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mpalmer)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 2:39오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/4 "2018-09-06T02:39:28Z")
Mailing lists sometimes do “David Kingham via (list name)”.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 3:23오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/5 "2018-09-06T03:23:27Z")
So something like this?
I’m not against it, but am not _super_ convinced this would actually make any difference in terms of
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> Several times people have responded to email notifications to a public post as if the notification were sent to them rather than to the forum (or the person that the message was a reply to)
I’d also add that this behavior is _correct_, there’s very little conceptual difference between “I am replying to Matt Palmer because he emailed me” and “I am replying to Matt Palmer because he replied to my forum post.”
Yeah, you don’t want to say weird private things (like how much I long to hold Matt Palmer tenderly in my arms wait did I just type that) but seriously how often does “intensely private reply to {person}” deviate from “general public reply to {person}”?
Because anyone can take an email you sent and post it anywhere, too..
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### Author:  [@mpalmer](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mpalmer)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 3:43오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/6 "2018-09-06T03:43:26Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> how much I long to hold Matt Palmer tenderly in my arms
I didn’t realise you had a goat named Matt Palmer… that’s a bit weird.
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> but seriously how often does “intensely private reply to {person}” deviate from “general public reply to {person}”?
Ooooh! Ooooooh! Contemporaneous example:
1. [https://cabforum.org/pipermail/servercert-wg/2018-September/000177.html](https://cabforum.org/pipermail/servercert-wg/2018-September/000177.html)
2. [https://cabforum.org/pipermail/servercert-wg/2018-September/000178.html](https://cabforum.org/pipermail/servercert-wg/2018-September/000178.html)
(And these are the people who run the world’s certification authorities… 🙄)
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### Author:  [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 3:44오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/7 "2018-09-06T03:44:20Z")
via might not be clear enough if someone’s struggling to understand what’s going on… I guess you could go very literal?
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 3:50오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/8 "2018-09-06T03:50:03Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> I’d also add that this behavior is _correct_ , there’s very little conceptual difference between “I am replying to Matt Palmer because he emailed me” and “I am replying to Matt Palmer because he replied to my forum post.”
No. It’s that I received a forum post that was too someone else, but I recieved it because was watching the category.
You said “you love boats” to @mpalmer, but the email said it was to me. I am very sensitive to marinephilia, so I threaten a lawsuit.
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### Author:  [@mpalmer](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mpalmer)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 3:54오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/9 "2018-09-06T03:54:16Z")
Oh, that’s a _whole_ other thing. I don’t think any of us realised that was what you were talking about. That’s a _much_ harder problem to solve, really – if an e-mail arrives in my inbox, I’m going to assume it’s to me in _some_ way.
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### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 4:27오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/10 "2018-09-06T04:27:04Z")
I don’t get emails (no need, I’m here every day) but would it be easy enough to use the icons that are used for the notifications as a way to indicate what was what?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 5:07오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/11 "2018-09-06T05:07:57Z")
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> No. It’s that I received a forum post that was too someone else, but I recieved it because was watching the category.
Was this person _forced_ to watch the category, or did they voluntarily set the category to watched themselves?
If the former, the problem is bad site ownership.
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 4:52오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/12 "2018-09-06T16:52:08Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> Was this person _forced_ to watch the category, or did they voluntarily set the category to watched themselves?
It’s both. The one I alluded to above changed his own settings to watch his categories.
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> If the former, the problem is bad site ownership.
The forum has many people who are clamoring to return to Ning who would totally agree, but moving back to Ning really isn’t an option. 😉
But before we made the change that attempts to have Discourse send the same notifications that Ning did (because many, many, users were complaining that they weren’t getting the notifications that they had been getting), even people who managed to change their own settings to watch their beloved categories were still confused.
Best I can tell, they didn’t have the same confusion with whatever-it-was that Ning was sending.
> [@mpalmer](#):
>
> Oh, that’s a _whole_ other thing. I don’t think any of us realised that was what you were talking about. That’s a _much_ harder problem to solve, really – if an e-mail arrives in my inbox, I’m going to assume it’s to me in _some_ way.
It seems like it should be a little bit easier to tell whether a message was sent to a topic/category that a user was watching or was a direct reply to a post that the user had made.
Again, best I can tell, these people were getting an email for every single message posted to their Ning “groups” (basically a group and a category) and they didn’t seem to be confused then.
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### Author:  [@tophee](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tophee)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 6:18오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/13 "2018-09-06T18:18:58Z")
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> Several times people have responded to email notifications to a public post as if the notification were sent to them rather than to the forum
I’m glad you’re bringing this up as this is something I also see a lot. I earlier suggested this as a possible solution:
> [@Clearer wording for "reply-by-email" function to avoid mishaps](https://meta.discourse.org/t/clearer-wording-for-reply-by-email-function-to-avoid-mishaps/57501/8):
>
> wonder if it might help to have a site setting that allows admins to change the sender name from the poster (user)name to the name of the forum (perhaps "on behalf of poster) or something. That way it should be quite clear in any email client that a reply to that email will go to the forum.
>
> We’d not be loosing much because the posters name (and avatar!) is still included in the email body.
Would this help in your case?
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 6:24오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/14 "2018-09-06T18:24:45Z")
It might help, though the problem is not so much that people are replying to the wrong place, but are confused by the notifications.
I got two messages like this today (did something change in the past few days?)
> [@](#):
>
> Responses to this post are notifying the wrong email address. I am not the Susan who posted this but am getting the notifications. Not sure what to do about it.
This user posted this in the forum about an email notification she received because she was watching the category. (She’s been watching the category for sometime, so I’m confused why she’s only just now confused by the notifications.)
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### Author:  [@tophee](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tophee)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 6:43오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/15 "2018-09-06T18:43:22Z")
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> She’s been watching the category for sometime, so I’m confused why she’s only just now confused by the notifications
It sounds like it’s because the OP of that topic is also called Susan so that helped her to make sense of why she was getting a message that is “not for her”.
But anyway.
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> the problem is not so much that people are replying to the wrong place, but are confused by the notifications.
That’s not what you said in the OP, though. So maybe we have two classes of issues here:
1. People don’t understand why they get certain notifications, e.g. because they don’t understand the concept of watching a category which in turn may be due to them being forced to watch a category without even realising it.
2. People misinterpret a notification email (about a public post) as an email directed to them and respond to it without realizing that their reply will be posted publicly.
Of course, people may reply to a message because they don’t understand why they’re receiving it _and_ not realize that their reply will be published, but I don’t think that’s the issue, is it?
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 6:48오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/16 "2018-09-06T18:48:55Z")
> [@tophee](#):
>
> Of course, people may reply to a message because they don’t understand why they’re receiving it _and_ not realize that their reply will be published, but I don’t think that’s the issue, is it?
Right. The issue is that they don’t understand why they are receiving the message. At this point, we’ve turned off reply-by-mail, so the not-knowing-where-the-reply-is-going thing is moot for now. But even still, this person went to the forum in a web browser and replied there, still convinced that they shouldn’t be getting the notification.
It’s been a hard row for this former Ning users to hoe.
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### Author:  [@tophee](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tophee)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 7:12오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/17 "2018-09-06T19:12:46Z")
Okay, so what about adding a line at the top of each notification email stating
> You’re receiving this notification email because…
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 7:14오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/18 "2018-09-06T19:14:56Z")
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> But before we made the change that attempts to have Discourse send the same notifications that Ning did (because many, many, users were complaining that they weren’t getting the notifications that they had been getting), even people who managed to change their own settings to watch their beloved categories were still confused.
Sounds like they don’t really want or need those category notifications after all. There are two very different things here: what users _tell_ you they want .. versus what they actually want in reality.
I am not opposed to copy changes, but I remain unconvinced any copy changes would actually help here.
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### Author:  [@Stephen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stephen)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 7:41오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/19 "2018-09-06T19:41:38Z")
> [@tophee](#):
>
> adding a line at the top of each notification email stating
I would put it in the subject, [PM] [watched] etc so that it can be identified at a glance and easily be acted on by mail rules.
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### Author:  [@tophee](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tophee)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 7:46오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418/20 "2018-09-06T19:46:23Z")
I would be curious to see if a notification header would do the trick. I don’t believe it’s currently possible to provide specific reasons for why the email was sent, but it might be worth trying with a generic note like
> You are receiving this notification because of your user settings at great.forum.foo/my/preferences/categories
@pfaffman Just enter something like that (the field does take html) into `user_notifications.header_instructions` and see what happens.
[Next page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/difficult-to-tell-that-watched-category-notifications-are-to-the-forum/96418.md?page=2)