Discourse: Too Many Emails & Turn Off AI

Framework Laptop 13
,
1

I’m new to Framework and Linux, but my questions are about the Discourse forum itself. I didn’t see anywhere more proper to post this, but as I have a 13 Intel Ultra this was the closest place I could find to ask this. Also there don’t seem to be any relevant Tags, so sorry about choosing irrelevant ones, two tags are required it says.

Discourse I’ve used as a forum member elsewhere but it so malleable that this forum is a fair bit different from the other. In setting up my account I found:

  1. an email preference that indicates:

“Email me when I am quoted, replied to, my @username is mentioned, or when there is new activity in my watched categories, tags or topics”

Options are never/when away/always iirc.

Next thing I knew my email inbox was overflowing with dozens of notifications, most on topics I’m not interested in.

So I’m interested to know from the admins if this setting can be split/modified into two settings after the word “mentioned”. I’m not always logged in but would like notifications from the first part, but not necessarily the second. In fact, I don’t know why I got so many notifications on topics I’d not even visited, not aware of having created any ‘watched categories, tags or topics’. Maybe I set up the account too quickly, will try to go back thru at a calmer time.

(Edit: I did find in User-Preferences-Tracking-Categories to watch that there were about six entries, I must have added them, but the fine print indicates emails come for all new content in effect, so I removed all the entries and will see what happens. Maybe when I visit the forum I just skim the new tab for anything interesting and manually select to watch/track the topic…)

  1. I see a bunch of AI icons around the forum but no apparent way to turn them off. I don’t want anything to do with ‘AI’ so would prefer to turn off the icons and features. I’ve turned them off at the Firefox browser level but that doesn’t carry over here.

Anyway, thanks to those who had the patience to read this and those who offer info/help.

Could the Framework Community Forum Be Made More User-Friendly?
2

the only way i have found so far to get rid of the ai bulshit is use ubo to make a custom filter to remove the button

3

Those “AI icons” are part of an Discourse addon. Apparently administrators can disable the buttons for themselves but normal users cannot. I saw those discussions on the official Discourse forums and right now there is no plan of the Discourse team to include a setting for opt-in or opt-out of this feature.

4

Thank you, @Nertaam

5

OK thanks @Castor_Marshall , I’ll just try to ignore the icons then. I suppose one needs to be a Discourse Admin somewhere to monitor the “official Discourse forums” you refer to. Am not one yet.

Do you have any idea how to reduce the email notifications? I thought I’d turned it off (see my edit in OP) but still have over 20 notifications for stuff I have no interest in. I participate in another Discourse forum where I only get notified when someone replies with my id or to one of my posts.

6

Check this link for the Discourse Forums:

I only get email notifications on personal messages I receive. All the others are disabled. And the forums adhere to my settings. Did you check both menus? “Notifications” and “Emails”? They seem to intertwine on some points.

7

Thanks @Castor_Marshall for the link, it is an active Topic then, good.

Aha yes thank you for that reminder.

It is a tad complex, all these settings.

When I go to User Icon (upper right) > Profile > Preferences, there’s a row starting at left with Summary, below slightly smaller a row starting Account. And, aha ok the current hierarchy is marked with color line below the entries on those two lines. Both lines have a bell symbol and the word Notifications… OK one is a list of Notifications from the forum software, one is preferences for Notifications, which can be badges on the user icon and also emails, yet there is also an email Preference. Sigh.

So, there are six, ah, kinds of, ah, categories of, ah, settings including Preferences. Each of these might have several or more, ah, sub-categories of information or options/choices, some of which are not clearly explained. OK now I’m getting a better handle on it and see how it might have been hard over the years for the software developers to pick the right words for all these… aspects of customization.

Oh wait, the first line five words/tabs are lists of stuff. Preferences, the sixth kind, is where the customization options live.

Under Preferences > Tracking > Topics is an option ‘When Assigned’. I’m not sure what assignment we are considering in this option. Can I assign things? can I be assigned? then a tickbox, maybe related to Assigned Topics or not, saying “Consider topics unread when they are closed”. Is that, hm, Topics can be ‘closed’ by Admins or lack of additional comment for 6 months. So a 6-month old Topic could suddenly appear as unread?

I suppose I went through those on the other forum I used when I started more than a year ago and from disuse and age have forgotten.

For now I’ll comb thru these again and minimize every setting and just set a bookmark for the home page latest new Topics or Posts, visit daily to see whats new and over time make small adjustments. I’m just so eager to learn more about the laptop and Linux usage that I might be not giving appropriate attention to details. Apologies to anyone annoyed.

8

Hey! I’m a bit late to the party here. Apologies. Most of the things you’re referring to can be modified under the Email, Tracking or Notification tabs in your profile settings. As for the AI prompts… yeah it’s a whole Discourse thing. I’m happy to share your feedback though. Maybe in the future it’ll be able to be enabled / disabled on a per account basis.

9

Thanks very much @Eagle . Working on adjusting the settings, there is just so much overlapping terminology and such it gets confusing for those not dealing with these terms often. For now, I’ve got several tabs set up for various Mac and Framework and Linux and Ubuntu Discourse forums, set to “latest” posts, with minimal email/notification so for now I think I have a workable method. Should I edit the title to “solved”?

I’m very much anti-“AI” and pro-“HI” so yes I would vote for an option to turn off anything “AI”. I mean, that’s why I participate in forums, to help and get help and get informed by fellow humans…