# 'Watching' for first messages only **URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-for-first-messages-only/35143 **Category:** Feature **Tags:** notifications **Created:** [October 31, 2015, 11:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-for-first-messages-only/35143 "2015-10-31T23:09:51Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 18
### Author: ![bneff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@bneff](https://meta.discourse.org/u/bneff) #### Post date: [November 5, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-for-first-messages-only/35143/18 "2015-11-05T21:26:11Z")
> [@sam](#): > > - This is the first such request in 3 years, its obscure and I do not think the complexity is justified. From a cursory search, here are a few times this has been requested in the past: > [@Get notified of new topics, but not posts](https://meta.discourse.org/t/get-notified-of-new-topics-but-not-posts/12809): > > People on my forum would like to get a mail when a new topic is made in a category. Then they can decide if they want to have a look. They don’t need notifications for every new post in those topics (as is possible now). The digest doesn’t work for them, as it’s only sent once a day at minimum. [https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-official-discourse-tags-plugin-discourse-tagging/26482/90](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-official-discourse-tags-plugin-discourse-tagging/26482/90) > [@Track a Category or Tag with Notifications](https://meta.discourse.org/t/track-a-category-or-tag-with-notifications/30132/6): > > I think you have misunderstood me Michael, I don’t want to watch that in the way the current watch system is set up - I only want to know when a new thread/topic is posted about a tag I am following (and then I want to decide whether it’s worth watching or tracking or not). I’m not so sure Jeff because after a while I think it will become annoying and probably lead to people just unfollowing the tag. I’d guess that about 10% of topics per tag will be of relatively high interest, and then per… Maybe duozmo didn’t word this request as well as it could have been, but this isn’t the first time the general idea has come up. --- _[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-for-first-messages-only/35143)._