The discussion revolves around the granularity of email notifications in Discourse, specifically regarding group memberships versus direct mentions.
Darin_Simmons initially requests a feature to separate email notifications for direct @username tags from group membership tags. He suggests allowing users to receive emails only when directly tagged, with a separate option for group notifications, and further asks for the ability to select specific groups for email alerts.
codinghorror clarifies that notification levels can be set per group via the bell icon. Darin_Simmons expresses confusion, believing the bell icon controls only on-site notifications. codinghorror explains the distinction between site notifications and email notifications. He notes that Discourse prevents double-notifying users who are actively browsing the site. The system generally emails users about significant notifications (like direct mentions) only when they are away from the site. Users can adjust email frequency in their user profile preferences.
Darin_Simmons acknowledges the explanation, realizing that email notifications are a subset of site notifications.
james10 joins the thread to ask if email notifications can be changed at the group level to address complaints from new users. He notes that when attempting to modify these settings, he can only change preferences for about 50% of users, seeking assistance on how to manage bulk email notification settings for groups.
I did search through the planned and to-do and upcoming.
I am a member of many forums and many groups. As I understand it, the second option (see below pic) includes both specic @username and group membership email notifications. I would love a way to split that up.
Request: Take the second option below extremely literally i.e. remove group membership. Email notifications only when tagged directly and not when tagged as part of a group membership. Create another option for group membership, see Follow-on after the jump.
Follow on request: Ability to choose which groups I do receive membership from. For example, moderators, “coaches”, all-stars, or other’s with greater responsibility might want email notifications on that group but come to the site frequently enough that they don’t want email notifications of all the groups. Or, a “normal” user might want working group membership emails to go through but other group membership to be handled at the forum.
@codinghorror I think there may have been a miscommunication or I don’t understand.
I’m talking about email notifications. I’m under the impression that the notifications under the bell are for on site notifications. Are you saying there is a way to modify email notifications under the bell?
They are two different and somewhat unrelated topics.
Note that Discourse won’t email you about a notification if you are browsing the site and clicking / tapping around – because that would be double-notifying you. There are also some notifications that Discourse doesn’t think are worthy of an email notification, ever.
The general philosophy is that
you will get notified when someone is speaking directly to you.
you will get an email about that notification if it is significant (e.g. someone is talking directly to you), and you are away from the website – no devices are actively pinging the website while logged in as you.
It is possible to dial this to 11 if you want an email for everything. You might have a look at the email preferences in your user profile to get a sense of where you want that to be for your account. But out of the box, it works as I describe .
Gotcha. I had it wrong it my head that the two systems were completely independent. No, the email notifications are a follow-on of some of the site notifications. Thank you for taking the time to explain.
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