The discussion revolves around creating private topics in Discourse where only the topic creator and staff can view them, ideally for a streamlined support system. SubStrider proposes this to provide a user-friendly support experience, avoiding the complexity of private messages (PMs). merefield suggests using the Private Topics plugin, while Jagster questions the need, arguing that PMs already work for this purpose. SubStrider counters that PMs are user-unfriendly, especially for new users, and can get lost in cluttered inboxes, making support less efficient and more friction-filled.
As the title says, only topic creators and staff should be able to see the topic. If there a way to achieve this?
I can then use it for support issues that community members might face.
Community members can see their own topics and staff can then respond to them and help resolve their grievances and queries privately.
I would also then promote this on the sidebar or header bar as a prominent link so that its easily accessible and understood by the members.
What’s wrong with PM? It works and looks just that.
With PM I have to tell users to create a PM and tag the staff members specifically, they will PM only one two moderators.
New users may not know how to create PMs. If they do somehow land on the My Messages page, it is overwhelming and insanely cluttered. Almost like building PM feature was an after thought on discourse.
PMs tend to get lost in the inbox, weeding out support issues will be cumbersome and add unnecessary friction.
To give a great user support experience, I would want any user (new or old) to experience the support in the same way as it is expected at every other place through support tickets.