E-mail-in rejection message customization

We allow our members to start new topics via email, which are only pushed through if the email address they are sending from is already subscribed to our Forum. When it is not, the person attempting to send the email receives an automated message. Is there a way to customize that message?

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What is it you want to say?

Take a look in https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/discourse-org/ - I also would be interested in learning more about how to change these permanently for my own system if I ever need to, but if you see things that need improving let us all know so they can be improved for everybody.

I just had some fun talking to a board member of my organization about these messages which I am frankly quite happy to see are working and have been expanded to explain what’s going on to the sender when things go wrong.

He got this message back when writing in about dates for a board meeting:

We’re sorry, but your email message to [“DELETED”] (titled Re: [Kabissa] Scheduling Q2 2014 Kabissa Board Meeting) didn’t work.

Reason:

Body is too short (minimum is 20 characters)

If you can correct the problem, please try again.

His reply to me:

Not sure what to do about this. I guess that I could try to be more eloquent to get up to 20 characters…

I wrote:

yeah, this is actually a good thing - a “feature” of our discourse system. It encourages longer texts to prevent people from using it like a glorified chat system which is what you were trying to do. :wink:

it’s still new software in beta though so this is good feedback. I will pass it along.

and finally:

Chat is what I’m all about… NOT

It’s the only time that I’ve ever been told “Body is too short.”

He’s very tall so we both got a giggle about this.

Cheers,

Tobias

3 Likes

This may go without saying, but there is a way to customize that message by digging into the Discourse code. However that poses two issues (possibly):

  1. Will the changes persist through Discourse version updates?
  2. Not everyone has the wherewithal to dig in and modify code (especially on their production instance).

Lauren is looking for a way for an average Discourse administrator to be able to modify this email template. I imagine it belongs in a bigger discussion of allowing customization of all content templates, but for now, we can just stick to the rejection email template.

/config/locales/server.en.yml Line 1448

https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/d8f66a3eee66d7bc9420c6ed2a4830f12c6ffeef/config/locales/server.en.yml#L1448

1 Like

Yeah I’m currently re-applying my changes to the server.en.yml with every upgrade. It’s not the best, but it’ll do.

The biggest issue is that the upgrade process git-resets hard (no stashing) so if I ever forget to save my edited file before or after upgrading, I’m set back a ways.

You can override local settings using a plugin