Fix or Allow Disabling Discussion Replies by Email

[sphinney]

Most discussion replies, thankfully, are done while logged in to Canvas and by clicking "Reply" on a post (or on a reply to a post). However, some people reply to discussions through email, which is a result of them receiving a notification of the discussion posts to their email addresses.

These replies by email are problematic because they are very lengthy and don't conform to the standard reply post formatting. If you haven't seen this before, I'm attaching two screenshots to demonstrate (at end of my post). The longer one is the complete post submitted via email and the shorter one demonstrates what that post would look like if it conformed to the standard reply post formatting. As I mentioned, these posts pose display problems which negatively impact the ability to read and follow the discussion dialog.

I would like to see either that these email posts get stripped down so that they follow the formatting of standard reply posts, or if that is not possible or is too difficult, then give instructors the ability to turn off the ability to reply to discussions by email. 

Screenshot of a reply by email:

Full reply to a discussion via email

How the reply should look:

How the reply would look if it conformed to standard reply format

[kyh802]

I second this.

[kyh802]

Also, I'd like students to know that they can't reply to announcements the same way. Students are hitting reply expecting it to work the same way it does for Inbox messages and the discussions, but it doesn't. 

[ProductPanda]

Comments from Instructure

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