As a Discourse staff member (moderator/admin), I want to be able to mention more than N users in a post, so that I can do things like recognize groups who worked on a project.
N is admin-definable, but exceeding this should be possible for staff without having to temporarily change the maximum for regular users.
Now that groups are mentionable this is a lot less of a need, you can easily just mention a group like @moderators and so on. If configured they will get notifications.
Not against this being a site setting, but honestly I am not sure it really is required anymore.
@sam, I disagree with your opinion that this is not needed. Let’s say, (all hypothetically) that as @downey suggested there are 15 members who worked together on something. They completed it, and now I (a moderator) want to recognize them. But, our site has a 10 mention limit. As a moderator, I cannot exceed the limit, nor can I create a group for them (Admin only). Another disadvantage of groups (for this specific scenario) is that the names of those I am recognizing are not particularly visible to a forum user. They would have to know to click the group, then click members to find out who I was talking about.
Oh wait this is just for staff? Actually I agree with this @sam it is fine for staff to be immune to user mention limits.
As the OP here, I’d say that even with group mentions this is still a thing. It’s not really useful to create a group for each and every time we want to thank a big list of people.
I just signed up to post another use case of unlimited mentions.
I’m a community moderator at the Fairphone Forum and we are planning a community trip to Amsterdam. In a group PM I’m composing a list of all the people who are going, differentiating if it’s unsure, or if they need accommodation.
My admin raised the limit to 15 mentions because I complained, but it’s still not enough. Generally speaking, I don’t see why moderators are limited in such a way. There is a reason they are mods, namely because the admins trust them.
Is there a reason group mentions are not being used here, seems like a better fit.
We are planning a trip for Amsterdam by @going_to_amsterdam
Confirmed are
Bob, Bill, Etc… notify us if you are going and are missing from the @going_to_amsterdam group
Yes there is. Mods cannot make groups! So, if we need to mention a bunch of people, our only option is to mention each one individually.
I do agree with @sam but still, I don’t see any harm in making staff except from mentions limit. @techapj can you add this to your list?
@codinghorror, is there a reason mods cannot create groups? Seems like that would be a better solution (if you prefer group mentions to unlimited mentions…).
Yeah cause you can have groups that are not visible to mods, its a rare edge case but technically the reason.
Couldn’t that be handled in the same way as categories? Unless I am mistaken a category can be admin only, but mods can still create new categories (and even make them visible to admins only!).
I would need at least 3 groups then:
@going_to_amsterdam_but_doesnt_need_accomodation
@unsure_whether_going_to_amsterdam
@going_to_amsterdam_and_needs_accomodation
Plus: As @jomaxro says, I’d need to ask my admin to create these groups (and to add users, if I get new info from people).
PS.: There is another argument: The information, who is going, and who is not, is only relevant for the people, who have been added to the PM. A group on the other hand is public (and, btw., creates far too much overhead for the simple task of listing multiple user names).
