I like Discourse but recently ran into some issues. My hosting company and Discourse maintainer said that Discourse could not run without mailer support. It took about a month to get everything setup. That host and company are no longer in service and I have to setup a new install somewhere with a backup.
I did a surface level search through the forums to see if Discourse needs a mailer to run and I couldn’t find anything specifically.
Does Discourse need mail support or can I run it without?
I’m going to make a controversial statement. It was so much work (for me) to get Discourse setup with email support that I dread doing it again. I do not want to do it. Not Discourse itself but the finding mail providers, signing up, sending mailer details to installer, waiting for records to propagate, having mail provider get bought out, finding another mailer, sending mailer details to install, redoing with new mailer, etc. That part took a month in addition to the install.
My users do not need mail support. I do not need it. I do not want it. If me or my users are waiting on a reply to a thread they can refresh the page or use browser notifications. I do not want it!
I do not like email spam
I do not like them Sam-I-am
I do not like them here or there
I do not like them anywhere
I will not read them in my house
I will not click them with my mouse
I will not read from my inbox
I will not read from Firefox
I do not want mail here or there
I do not want mail anywhere
Please note I do like email notifications - I do not like the mail setup. Also, I need to get my forum back online again quickly and I see this part as something that can be disabled, delayed or deferred for now. I’m happy to report back feedback from my users as well.