Is there a way to message all users, or selected groups?

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Hello; I’m the new online community manager for my organization, which means I’m also new to Discourse! I’m wondering if there’s a way to message all of our users, or even just selected groups? (We currently have groups based on permissions/category they belong to.)

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There’s the @everyone group … (which apparently here on Meta, even I can mention and generate notifications, but I won’t) …

Edit: Or maybe not … seems to be a bug in changing that setting:

That said, you should be able to do this for user-created groups as much as you want.

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everyone is a meta group that encoumpasses logged out users as well, we should simply suppress it from the admin UI.

@jpalermo allow mods and admins to @mention/message trust_level_0 users and you can blast a message or mention to them.

But … warning, this is highly disruptive, I would probably disable the option after I blasted the “absolutely” absolutely critical message to the entire community.

A scenario where this may be worth doing is “my website was compromised, everyone, please change passwords asap”

Almost all other scenarios would be serviced just fine with banner topics or pinned topics.

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Also be aware non-default user settings may prevent them from getting an email notification of the mention or PM.

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We also have the global system notice which is not dismiss able and I would recommend that in this scenario.

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None of these (otherwise fine) scenarios address people who only read specific categories by email, though, and don’t visit the web site.

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Export all user emails from admin, users, feed into mass spam email tool of your choice and have at it…

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Nah, it would seem there’s no need to pay a 3rd party service since we can use the PM system in this scenario.

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I suggest you take care to not let saving some money cloud your decision.

It all depends on how many “all” is, but a dedicated email service has precautions in place so that an “email blast” won’t be seen as excessive resource use by the host or a “SPAM blast” by various email clients.

Even if those precautions were to fail, the service would be the fall guy for any blacklisting, not your site. If your site gets onto a blacklist you many find that other emails will be blocked as a result.

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We already pay an outbound SMTP service, which handles rate-limiting and deliverability factors on our behalf. It’s silly to think anyone would subscribe to a yet another service and go to all the effort of a one-time blast when such a simple built-in alternative is available.

Realistically, who on earth would choose option 2 below each time they need to notify all users about something? No one.

  1. Create a PM to trust_level_0, send, and close the thread.

  2. Subscribe to yet another service, pay for it, create a new distribution list for the “current” cohort of users, create a campaign for the one-time message, design an email template, schedule, and send.

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Haven’t been able to find the “global system notice” mentioned here:

Is this feature still available?

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@JennPatel Admin > Settings > Other > global notice

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Thanks so much @alxpck! :slight_smile:

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trust_level_0 doesn’t sound, well… all that trusting. Will members be able to see this group name anywhere (e.g. in a To: field, or something) when sending notice like this?

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I just did a blast to trust_level_0 and then (a bit late) ‘Locked the Post’, but I have since still received a reply by email from some member. Before US West becomes active, is Lock Post the correct action?

PS I have only allowed new messaging by Admins in group settings.

Edit: Never mind. I was on mobile when urgently checking the UI. Now at the PC again, there is the additional option ‘Close Topic’ (which didn’t appear on mobile, even using Desktop View). Now wait and hope it stays quiet :slight_smile: