As I was getting email notifications on a topic I was ‘watching’ - I realized it doesn’t mention in the email anywhere if you are currently Watching, Tracking, or if it was just a mention, etc.
I was thinking that might help the user understand ‘why’ they got the notification as a lot of new users in our community have been confused on why they got the email.
I also think that a link within the email to change the topic to ‘Watching, Tracking, Normal, or Muted’ so people could just click a link in the email to change would be SUPER useful/helpful!
The simple explanation is that “someone explicitly replied directly to you”… that is
they replied to a topic you created
they pressed the reply button on your post
they quoted your post in their reply
they mentioned your @username
they sent you a PM
If we were to explain all those detailed scenarios at the bottom of each email, that’d be a lot of extra copy in the app.
I suggest for now trying the TL;DR
you got an email because someone replied directly to you
(assumption is that if you created the topic, someone who replies to the topic is replying “to you”… after all you created the topic so you are super interested in replies, yeah?)
if they don’t want notifications for a topic, they can easily click the unsubscribe link in the email
To unsubscribe from these emails, click here
which gives them options, including a nuclear option… note the difference in these two screenshots…
So actually the forum I’m thinking about has it automatically set so I am ‘watching’ a specific category. So I automatically got emailed a notification as soon as a post is made (even though I wasn’t aware of why I was getting it - I had to login to view under category why).
The reason the unsubscribe button worries me - is I didn’t want to click to completely ‘unsubscribe’ from all emails (and I feel like some users might get confused/worried that is what happens when they click the word unsubscribe). And what I actually wanted to do - was just stop ‘watching’ that topic (which is different from Mute correct? Mute would mean that I get no notifications even if mentioned)?
I know its a more unusual situation anyways and I had been worried to mess with clicking unsubscribe since I still wanted emails… (Maybe the wording of unsubscribe should say “change notification settings”? Unsubscribe reads as a very direct ‘action’ in my head is all - but maybe it is just me!
In that case, you should get three checkboxes - the middle one is to stop watching the category.
Unsubscribe actions need to be confirmed, otherwise antivirus engines etc will accidentally trigger them. You don’t need to worry about simply clicking on a Discourse unsubscribe link, and you can reverse the changes via the UI if you know where to go.
Tip: you may want to adjust the category to “Watching First Post”
