CUNY Academic Commons

I recall discussing this at some point and an idea that got a little traction was having a configurable field like "Group Name Abbreviation:" somewhere, perhaps in Email Options for the Group, with a note explaining that filling this in would substitute the full Group name for the abbreviation in email subject lines. Maybe we character-limit that field. Totally an opt-in thing for the Group admin, so if the field is blank, it shows the full Group name in the subject as usual.

Not sure if there are technical limitations to this. Seems better to me than automatically truncating all names in subjects, which could cause confusion, and might be overstepping if this is only an issue in limited cases.

I think it makes sense to invert the subject line.... maybe something like: [CAC Groups] Subject (in Group Name).

I would be against having Group Admins determine the order... that introduces complexity at a moment where we're trying to slim down, and I think standardization has value here.

I agree with Luke. We shouldn't allow the subject line to be customized on a per-group basis as there will be no consistency across all groups on the Commons. This could even lead to more support questions.

About the general formatting of the email subject lines, other applications like Redmine, Github, Meetup and Basecamp already use a similar format:

- Github:
-- New discussion - [username/repo-slug] Title (ticket number)
-- Reply - Re: [username/repo-slug] Title (ticket number)
-- From field - Name

- Basecamp:
-- New discussion - (Project name) Title
-- Reply - Re: (Project name) Title
-- From field - Name (Basecamp)

- Meetup:
-- New discussion - Group name list: "Title"
-- From field - Name (Meetup)

- Redmine:
-- New discussion and reply - (Project name - Ticket number) Title

- CAC:
-- New discussion - (Group name) Title
-- Reply - (Group name) Re: Title
-- From field - Name

One way to declutter the subject line is to put the group name in the email's "From" field: Author name (Group name)

That way, we could free up the subject line with just the topic title. This kind of breaks convention from what other sites are using, but what do others think?

I think that's a great suggestion. do you have a sense of what the subject line would look like if we implemented that, Ray?

I think that's a great suggestion. do you have a sense of what the subject line would look like if we implemented that, Ray?

This is all theoretical as I haven't looked into if it is possible to modify the "From" field to add the group name.

But if that was possible, the subject line would just be whatever the title is.

- Forum topics: Title
- Documents: Doc - Title
- Groupblog post: Blog Post - Title

okay. thank you. if there is no objection, can we please explore this?

Sure, anyone else have any other thoughts before I look into this?