Allow base owner to remove a collaborator from "watching" a record

[Megan_Bishop]

EDITED - What I really meant is the comments section on an individual record.

I have found that the notes section works really well to keep tabs on what is going on with a task because it date stamps them, and I can quickly scroll back through if I get confused or need reminding on something, and sometimes I want to clue in other people about something, so I @ them, but then it automatically marks them as “watching” that record. And I don’t want them to get continuous notifications every time I make a note if it doesn’t relate to them. I could ask them to “unwatch” the record, but that just adds in another annoying step that I wish I could take care of my end as the main owner of the bases for my projects/team, and then I might want to direct another comment at them, in which case they would be marked as “watching” the record again.

If they are getting continuous notifications that don’t relate to them, it will make it into a “boy who cried wolf” type of situation. They will be less likely to pass attention to them, and might miss a note that really is important for them to read and follow up on.

[Elias_Gomez_Sai]

As I can see in the Help, the notifications are only for important stuff (and not for Notes on a Record -you mean Comments?-):

Airtable - Support

Airtable notifications

When something important happens on Airtable, we let you know through notifications. You will be notified when someone shares a base with you, adds you to a workspace, @mentions you in a record, or...

What kind of notifications do you want to remove?

[Elias_Gomez_Sai]

Oh, I found this other article: if you are talking about Comments, other users are notified if they’re Watching the record. Is that the case?

Airtable - Support

Watching records

What are watched records? If you choose to watch a record, you will be notified whenever someone comments on the record. If you are not watching a record, you will only be notified if someone @ment...

[Megan_Bishop]

Ahhh, yes, thank you for clarifying! That is what I meant! I’ll edit my original note to be more clear. I have found that the notes section works really well to keep tabs on what is going on with a task because it date stamps them, and I can quickly scroll back through if I get confused or need reminding on something, and sometimes I want to clue in other people about something, so then it automatically marks them as “watching” that record. And I don’t want them to get continuous notifications every time I make a note if it doesn’t relate to them. I could ask them to “unwatch” the record, but that just adds in another annoying step that I wish I could take care of my end, and then I might want to direct another comment at them, in which case they would be marked as “watching” the record again.

[Maurice]

This has been something I wished I could do from day one. I’d take a step further and make this a base-wide setting for all records.

I’d like to set the entire base to “Watching” or “Not Watching”, so that you’re only notified when someone @ mentions you as the default.

When 5 or 6 people have been @ mentioned in a previous comment, now all of them receive every single update until the end of time, unless they manually opt-out one by one. That’s a bit much to expect of people.

In the base I’m working on right now, I have 3 people, and 30 records. That would be means having to turn off “watching” 90 times to get to that result, and then it still wouldn’t apply to future records.

[Megan_Bishop]

Yes! This is exactly what I want as well! It makes so much more sense for it to be set up this way! You might have a group of people working on a task item, but you only want them to get an alert when the note applies to them, so they are more likely to pay attention to the alert and take care of it. Seems like a much more logical way of it working.

[Nicole_Bayeur]

I agree. This is causing many emails that are unnecessary to our leadership team. It would be great if Airtable could make this update. It is pretty common within other platforms today.

[Megan_Bishop]

Does anyone know how often AirTable is taking product suggestions from these forums? I made this original post back in 2018 and almost three years later, this product request has still not been implemented.

[simonbjo]

Yes please implement this. 

[bonjourfete]

Airtable- can we please implement this? It would be so useful!!!