Users are requesting a feature to allow email replies to private messages (PMs) while disabling email replies for regular forum discussions. ky_metro explains that non-technical users often reply via email to PM notifications, expecting their messages to reach the recipient, but these replies currently land in the admin’s inbox instead. They suggest enabling PM-only email replies to streamline this process without encouraging off-site replies to public topics. codinghorror questions why email replies can’t just be enabled globally, but others agree with the distinction. pfaffman notes a client who wants to disable email replies for posts due to formatting issues, though PM preferences are unclear. nathank supports the idea, arguing that PMs already function like emails and forcing users to visit the site to reply creates unnecessary friction. They also point out that PM notifications are delivered faster (20 seconds) than topic notifications (10 minutes), suggesting the system already treats them differently — so extending this distinction to reply behavior makes sense. They also ask why chat doesn’t support email replies, implying it’s a logical extension. The core request is for granular control: disable email replies for public topics to drive site engagement, but preserve them for PMs to maintain usability and convenience.
I would like to enable PM replies by email without enabling email replies to regular discussions. Since the infrastructure is in place for email replies, I’m guessing this is an option that could be added pretty easily.
We don’t see many users trying to respond to regular topics via email. They get it… go back to the site, post your response there.
But when PM notifications show up with someone’s name in the title, plenty of non-savvy users will write a nice long (sometimes very private) email response, and fire it off… where it lands back in my inbox. Usually I’ll forward them on to the intended recipient via email.
I could train all my users to never reply via email. But the easier way to handle it would be to gracefully take the email and convert it to a PM, send a notification to the other party, who can then also respond via email.
AFAIK this function exists, but also enables email responses for the whole site. I’m asking for a PM-only option.
I’ve a client that wants the same. Emailed responses can have annoying signatures and other botched formatting. He’d like to disable reply-by-email. (I’m not entirely sure whether he cares about PMs, though).
I would like to turn email replies off for the site in order to encourage engagement on our actual site (with all the benefits of user tracking, richer experience, higher quality posts, no email gumpf or unwanted attachments etc etc).
However, it remains highly useful to have PMs retain the email reply ability. These function very much like emails already, and forcing users to visit the site to respond increased friction and is quite counter-productive.
I note that the default delay before emailing a notification for a forum post is 10 mins (which increases the risk of missing a recent reply when you post by email), while it is only 20 seconds for a PM. So we already handle these differently anyway. Why not go all the way?
Also, we haven’t got reply by email for chat. Is there a reason for this?