# More granular mailing list mode
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [1월 18, 2016, 12:18오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107 "2016-01-18T12:18:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [1월 18, 2016, 12:18오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/1 "2016-01-18T12:18:15Z")
I’m making this proposal in response to the following topics:
> [@Get notified of new topics, but not posts](https://meta.discourse.org/t/get-notified-of-new-topics-but-not-posts/12809):
>
> People on my forum would like to get a mail when a new topic is made in a category. Then they can decide if they want to have a look. They don’t need notifications for every new post in those topics (as is possible now). The digest doesn’t work for them, as it’s only sent once a day at minimum.
> [@Looking for an Abridged email, to recap all activity since the last email](https://meta.discourse.org/t/looking-for-an-abridged-email-to-recap-all-activity-since-the-last-email/33239):
>
> Continuing the discussion from [What are some simple ways to improve digest emails](https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-are-some-simple-ways-to-improve-digest-emails/33224/5): I wonder how many others want an Abridged mode - one that points out every updated Topic since the last email (not necessarily recapping posts). In fact, I’m not sure how clear it is that Digest is NOT a full recap.
> [@What are some simple ways to improve digest emails](https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-are-some-simple-ways-to-improve-digest-emails/33224):
>
> Continuing the discussion from [Default email digest reset?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-digest-reset/33199/3): These are some thoughts i had about the digest - things that are simple and could help a lot: More statistics in the subject line. Number of posts, number of posters, anything more than just Digest. More details of number of posts, perhaps next to the Category, under the Topic Title. An option which ensures that every newly updated topic is listed, less Digest more Total recap. Some way to ensure that I didn’t miss a thing because …
I think the vast majority of the problems & shortcomings discussed in the topics above would be solved by slightly more granular options for the “mailing list mode”. Now that we have the option to [disable mailing list mode] altogether, I think it’s okay to give it a space of its own.
I wanna go from this:
(yes that’s a mockup but it accurately represents our current layout)
(also note how “Send me an email for every new post” aka Mailing List Mode is subtly tucked in between those other settings like it’s no big deal)
To this:
- The “digest” has been [renamed to a “activity summary”](https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-are-some-simple-ways-to-improve-digest-emails/33224/19) and moved to its own section.
- “Send me an email for every post” has been moved into the “Mailing list mode” drop down
- Mailing list mode is now a section of its own, with 3 modes, varying in degrees of delivery frequency.
- Enabling mailing list mode will override Activity Summary to avoid excessive email sendouts.
**3 modes for mailing list modes:**
- Daily updates (NEW)
Every 24h, send the user a complete list of all new posts created in that time period. Time of sendout should be some sane default, like 6am (like the daily newspaper), based on the user’s selected timezone.
- Combined updates (NEW)
Send chunked summaries of 25. Good for extremely busy forums.
- Email for every new post
Same as it always has been, with one addition borrowed from Google Groups: Mention the average number of posts per day - e.g. “about 13 per day” - so that the user can easily gauge how busy their inbox will be with this setting enabled.
---
### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [1월 18, 2016, 2:04오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/2 "2016-01-18T14:04:27Z")
A couple tweaks to suggest:
1. Put everything above in under a larger _Email_ heading
2. Rename what is called Email above to Notifications.
3. Rename Highlights Email to Highlights
A couple other ideas, which may be based on unvalidated assumptions:
1. Rename Mailing List Mode to Subscriptions
2. Under Subscriptions, list each category with a drop down including the choices you have shown above, plus the default setting of “None (Just send me notifications based on my preferences)”
---
### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [1월 18, 2016, 2:23오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/3 "2016-01-18T14:23:27Z")
> [@mcwumbly](#):
>
> Rename what is called Email above to Notifications.
I was going to suggest this!
* * *
> [@erlend\_sh](#):
>
> Enabling mailing list mode will override Highlights to avoid excessive email sendouts.
Since highlights and Mailing List are mutual exclusive, remove the highlights section, and put it into the mailing list mode select menu:
Would become:
- Disabled, only notifications
- Weekly Summaries
- Daily Summaries
- Send combined updates (every 25 new messages)
- Send me an email for every new post (about 13 per day)
---
### Author:  [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [1월 18, 2016, 5:01오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/4 "2016-01-18T17:01:50Z")
> [@erlend\_sh](#):
>
> - Daily summaries (NEW)
> Every 24h, send the user a complete list of all . Time of sendout should be some sane default, like 6am (like the daily newspaper), based on the user’s selected timezone.
I think it would be great if users could configure the time of the daily summary, but I do understand that is another setting to add to the page. For me, I would much rather get the summary at the end of the day, but I know plenty of others for whom having the the email in their inbox when they wake up would be preferred.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [1월 19, 2016, 12:40오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/5 "2016-01-19T00:40:03Z")
This is a very good idea, I like this a lot.
---
### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [1월 20, 2016, 3:14오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/6 "2016-01-20T15:14:11Z")
> [@mcwumbly](#):
>
> Put everything above in under a larger Email heading
> Rename what is called Email above to Notifications.
> Rename Highlights Email to Highlights
I’d like to revisit this if and when the [Preferences page is split up into sections](https://meta.discourse.org/t/split-user-preferences-menu-into-sections/38246).
> [@mcwumbly](#):
>
> Rename Mailing List Mode to Subscriptions
Maybe, but then again that’s also something each site could tweak as they see fit. “Mailing list mode” is after all something that was made first and foremost to appease _mailing list users_.
> [@mcwumbly](#):
>
> Under Subscriptions, list each category with a drop down including the choices you have shown above, plus the default setting of “None (Just send me notifications based on my preferences)”
That’d be kinda cool. Would require some clever UX for forums with 100+ categories though. It’s out of scope for the first iteration, but mockups for this would be very welcome.
> [@Falco](#):
>
> Since highlights and Mailing List are mutual exclusive, remove the highlights section, and put it into the mailing list mode select menu:
I don’t agree with this, because:
1. While digest mails are default, mailing list mode is a power-user mode and it needs to be clearly distinguishable as a non-standard.
2. Mailing list mode is globally on/off toggleable, so if an admin turns it on, it’s very unclear where the new functionality is at if it’s just snuck into an existing drop-down.
---
### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [1월 20, 2016, 3:30오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/7 "2016-01-20T15:30:10Z")
> [@erlend\_sh](#):
>
> That’d be kinda cool. Would require some clever UX for forums with 100+ categories though. It’s out of scope for the first iteration, but mockups for this would be very welcome
A second drop down in each row could show the tracking status for each, and replace the section at the bottom we have for that now.
A filter to show which ones have been overriden would follow conventions established elsewhere in the system and alleviate some of the pain with large numbers of categories.
---
### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [1월 20, 2016, 3:34오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/8 "2016-01-20T15:34:48Z")
Now comes the difficult part: What should the template for “daily summary” and “combined update” look like? (they will share the same template)
A daily summary from Google Groups looks like this:
So you almost just flip the existing Digest template upside down by showing new topics up top. Below, you show all new posts for each updated topic.
---
### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [3월 2, 2016, 10:37오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/9 "2016-03-02T10:37:18Z")
After trying to clear up some confusion with new users about [how the weekly digest works](https://meta.discourse.org/t/weekly-digest-sent-12-days-after-last-visit/40043) I’m looking forward to being able to recommend that certain users turn on the “daily updates” mailing list mode option when it becomes a thing.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [3월 2, 2016, 11:13오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/10 "2016-03-02T11:13:53Z")
This would have to be a 1.6 feature.
edit: still lovin’ this feature proposal ❤ particularly the “estimate how many mails this will be before I agree to it” bits.
---
### Author:  [@gdpelican](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gdpelican)
#### Post date: [3월 9, 2016, 9:15오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/11 "2016-03-09T09:15:34Z")
I’ve gotten a good head start on this here:
>
>
> As discussed here:
> https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/…38107
>
> As it looks now:
> !\[screen shot 2016-03-09 at 10 03 45 pm\](https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/750477/13630192/ef480fc6-e642-11e5-81e9-4bf30f5d6525.png)
>
> TODO:
> \- Determining when / how often to send grouped emails
> \- Designing email summary template
>
> Would particularly like some feedback on the formula for email guesstimation here:
> https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/4068/files#diff-08765a4c969575258af3892abcfa35a7R69
>
> Currently it's looking at the number of posts created over the past week / month (with the past week average weighted 3x the past month average). Could likely do better around removing private messages, whispers, other stuff not visible to the user, etc., but figured I'd start with what was laying around.
although I haven’t baked the new functionality of actually sending emails just yet.
---
### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [3월 9, 2016, 3:07오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/12 "2016-03-09T15:07:07Z")
Some UI tweaks to consider (and they don’t have to hold up your initial PR if you can do something simpler as far as I’m concerned):
1. Round the expected email/day to the nearest integer
2. If less than one is expected show it as “less than 1” in the UI, rather than 0
For the “combined updates” option, should that really be “combine updates into at most 25 posts/email”. That is, if there are 10 posts every day for 3 days, should I get 3 updates or 1? I think I should get 3. You could also show the expected number of combined update emails per day rather than the number of messages in the post, by dividing by the magic number 25.
But… all that said, do people really think it’d important to have the combined updates feature be based on batch size?
What if it the options other then “every message” were just time-based:
1. Send me 1 combined update a day
2. Send me 2 combined updates a day
3. Send me 4 combined updates a day
4. Send me 1 combined update an hour
5. Send me an email for every post
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### Author:  [@anon82356247](https://meta.discourse.org/u/anon82356247)
#### Post date: [3월 11, 2016, 10:41오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/13 "2016-03-11T22:41:52Z")
I’m hoping the distinction of [getting notified of new topics, but not posts](https://meta.discourse.org/t/get-notified-of-new-topics-but-not-posts/12809) does not get lost here. Further, I think that notification level should be able to be specified at the category level (ie notification of all posts for category 1, just new topics category 2, and no notification for category 3). And the notification would be applied to both digest delivery and individual email delivery.
---
### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [3월 12, 2016, 11:31오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/14 "2016-03-12T11:31:54Z")
> [@mcwumbly](#):
>
> Round the expected email/day to the nearest integer
> If less than one is expected show it as “less than 1” in the UI, rather than 0
👍
> [@mcwumbly](#):
>
> For the “combined updates” option, should that really be “combine updates into at most 25 posts/email”.
If we’re even gonna have the “25 messages per mail” option (I wouldn’t be strongly opposed to cutting it) I’m not in favour of going against the Google Groups convention. We might as well follow their lead as far as mailing list features go.
In your use case scenario, on a forum with \<25 updates a day, the “Daily updates” and the “25 updates bundle” is the _same thing_. This is confusing. And a **lot** of forums are in the “\<25 updates a day” category.
> [@mcwumbly](#):
>
> What if it the options other then “every message” were just time-based:
These options won’t make much sense to the user until they’ve lived with one of them for a while, which is a bit of a catch 22. In other words I think you’re presenting the user with a choice that they’re not equipped to make.
I care deeply about email, but email users have got to make _some_ concessions. If we add too many granular options to accommodate email-users we inadvertently overwhelm the average user with options they don’t care about.
Email-users are very attached to their own workflow. Our job is to not get in the way of the granular options of _their email client_.
- Want updates more frequently than daily? Go nuclear with an update for every new post. Consume to taste.
- Want updates less frequently than daily? Manage it on your own end with your email client’s filtering rules or what-have-you.
> [@Barry\_Chertov](#):
>
> I’m hoping the distinction of getting notified of new topics, but not posts does not get lost here. Further, I think that notification level should be able to be specified at the category level (ie notification of all posts for category 1, just new topics category 2, and no notification for category 3). And the notification would be applied to both digest delivery and individual email delivery.
Valid concerns, but they are both stretch goals and won’t be part of the first iteration.
---
### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [5월 31, 2016, 11:15오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/15 "2016-05-31T11:15:28Z")
This feature is finished:
> [@"Daily updates" option for mailing list mode](https://meta.discourse.org/t/daily-updates-option-for-mailing-list-mode/45029):
>
> Continuing the discussion from [“More granular mailing list mode”](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107): Mailing list mode and some related features have received several updates recently. Minor tweaks include: Renamed [“Email digest” to “Activity Summary”](https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-are-some-simple-ways-to-improve-digest-emails/33224/17) We now allow admins to [completely disable mailing list mode](https://meta.discourse.org/t/completely-disable-mailing-list-mode/37334). But most importantly, when mailing list mode is enabled, there is now a new default option called “Daily updates”. Enabling “Daily updates” will disable the Activity Summary to avoid redundant ove…
---
### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [5월 31, 2016, 11:15오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/more-granular-mailing-list-mode/38107/16 "2016-05-31T11:15:32Z")