Over at Specifiction, we’re experimenting with using Discourse to replace archaic W3C mailing lists. However, many of us still prefer a primarily email-based experience, with Discourse serving as a delightful browsing interface instead of the primary way of discussing.
I see there are a number of threads in this direction, including several discussing the “email in” feature. For me, the biggest problem is that whenever I reply to a thread, I get an email containing my own reply! Since this message was “sent by me,” it’s just silly and annoying. Indeed, it’s always a disappointment when I see a notification on my phone: “oooh, new Discourse reply!” and then click on it only to discover it’s the message I myself sent.
We’re using this guide for getting emails in the forum, by the way.
For us we love the fact that your own inbound email generates a notification. This helps confirm to the user that their message was posted, especially since there are many instances currently where posting fails silently. Right now, we can tell users if they don’t get an email notification, then their message didn’t post. With your suggestion there would be no real way for the user to determine if their message had posted without having to visit the website.
Plus most “old school” email listservs (mailman, LSI) send you a copy of the message you post to the list, so I would think users that you’re migrating over to Discourse would be more familiar with this “confirmation” style of posting.
And since inbound email can fail in weird/silent ways right now, I think that the echo is very important until those kinks are worked out. When there is better reporting back to the person who attempted to post via email when their message posting failed, I could understand it being desirable to have an on/off for the message echoing.
My users are requesting this feature as well. It would be great if it could be a per-user option as well. I agree though that the silently dropped email issues should be fixed before this would be completely useful.
Did something change regarding Discourse echoing the original the email poster their email messages? I’ve gotten several complaints from our email only users saying they’ve sent topics that they didn’t think got posted because they didn’t receive a copy of their message after it was posted to the forum.
I just tried in on a list on our forum (v1.3.0.beta4 +136) and indeed, I did not get echoed on my own post.
Looks like I need to do some more specific testing with my environment then. Maybe the echoed message is getting blocked somewhere along the way. I’ll update this post if I find out what might be going on.
I just checked my Mandrill log and it doesn’t show that an echoed message was generated for the emailed in topic that I was testing with.
@watchmanmonitor Are you already watching the category that you’re receiving email notifications for? In my case, I am not watching the category, but I think our email users still expect notification that their message has been posted to the list, even if they aren’t currently watching that category.
So, I would say there are three possible scenarios, my preferred outcome is listed for each one:
You have enabled the preference Send me an email for every new post (unless I mute the topic or category)
You should always get an email, regardless of if you made a new post via email or via the web.
You have the default out of the box message tracking and you create a post via the web.
You should not get an email as you’re already getting visual feedback from Discourse that your post has been added to the forum.
You have the default out of the box message tracking and you create a post via the email.
You should optionally be able to get emailed a copy of your post. This allows users to get a feedback loop that their message has successfully posted. I can understand why you would want to turn this off on high volume forums, but without it on low volume forums, our members have to check the website (or email me if they forget how to check the website) to know that their message has been posted. We would prefer that the echo option in this scenario were enabled by default.
I don’t really agree with that 1.1 post on the web, I can see it right there.. I don’t need an email copy too (unless I’m a packrat, etc, so that’s your 3.1 point from above)
As for 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 above, those are user options right now.. just add the relevant Categories to your Watched list.
And 2.1 above seems to conflict with 1.1, and I’d vote for 2.1.
tl/dr - if we post on the web, we don’t need a copy of our own post. If we post via email, getting a copy of our own post allows us to know it happened, and we can see any typos/errors/wrong-on-the-internet we’ve committed.
내가 쓴 게시물에 대한 이메일 알림을 받을 수 있으면 좋겠습니다. 제 사용 사례는 다음과 같습니다. 오래된 논의를 막연하게 기억하고 있을 때, 그게 구식 이메일을 통해 이루어진 건지, 아니면 Discourse를 통해 이루어진 건지 알 수 없습니다. 만약 Discourse의 모든 내용이 이메일로 복사된다면, 이메일에서 무언가를 grep 검색해서 어디에 있든 찾을 수 있을 것입니다. (또한, 모든 것의 사본을 이메일에 두는 것은 비상 시 백업으로 좋은 추가 계층이 됩니다. 그리고 이미 본 포럼 게시물의 이메일 사본을 아카이브 처리하는 것이 개인적으로 부담스럽지 않습니다.)
설득력이 있을까요? 이메일 설정을 살펴봤는데, 내 메시지를 이메일로 다시 보내는 옵션을 찾을 수 없습니다.
제가 제대로 이해했다면, 그걸 위해 “단순히” 메일링 리스트 모드로 전환하기만 하면 됩니다:
업데이트: … 하지만 그렇게 하면 카테고리 구독을 포함한 모든 알림 설정이 무시되므로, 당신의 Discourse 설치 환경에서 게시된 모든 게시물(EVERY SINGLE POST)을 받게 됩니다.
업데이트된 업데이트: 카테고리를 하나도 감시(watch)하거나 추적(track)하지 않는 경우에만 그런 것 같습니다. 카테고리를 감시하거나 추적하면, 해당 카테고리에 속한 모든 메시지를 받게 되며, 이는 ‘감시’, ‘추적’, 또는 ‘첫 게시물만 감시’ 상태와 관계없이 마찬가지입니다.