Believe me, this is something we fight everyday. Just recently we’ve started issuing warnings for overaggressive tagging. Some users who want an answer fast go as far as tagging @administrators then every single admin/mod individually, all in a single reply. But tagging is just a part of the overall problem. Reply notifications are also mixed in with the bunch, and it’s really painful (to me at least) to see 3-4 notifications in a row in your notification panel, all leading to the same topic/URL.
The developer of this plugin is currently working on an update which will include a button on the bottom of every PM that’s only visible to admins. The button, once pressed, will terminate (mark read) the notification (for that particular PM) for all other admins included in the conversation. In our instance of Discourse we do a lot of support via PM’s. Many times, PMs include 2-3 admins and a member. We found it cumbersome to chase around notifications for things that were already solved by another admin. Yes, there is the assign/solved feature and you can close/open topics. But our website requires that a few admins monitor a PM for a few days, we cannot close it, and we cannot leave a client hanging for too long. We have to check up on things from time to time and to save other admins time form checking things that were already solved, we devised this new update
Again, like most of my plugins it will be mostly useful to me But maybe someone else will find use for it. We’ve basically tuned our instance into a marketplace where PM’s get converted into sales tickets, so we do heavy support via PM’s. Having a ‘nothing to do now, terminate notifs for other admins’ button will be a huge time saver (for us). The update will be ready in 4-5 days!
Update! The plugin has been updated and it now includes a “Wipe Notifications” button inside all PM’s. This button (visible only to admins) removes all notifications for any other admin in that particular conversation, except for the consolidated replies.
My community relies on heavy support via PM’s. Many times, there are 2-3 admins in a PM. When one admin replies and awaits for the member to reply, the other two admins in that conversation do not necessarily need to see that message. To save them time, the admin currently working on the PM can wipe the notifications for other staff. Personally, this plugin will save our staff tons of time. Just testing it today by doing what we call “rounds” on our site, the other supporting admins went from 20 notifications they would potentially check, to only two that needed their attention.
But tagging is just a part of the overall problem. Reply notifications are also mixed in with the bunch, and it’s really painful (to me at least) to see 3-4 notifications in a row in your notification panel, all leading to the same topic/URL.
