Web-based "Notification Center" that batches notifications on a per-item basis
Problem to solve
Currently, GitLab sends all notifications via email immediately after an action happens. If I am a project manager and I track an average of 50 issues or merge requests, and each one gets an average of 10 comments a day, I receive 500 emails every day. This is non-useful and causes me to waste upwards of an hour a day evaluating whether emails for individual actions are actionable and deleting them.
Intended users
Project managers and QA personnel who need to keep track of a large number of Issues and Merge Requests face a barrage of email spam, impairing their ability to do their job.
Proposal
Collect notifications on a web-based "Notifications" page, and organize notifications on the basis of items, not actions. So in the original example, the page would have 50 items (one for each Issue/Merge request that had activity) rather than 500 items (one per action in each of the 50 Issues/Merge Requests).
In addition, separately highlight mentions, as they tend to be the most actionable notifications.
Permissions and Security
N/A
Documentation
Documentation changes would be required to document the new style of notifications.
Testing
The risks would be small. I believe the "notifications are per item" approach is superior to the "notifications are per action", approach, because grouping related actions into the item they affect offers a significant improvement over legacy email workflows in which you receive a barrage of items you must individually read and then quickly delete, wasting time and causing mental fatigue. "Notifications are per action" maps better to email, but email sucks and becomes overwhelming for anything with a lot of activity.
What does success look like, and how can we measure that?
Success looks like people being able to successfully follow large numbers of Issues and Merge Requests across multiple projects without spending hours deleting emails every morning and going insane. :)
People who track small numbers of projects and like email should be able to receive immediate per-action email notifications if they prefer.
This is similar to, but not exactly the same as https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/10328. With this proposal, if I'm following 50 Issues/Merge Requests, and each gets 10 comments, I see 50 items in my notification center, rather than getting 500 web-based notifications I would get with https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/10328.