As an admin, is there a way to send a message to all users? If so, how?
AI-generated summary
The discussion revolves around displaying a site message to all users, with various suggestions and concerns raised. plmok61 initiates the topic, seeking a way to send messages to all users, particularly for community announcements. codinghorror questions the purpose and suggests a global banner for critical alerts, citing examples like Comixology. jeans proposes auto-subscribing users to a âblogâ category, while mlapida supports a message for non-logged-in users. codinghorror argues against global messages, advocating for pinned welcome topics instead. downey suggests improving the visibility of the âclear pinâ option, proposing a red âXâ link or changing the text to âClear Pinâ. codinghorror emphasizes that the intent is for users to read the pinned topic before clearing it. NativeJM seeks to inform members about time-sensitive updates, and codinghorror confirms that global banners exist for mission-critical alerts. EGreg discusses legal disclaimers and asks about standard methods, with codinghorror suggesting adding it to the site footer. EGreg seeks guidance on editing header and footer HTML, referencing a meta-discourse guide. anon48433008 shares their method using a small post from a private category, and ahimes1 asks for clarification on implementation.
1 Curtiu
For what purpose? Can you describe the goal, what you are trying to accomplish, with some examples?
@codinghorror
For the community I manage, I would like to send all the users a direct message indicating that we have new features and to check them out.
How about auto-subscribing users to category âblogâ on sign up? You simply add the category to watched or tracked in the user preferences.
Whenever you post something in category blog, itâs being emailed via digest and it appears in notifications.
2 Curtiram
I was also thinking a global banner, the sort you would use for
This site is undergoing maintenance in 1 hour, and will be briefly down. Check status at http://example.com/status
Probably dismissable in some way.
This is better where you want to send a message to âeveryoneâ but only those people actually visiting the site. No need to clutter everyoneâs PMs up.
6 Curtiram
Hereâs a good, live example from comixology.
Hopefully this illustrates why banners like this should be used exceedingly rarely.
2 Curtiram
I would really appreciate something like this as well. Even a message that could be displayed to all users not logged in explaining the purpose of the community. I donât want to hinder regular members with that kind of information if I donât have to.
No, I strongly disagree. That is the purpose of a pinned welcome topic, which is part of the default site template. Users can clear pinned topics after they have read them.
3 Curtiram
For what itâs worth, this was not obvious to me until you said so. And very happy to not have to stare at those welcome messages all the time.
2 Curtiram
If you can think of ways to make clear pin more obvious, let me know.
1 Curtiu
I have tried to click on the thumbtack icon to clear pin more times than I can count. Thatâd be my âdonât make me thinkâ proposal.
Alternatively, or in addition, you could automatically clear the pin after entering the topic the first time since the last time it was pinned.
1 Curtiu
I have something like this on my community groops.de. I donât use it often, but if I do, itâs great. Indispensable.
Sure, thatâs possible â I just wonder how many people are âclickingâ on that tiny pin on phone and tablet.
So do both? I didnât work it out until I saw this threadâŠ
What about a red â clear pin link below the â to the left of the post title?
This might not be perfect, but in my mind itâs along the lines of what Iâd expect to see. The clearing action should be available in the place I want the thing cleared from ⊠rather than having to âdrill downâ into the post to find it at the bottom.
The intent is for people to read the thing before clearing it mindlessly.
Fair enough. Could the â (or whatever) appear only after the post has been read once?
Something just crossed my mind. What about changing:
This topic is now pinned. It will appear at the top of its category.
to
This topic is now pinned. It will appear at the top of its category until you click the âClear Pinâ button below.
Just a thought.
A bit off topic here but I hope @sam can get this UI improvement, already slated, finished this week:
1 Curtiu
For example, I want to inform my members the time server will go down and add new features and so on.