# Email Notification recipients unclear when PM is sent to multiple users

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/email-notification-recipients-unclear-when-pm-is-sent-to-multiple-users/26934
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** email
**Created:** [March 29, 2015, 12:52am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/email-notification-recipients-unclear-when-pm-is-sent-to-multiple-users/26934 "2015-03-29T00:52:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 33

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### Author: ![LeoMcA](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/leomca/32/87233_2.png) [@LeoMcA](https://meta.discourse.org/u/LeoMcA)
#### Post date: [February 22, 2017, 3:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/email-notification-recipients-unclear-when-pm-is-sent-to-multiple-users/26934/33 "2017-02-22T15:59:24Z")

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> [@alehandrof](#):
>
> I sometimes struggle with how reply/reply-all works in mailing lists, Basecamp, help desk systems, etc., as each one has quirks of its own.

So the solution is adding quirky behaviour to Discourse as well, rather than mirroring how it’d work with mailing lists? 😉

> [@alehandrof](#):
>
> (You can tell I’m biased, can’t you? 😉)

I think you can tell I’m biased too!

> [@alehandrof](#):
>
> I’d like to see Discourse preserve this mailing list pedigree, and only allow replying-to-all by default, without an option to break up the recipients over email.

I think this _is_ preserving the mailing list pedigree, but where a group is akin to a mailing list and a user is akin to a person’s email address.

So a PM to `reps-council` and `@leo` should behave as an email to `reps-council@lists.mo.co` and `lmcardle@mo.co` would. You can reply to all to continue the thread (and, as a parallel, PM), or reply to a specific person to start a new thread (and PM) with them.

> [@alehandrof](#):
>
> If someone wants to create a new thread, with new recipients, they can do so independently of the existing one. That’s how they’d do it in the web UI as well.

Well, sortof - I would see removing recipients working like if someone had clicked the “New Message” button in a PM, and removed the recipients in the composer window which pops up:

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/e/f/ef0036401dd19cfc87e724f11051a31446bc7518.png)

> [@alehandrof](#):
>
> This issue is one tough 🍪

Indeed, I don’t think that the Basecamp-style solution is bad, I just favour one with more mailing list and email parity. Ultimately I’d be happy with either, though, so I can move forward with [adding group names to group PMs](https://meta.discourse.org/t/alternative-subject-for-group-pm-email-notifications/57158/5). I think at this point someone just needs to make a decision - what does the [@team](https://meta.discourse.org/groups/team) think?

I can’t quite commit to any development time for this yet, but it’s highly likely that I will be able to work on it.

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