Send email notification only when @mentioned

We’re aiming to reduce alert fatigue. During a session one of our users requested the following: “Can you make it so I only get emails when I’m mentioned, but still get the other notifications when I visit the platform?”

Unfortunately the current setting requires users to forgoe email notifications completely OR reduce what they watch on the platform.

The image shows an interface option for managing email notifications, allowing a user to choose to be emailed for activities such as being quoted, replied to, having their username mentioned, or for any new activity in watched categories, tags, or topics, with the current setting on "always." (Captioned by AI)

Would it be possible to separate @mentions from the other notifications as an email?

Ideally a user could have a configuration as follows:

  1. Only Email me when I am @mentioned
  2. Present me with watching, mentions and replies as notifications in Discourse.

I could see this option being very popular with our userbase

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I could see it being useful to split most (if not all) of the various actions listed there into their own separate options, something like this:

  • Email when I am:
    • Quoted [always|…]
    • Replied to [always|…]
    • My username is mentioned [always|…]
    • When there is new activity in my watched categories, tags, or topics [always|…]

(I grouped those last three because I would expect people who are watching things probably want the same notification settings for all three types of watched collections, but I may be wrong about that)

As a user, I think I might be slightly annoyed if I had to change each one of those separately, but since nobody has stormed the LinkedIn HQ over their egregious notification option mess, perhaps it’s not a huge deal for people to have to change four settings. It would be possible to have a “change all” mechanism, too, but I can’t think of a way off the top of my head to make that UX not be potentially confusing.

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