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ER: Email response as a reply

This is an enhancement request (ER), and I am guessing it is nontrivial. I am logging it only to record the need as well as share feedback from our users:

Ability for a member (must be a valid member, of course) to respond to an email notification that will be added as a reply.

Hello Rob,

basically this is a nice suggestion but I am not quiet sure how to handle this internally. So you want that an user answers to a notification mail and its added automatically as a reply to that topic? I think for this kind of stuff you have to write some application which monitors/scans your mail-server because you cannot directly send a mail to a PHP-script. I think this is not even possible with a WordPress-extension as long as you dont connect it with another application via an API which can handle this.

If you want to support the development of Asgaros Forum, you can leave a good review or donate. Thank you very much!

Yeah, I’m guessing it is nontrivial as mentioned. This capability exists in some of the major community platforms such as Jive, Lithium and a few others. As you say, I think it will require some sophistication which may be outside the scope of this plugin.

What motivated me to add the suggestion here, above and beyond my own wishes, is that some of our users (who are very non-technical) started replying to the notifications they received about new replies to where they were subscribed. When they did not see the response go in to the forum, they actually tried again several times until I responded back to them that it could not be done and they would have to login to make the reply. This represents a great use case, but that doesn’t mean it can be done.

Quote from Rob-Asgaros on February 4, 2018, 1:14 pm

What motivated me to add the suggestion here, above and beyond my own wishes, is that some of our users (who are very non-technical) started replying to the notifications they received about new replies to where they were subscribed. When they did not see the response go in to the forum, they actually tried again several times until I responded back to them that it could not be done and they would have to login to make the reply. This represents a great use case, but that doesn’t mean it can be done.

In that case an easy fix is to add a disclaimer to the subscription notification emails.

“To reply, you must login to the forum.  Email replies will not be received, and will not be posted to the forum.” etc.

Rob has reacted to this post.
Rob
Quote from collab on February 4, 2018, 6:25 pm

In that case an easy fix is to add a disclaimer to the subscription notification emails.

“To reply, you must login to the forum.  Email replies will not be received, and will not be posted to the forum.” etc.

Excellent suggestion! Would it be possible to add this in the next release, whenever you plan to do it? Seems like an easy change.

Just keep in mind that you can change the notification-address in the general forum-settings. I am using a no-reply@asgaros.de address to make it clear that answering will not have any effect.

If you want to support the development of Asgaros Forum, you can leave a good review or donate. Thank you very much!

I totally forgot about that and have changed it. Nonetheless, especially for non-technical members, it wouldn’t hurt to add some text as noted above. Thank you for the reminder (and I’m still getting used to all the nuances!).