I’ve repeatedly had to clean up posts by William Theobold where he has responded to forum posts via email. Unfortunately, the emails include a messy appended section of whatever post he’s responding to, and it gets very confusing for users (quoted prior content doesn’t shown as quoted). So I have been deleting all the extraneous crap, but it’s a pain in the butt. Maybe we should consider disabling the ability to respond to topics via email.
I actually corresponded with him a little while ago requesting that he use the app or website, but I don’t think he knows how to do it.
Could the forum software (Discourse?) be configured to filter out all the quoted content in an email thread? Seems like something that should be easy for the Discourse programmers to add as a feature if not.
The problem is that in the emails, there aren’t any embedded code markers that delineate the quoted section, plus the email clients often add a “signature” which also gets sent. It’s just a hot mess.
If it’s possible to do so, seems like that would be the best way to go about this. Not sure if that’s also going to kill the ability to reply to DM’s via e-mail (I’d guess those are done more regularly). Had no idea you could even reply to a forum post via e-mail… now I’ll have to give that a whirl . Totally kidding… you’ve already got your hands full.
Overall though from what you’ve described, seems to me this is an issue with one single user vs more widespread from your examples. In that case, if chatting with the individual isn’t resonating - even calling them out publicly - how about just restricting that user pending compliance to avoid doing it? I doubt there’s any ill will, but you as a volunteer shouldn’t need to spend time cleaning up messes where there are known ways to avoid creating them.
It’s not like they would be cut off at the knees. They will still get emails when their topics update, but instead of a direct reply button in that email, there is a button labeled “visit topic,” and that will take them directly to that topic in their browser ready to respond. It pretty gently transitions them from email to either app or browser.
Yes, I know what Caesar is doing. It just wasn’t clear whether you were giving thumbs down to the feature or a thumbs down to eliminating the feature. But now I know! Thank you.
Exactly - I’m actually 100% in agreement of your position, Gordon. My suggestion was intended as a short-term, stop gap to address this particular user whose replies are causing the issue.
Feel like bigger picture eliminate message replies for everyone is a better long term solution (not sure if that’s a board decision or whomever can make that call - I just know for sure it’s not mine, I’m just here in the peanut gallery ).
COPA has decided to disable the “Post via email” feature.
The purpose of making this change isn’t to make moderators’ lives easier. The problem with these posts is that they contain material from other people’s posts that isn’t quoted as such. That material, which is below the actual responder’s response, looks like the responder is making those statements, which is not only inaccurate and “plagiaristic,” but extremely confusing to someone reading the post.
“Watched” topics will still generate emails, and there will still be links in those emails to respond to posts in such topics. Now, the link will direct you to the app or your browser, in which you can post your response.
. Totally kidding… you’ve already got your hands full.
