# Watching and sending notifications for keywords?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [3월 16, 2017, 6:18오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286 "2017-03-16T18:18:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Tyler\_Langlois](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Tyler_Langlois)
#### Post date: [3월 16, 2017, 6:18오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/1 "2017-03-16T18:18:49Z")
I have a use case that I think is pretty common, but haven’t been able to find an existing feature either here or in Discourse itself that fits the feature I’ll describe.
Essentially I have the need to get notified for new topics that could potentially span more than one category for specific keywords. My use case is the Elastic forums at [https://discuss.elastic.co/](https://discuss.elastic.co/) wherein I want to get notified about _any_ topic that includes the string `puppet`, which can come up in the Elasticsearch category, Kibana category, et cetera.
Right now I’m using [a script](https://github.com/danielmitterdorfer/sniffa) an Elastic employee wrote to capture these, but I’ve spoken to multiple non-technical people who have a similar need, so it feels like encapsulating this functionality in Discourse proper or a plugin seems like an apt fit.
Is there a feature I’m overlooking that could provide this, is it too specific for native integration, or is this something that would be worth doing?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [3월 16, 2017, 6:35오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/2 "2017-03-16T18:35:31Z")
This is related to other proposed work. When a certain word appears, take one of these actions:
- block post
- require approval for the post
- auto flag the post
- allow the word but censor it out
- add this tag
Cc @neil
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### Author:  [@neil](https://meta.discourse.org/u/neil)
#### Post date: [3월 16, 2017, 7:55오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/3 "2017-03-16T19:55:46Z")
Yeah this is another example of a new trigger we need based on post contents so that something (in core or plugins) can take an action.
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [3월 16, 2017, 8:05오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/4 "2017-03-16T20:05:57Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> take one of these actions:
I believe that `add this tag` plus the user Watching a tag would solve this case.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [3월 16, 2017, 8:20오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/5 "2017-03-16T20:20:32Z")
Sure I added “add this tag” as an outcome from the word match being hit. It’s a very powerful scheme.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [3월 16, 2017, 8:50오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/6 "2017-03-16T20:50:05Z")
I think this fits more as a “per user” action as opposed to a “global” action.
Perhaps a plugin that adds
> Automatically watch topics containing the following words: banana, monkey, apple
and
> Notify me of all new posts containing the following words: banana, monkey, apple
We definitely have all the hooks in-place to enable such a plugin, no core changes are needed.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [3월 16, 2017, 10:00오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/7 "2017-03-16T22:00:26Z")
Maybe but it has been requested multiple times by customers and I think it makes sense as a global.
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### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [3월 17, 2017, 1:07오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/8 "2017-03-17T13:07:32Z")
Related:
> [@Notifications for 'highlight' words](https://meta.discourse.org/t/notifications-for-highlight-words/29280):
>
> (Apologies if this has already been requested, it’s a tricky one to search for.) Slack has an awesome feature where [you can set highlight words](https://www.dropbox.com/s/9tttra5izxroye3/Screenshot%202015-05-27%2009.59.13.png?dl=0) which trigger a notification. I think that would be incredibly useful. Would it be tricky to impliment?
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### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [3월 17, 2017, 1:59오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/9 "2017-03-17T13:59:45Z")
I’m sure some users on our site would appreciate this.
Background:
Many of our users have gotten used to adding #some-tag in the body of posts from previous the previous platform they were on (Socialcast) as well as other apps out there they use every day.
I’m not a huge fan of that, but it’s hard to “untrain” this behavior, particularly now that tags do auto-complete in post bodies.
But when they do this, I also have to teach them that:
1. The topic itself is _not_ tagged when they do that.
2. People watching that tag will _not_ be notified.
3. Doing so will _not_ make the topic show up in the topic list for that tag.
Their main motivation for tagging posts is to notify groups of people (use case 2), so this would potentially be a solution for that (as would the auto-tagging depending on how that is implemented).
We could also try to retrain people to use groups for some of this, but we [don’t want to allow group messaging at this time, just notifications](https://meta.discourse.org/t/split-into-two-settings-who-can-message-and-mention-this-group/41203).
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### Author:  [@Tyler\_Langlois](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Tyler_Langlois)
#### Post date: [3월 27, 2017, 4:42오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/10 "2017-03-27T16:42:38Z")
Thanks for the input, all! 🍕
Based upon the feedback given here, should I assume that this is something that Discourse core wants to put on their roadmap, or should this functionality be taken up by the community in a plugin?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [3월 27, 2017, 10:13오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/11 "2017-03-27T22:13:18Z")
It’s been added to #releases for the longer term roadmap, not currently assigned to a release.
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### Author:  [@mpsocial](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mpsocial)
#### Post date: [6월 9, 2017, 7:46오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/12 "2017-06-09T19:46:28Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> This is related to other proposed work. When a certain word appears, take one of these actions:
>
> block post
> require approval for the post
> auto flag the post
> allow the word but censor it out
> add this tag
This would be amazing in my case as well, I’ve turned half of the forum private but there’s still a public part. People keep posting about certain private things in the public place and this would solve that problem nicely 🙂
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [6월 20, 2017, 9:44오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/13 "2017-06-20T21:44:35Z")
> [@sam](#):
>
> We definitely have all the hooks in-place to enable such a plugin, no core changes are needed.
> [@Notifications for 'highlight' words](https://meta.discourse.org/t/notifications-for-highlight-words/29280/2):
>
> Listen for post\_created and post\_updated and generate notifications whenever the raw contains one of the highlighted words.
Can someone point me to a plugin that does something similar?
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### Author:  [@tday2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tday2)
#### Post date: [4월 25, 2018, 2:58오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/14 "2018-04-25T14:58:32Z")
We would also be interested in this function.
We use Discourse internally and application owners would like to be notified when users mention their application; e.g. application X is down.
Additionally, brand and marketing managers would like to be notified when a particular brand or model is mentioned; e.g. ACME widgets are the best.
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [4월 25, 2018, 4:07오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/15 "2018-04-25T16:07:33Z")
This is available in this plugin:
> [@Discourse Saved Searches](https://meta.discourse.org/t/saved-searches-plugin/67901):
>
> discourse2Summary Discourse Saved Searches allows users to save searches and be notified when any new topics or posts match the search criteria.hammer_and_wrenchRepository Link [https://github.com/discourse/discourse-saved-searches](https://github.com/discourse/discourse-saved-searches)open_bookInstall Guide [How to install plugins in Discourse](https://meta.discourse.org/t/install-plugins-in-discourse/19157)Features Following from the new watched words feature that takes action on bad words, here’s a plugin that lets people save a list of searches and get notified if any new topics a…
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [4월 25, 2018, 4:07오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-sending-notifications-for-keywords/59286/16 "2018-04-25T16:07:37Z")