In the Beta group (https://beta.groups.io/g/main/message/33845), it's been pointed out that the Owners Manual documentation does not actually say how to send a Special Notice.

The requester was also hoping for there to be a link to the (future) description from the manual's Table of Contents.

I think that Special Notices can only be sent as new topics, not as replies.  And of course only by owners/moderators.  (And there is a yet unknown relationship with Hashtags that have the Special property checked.)

Andy

On Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 08:24 PM, Andy I wrote:

And of course only by owners/moderators.  (And there is a yet unknown relationship with Hashtags that have the Special property checked.)

I'm not sure what unknown relationship you are referring to. As you said, only mods/owners can send special messages. If a member tries to send a message via the website and uses a hashtag that has the Special attribute set, they see the error message 'Only moderators can use that hashtag'.. If their message is sent via email, it is rejected and the notification contains the message '500 The subject of your message contained at least one hashtag that is restricted for use by moderators only. Please resend your message without the restricted hashtag.'

Are you talking about some other relationship?

Regards
Andy

On Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 06:41 PM, Andy Wedge wrote:

On Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 08:24 PM, Andy I wrote:

And of course only by owners/moderators.  (And there is a yet unknown relationship with Hashtags that have the Special property checked.)

I'm not sure what unknown relationship you are referring to. As you said, only mods/owners can send special messages. If a member tries to send a message via the website and uses a hashtag that has the Special attribute set, they see the error message 'Only moderators can use that hashtag'.. ...

That's interesting.  You can set up a Hashtag with "Special" but not "Use by Mods Only".  So I guess that using "Special" invokes a "Use by Mods Only" override even though it is not explicitly enabled, right?  That would be a good thing to note in the Owners Manual too.

Are you talking about some other relationship?

Somewhat.  Maybe.  If someone added the Hashtag with "Special" checked to a topic, would that turn it into a Special Notice?  If a topic already has that Hashtag, would all replies to the message also be sent as Special Notices, or only the first message in the topic?

Andy I

On Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 11:06 PM, Andy I wrote:

So I guess that using "Special" invokes a "Use by Mods Only" override even though it is not explicitly enabled, right?  That would be a good thing to note in the Owners Manual too.

Maybe, although the Owner's manual already states that only owners/mods can send special messages.

If someone added the Hashtag with "Special" checked to a topic, would that turn it into a Special Notice?

I've done some additional test and it's possible to effectively turn a topic into a 'special topic' (for want of better words) by adding a hashtag with the Special attribute or by setting the Special attribute on an existing topic hashtag . What's more, ordinary members then replying to a message in that topic get their messages sent out a Special. If these messages are held for moderation, the Special attribute is not shown. This is then contrary to the statement in the manual that says only owners/mods can send special messages.  I'd class that as a bug so I'll raise this on Beta.

Regards
Andy

On Fri, Nov 4, 2022 at 01:44 AM, Andy Wedge wrote:

What's more, ordinary members then replying to a message in that topic get their messages sent out a Special.

That is not correct. This is a logging and display bug, or issue. The messages themselves don't go out as special, although they are logged as having been and although they have the Special tag in the archive. This can be easily confirmed by setting a test member to special-notices-only and seeing that the member does not receive non-mod replies to the topic.

I added a Sending special notices topic to the Owners Manual. It's the last subtopic under Managing group topics and messages.

Thanks for the feedback!

- Nina