[PATCH] Option to prevent notification to self

[direvus@…]

If I'm logged in and making changes to tickets, I don't see any value in getting an email about it.

For me, the usefulness of the notification system is in alerting the interested parties to the fact that a change has occurred.

If you're the one who made the change, you already know that it has occurred. Why would you want to get an email about it?

I'd like to propose that we add an option either to User Settings or to trac.ini called notify_self or similar, and make it possible to disable this unintuitive behaviour.

[mgood]

This will be addressed by #2073.

[nielsen@…]

Patch to suppress notifying self of changes one is making via web interface

[nielsen@…]

I don't think this is a duplicate of #2073. This is about getting notifications of changes one is making via the web interface, regardless of whether one is the ticket owner, reporter or whatever.

The attached patch adds an option for this issue: never_notify_self

Again, this is so that when I make a change in the web interface, it suppresses notifications to me (even if i'm in the CC, reporter, owner or other fields).

This option greatly increases the utility of notifications by suppressing spam to yourself, and only being notified of changes that other people make.

[cboos]

This looks like a User Preference to me. I don't think the Trac administrator can here make a choice that will sound appropriate for all users. Think about TracHacks, where hundreds of people collaborate on loosely related projects.

So this is really something that should be set on an individual basis, and I think that we should come up with a scheme similar to the TracIni settings, but for user settings (some existing settings would better be served as user settings: timeline's daysback, wiki space in page names, wiki hide missing pages, etc.)

[eblot]

Replying to cboos:

This looks like a User Preference to me. I don't think the Trac administrator can here make a choice that will sound appropriate for all users.

BTW,

[notification]
always_notify_updater

already addresses the original request for this ticket, doesn't it?

[cboos]

Manu, you're right: this ticket is actually a duplicate of #3093, which you implemented for 0.10.

The name of the option is a bit misleading though: at first sight, I had the impression that always_notify_updater would be about always sending the notification to the updater, regardless of the fact if he was on CC or not. But always_notify_updater = false has actually the same meaning as the never_notify_self = true suggested in this ticket.

My point about User Preferences still stands, I think.

[eblot]

Replying to cboos:

My point about User Preferences still stands, I think.

Yes, it truly does - I was commenting on the original request.

[maz]

I think this should be reopened. As far as I can tell, since r4299, the always_notify_updater option does what its name implies, i.e. notify the updater of a change if set to true. When set to false, the owner and reporter will still be notified (#3780).

So always_notify_updater no longer fills the need of a notify_self option as above. To be clearer, what would be nice is a never_notify_self option, that we could set to true to prevent the person making the change from receiving an update. I may be mistaken, but currently (0.10.3) there is no way to achieve this. Hence in my opinion this ticket is still valid. If I am wrong, please close it again and accept my apologies.

These notification options are becoming confusing. Having the word "always" on every option name does not help any. Something like this would have been simpler IMO (just pulling this out of a hat, didn't put too much thought into it):

notify_reporter = always|except_self|never
notify_owner = always|except_self|never

Of course, using this strategy, a person in the smtp_always_(b)cc field would still receive a notification when updating a ticket, so who knows. And in any case, better still would be to implement this as user preferences as per #4056.

[eblot]

Replying to maz:

notify_reporter = always|except_self|never
notify_owner = always|except_self|never

This seems an interesting alternative. always_notify_* troubles come (up to a certain level) from a wish to keep compatibility in option naming with the previous Trac releases. Maybe it's time to rename some of these options.

I don't think the user preferences can be implemented for 0.11. What do the other developers think about implementing this system-wide options for 0.11: do it make sense ?

[direvus@…]

Replying to maz:

These notification options are becoming confusing. Having the word "always" on every option name does not help any.

Agreed. The word "always" is very strange in this context. If always_notify_updater is true, the semantics are clear: we want Trac to always notify the updater.

But if always_notify_updater is false, what does that mean? We want Trac to not always notify the updater. "Not always" is ambiguous. It could mean "never", it could mean "sometimes", it could mean "almost all the time". So in the end it's not obvious to a Trac administrator how these options behave when set to false.

[ThurnerRupert]

maybe better addressed by #4056?

[nielsen@…]

Makes 'always_notify_updater = false' work as expected

[nielsen@…]

Not a real fix, but thought I'd post the patch I'm using in my Trac deployments. Just in case anyone wants a quick fix for this.

[cboos]

#3093 was marked as duplicate, which discussed essentially the same thing.

[john.ferg@…]

It seems quite a few people would like this enhancement, including myself. I suggest an increase in both priority and severity.

[adam@…]

Note that someone has written a Trac plugin to prevent notifications to updaters. You can find it here:

 http://trac-hacks.org/wiki/NeverNotifyUpdaterPlugin

[Chris Carr <rantingman@…>]

So if always_notify_owner is TRUE and always_notify_updater is FALSE, I should not receive notification emails when updating my own tickets? That would be sensible - but it's not what happens in 0.11.1 (Debian Lenny). So it seems that the original request is still outstanding (unless this has been fixed in a later version).

[anonymous]

Replying to Chris Carr <rantingman@…>:

So if always_notify_owner is TRUE and always_notify_updater is FALSE, I should not receive notification emails when updating my own tickets? That would be sensible - but it's not what happens in 0.11.1 (Debian Lenny).

Same here on 0.11.4. At work we're using 0.10.something and this feature is working correctly. I assume it broke somewhere on the way?

[spam@…]

added myself to cc.

[Sebastian Krysmanski <sebastian@…>]

Patch against Trac 0.11.4

[Sebastian Krysmanski <sebastian@…>]

I've attached a patch that works for me. It adds an option called notify_own_changes to the [notification] section. If this option is false (which is the default) you will only be notified about changes made by others. If it's true you will also be notified about changes you made yourself. I hope this helps.

Also I'm changing the version here to 0.11.4 as the problem still exists in this version.

[Sebastian Krysmanski <sebastian@…>]

Adding myself to cc.

[rblank]

Thanks for working on this! However, as mentioned in the description and comment:5, this should actually be a per-user setting instead of system-wide.

(Please don't change the milestone for tickets. This will be done by the developer who integrates the changes, according to the version where he wants it to be done.)

[Sebastian Krysmanski <sebastian@…>]

Replying to rblank:

Thanks for working on this! However, as mentioned in the description and comment:5, this should actually be a per-user setting instead of system-wide.

Right, but until then I think in most cases you don't want to be notified about your own doings. I think notification means: "Tell me when something happens I don't know of." But the user already knows about his changes.

(Please don't change the milestone for tickets. This will be done by the developer who integrates the changes, according to the version where he wants it to be done.)

Sorry for that. I thought it was an error as I couldn't find any comment that set this to 0.13.

[rblank]

Replying to Sebastian Krysmanski <sebastian@…>:

Sorry for that. I thought it was an error as I couldn't find any comment that set this to 0.13.

Ah, yes, that would be #5658: when closing a milestone and re-targeting tickets to another milestone, no comment is added to the individual tickets.

I agree that it would make sense not to send notifications to the user doing them by default. OTOH we try not to add too many config options, especially when they would be obsoleted shortly (for a certain value of "shortly") by a per-user setting.

[Chris Carr <rantingman@…>]

Replying to rblank:

I agree that it would make sense not to send notifications to the user doing them by default. OTOH we try not to add too many config options, especially when they would be obsoleted shortly (for a certain value of "shortly") by a per-user setting.

Given that the comment about a per-user setting was made three years ago, and that there have been no fewer than sixteen milestone releases since then, perhaps we could have Sebastian's notify_own_changes option included in the next release? I'm sure nobody would complain if it was then "shortly" obsoleted by the introduction of user preferences.

[Daniel Serodio <dserodio@…>]

Replying to Chris Carr <rantingman@…>:

Replying to rblank:

I agree that it would make sense not to send notifications to the user doing them by default. OTOH we try not to add too many config options, especially when they would be obsoleted shortly (for a certain value of "shortly") by a per-user setting.

Given that the comment about a per-user setting was made three years ago, and that there have been no fewer than sixteen milestone releases since then, perhaps we could have Sebastian's notify_own_changes option included in the next release? I'm sure nobody would complain if it was then "shortly" obsoleted by the introduction of user preferences.

As a "mere" user, I fully agree