I wanted to start a new thread so we don’t hijack other threads with issues with Discourse. If you have any issues, there are enough admins where we can try to troubleshoot it.
The first thing we have trouble with are email forwards not showing up in posts. I’m still looking for a solution.
@Bob_Carpenter: what’s the issue with code blocks? I didn’t quite know what was bothering you there.
OK. I tried to write code and it got smashed into one
line. I remember somebody saying something about there
not being markdown I can use from email to set it off.
How does this look to you?
for (i in 1:10) {
a[x] = b[x] * alpha;
}
and what if I indent it?
if (a > 10) {
y = 10;
} else {
if (b > 20) {
y = 5;
} else {
y = 1;
}
}
It’s removing indentation in code (maybe all line-initial space?).
I assume it just does some line-by-line processing and if a line
looks like a quote, it removes it. Can you see the following?
secret reply message
I typed this in but Discourse might think it’s a reply quote.
So what happened is that you get the first secret message
but not the second one I put at the end of the message.
So it must be matching any end of message stuff it thinks
is bottom posted and removes it. And it also decides that
"- Bob" is a list of one item and replaces the “-” with
a bullet.
I’m trying to put it in a code block (sending via email):
for (i in 1:10) {
a[x] =3D b[x] * alpha;
}
and with indent:
if (a > 10) {
y =3D 10;
} else {
if (b > 20) {
y =3D 5;
} else {
y =3D 1;
}
}
Looks like discourse respects code blocks (triple backtick) in emails.
Cool. Did it always do this or did you fix it? Or was
it GitHub replies by email that don’t respect the ```?
Anyway, thanks for pointing it out since I use code all
the time:
hello world
Discourse always did it.
GitHub does not respect it; maybe they’ll change it.
Looks like it eagerly chomps inline, too. Don’t know what
else it could do. As usual, there’s a relevant xkcd for this:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1638:_Backslashes
I can deal with escapes as long as I know what they are!
The big email issue is forwarding an email that you receive to stan-dev@mc-stan.org. Go ahead and try it for something simple. I believe discourse reads the email and does something clever, like everything after “forwarded message” is discarded.
If you forward an email with comments inline or at the end, all of that disappears.
If you’re an admin, on the forwarded emails, you can see the original content by finding the envelope icon on the original post and clicking. It shows what was emailed and you can back it out of there, but it’s a pain.
@ariddell, want to give it a try?
It appears there’s attention being given to these problems by the Discourse devs. I gather one reason they err on the side of stripping things is that they don’t want to reveal e-mail addresses. Forwarded messages would, for example, typically include email addresses. Avoiding revealing users’ e-mail addresses seems like an important concern given that Discourse forum posts are public.
Here are some relevant links:
Trying to forward a recent message from stan-users:
edit: looks like it got eaten. Not sure I did it right.
Arg. Yes, it was eaten. I think it might work if you don’t edit the subject. Maybe.
I just saw a reply from @sakrejda go to the wrong place. Did you use email to reply?
We may have to do some fiddling with the settings if there are issues with email replies.
No, I did it online and got one of those selector boxes but when the box says here it really means there I think it’s a mistake half the people will make at least once.
Got it. Thanks.
What’s up with notifications? I get two counters counting above my icon and I have no idea what they are. Sometimes when I click on them I get broken links. Should I just ignore this or am I missing something important?
Is there a way to turn off messages? Users are starting to direct piles of questions to me personally and I just want them to bounce somehow where I don’t have to send them all form replies to ask all questions on list.
Or is there a way to auto-program a form reply? I didn’t see anything in my account config.