Flag user as do not email / suspend sending emails to a specific user

AI-generated summary

Flagging a User as “Do Not Email”

DeanMarkTaylor is seeking a way to suspend sending emails to a specific user due to expiring or bouncing email addresses. Although it’s possible to adjust a user’s email settings, DeanMarkTaylor wants to be able to revert the settings back to the user’s original values at a later time.

Codinghorror suggests using an external service like Mandrill, which automatically pauses sending emails to addresses that constantly bounce. However, DeanMarkTaylor is already using Mandrill and is experiencing issues with “hard bounces” affecting deliverability.

Codinghorror acknowledges the need for a feedback loop between the mail server and Discourse. Codinghorror mentions that Discourse has built-in bounce handling and user deliverability scores, which eventually stop sending emails to users with broken email addresses.

Is there a way to flag a user as “do not email”? (suspend sending emails to a specific user)

I understand that it’s possible to adjust all a users email settings - but at some-point I would like to undo the action and revert the email settings back to the user selected values.

Basically I am finding that some users email addresses are expiring / bouncing …
… I would like to suspend sending emails to a user.

I can then contact the user via alternative methods - or wait for them to contact me. Adjust their email address and continue sending emails to that user.

This is one of many advantages of using an external service like Mandrill.. They automatically pause sending to addresses that constantly bounce, and resume after retrying or give up on the email entirely if it goes bad long enough.

This sort of sophisticated email bounce handling is not on our roadmap at all at the moment.

Actually this is what is happening - currently using Mandrill.

Unfortunately “Hard bounces” from addresses already blocked by Mandrill appear to effect “Deliverability” and thus “Sends this hour” etc.

And obviously I setup email notification for email delivery faulires - I would like to avoid receiving these for addresses / users known to have a problem.

To be clear - not a big issue - just a little annoying - I’m attempting to reduce the noise from Discourse installations.

There needs to be some kind of feedback loop here between mail server (or service) and Discourse itself but it is unclear how to accomplish that at this time.

We have built in bounce handling for most email services today, and user deliverability scores. So we eventually stop sending emails to users with broken email addresses.