# Personal e-mails directing me to The Pit
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/personal-e-mails-directing-me-to-the-pit/917306
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [August 5, 2020, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/personal-e-mails-directing-me-to-the-pit/917306 "2020-08-05T09:12:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2020, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/personal-e-mails-directing-me-to-the-pit/917306/1 "2020-08-05T09:12:23Z")
I have never posted in The Pit and never will. But my personal e-mail inbox is filling up with replies to Pit threads. What’s the deal?
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### Author:  [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2020, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/personal-e-mails-directing-me-to-the-pit/917306/2 "2020-08-05T10:28:21Z")
You may have accidentally changed the status of the thread to “watching”
There’s a little bell at the bottom of every thread that gives you options on how you want to track that thread…
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### Author:  [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2020, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/personal-e-mails-directing-me-to-the-pit/917306/3 "2020-08-05T10:44:59Z")
Apparently you can also “watch” entire categories. There’s a bell at the top of each category…
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2020, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/personal-e-mails-directing-me-to-the-pit/917306/4 "2020-08-05T12:18:49Z")
But if I have never clicked on or read a thread in the Pit, nor even the Pit menu, how did I set a Pit thread to Watch or Follow? If that’s what happened, how do I undo it?\*
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2020, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/personal-e-mails-directing-me-to-the-pit/917306/5 "2020-08-05T12:24:35Z")
As mentioned, there is a bell at the top of each category as well. That means you could have accidentally changed the setting there without ever actually opening a Pit thread.
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### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2020, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/personal-e-mails-directing-me-to-the-pit/917306/6 "2020-08-05T12:28:48Z")
I think it’s Discourse being “helpful” whenever someone links to one of your posts or mentions you by name.
You can turn off the emails in your Preferences (click on your icon on the top right, click on your name, and click on Preferences, then click on emails on the left).
You still might get notifications for these things. I don’t know if it’s possible to disable those.
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### Author:  [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2020, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/personal-e-mails-directing-me-to-the-pit/917306/7 "2020-08-05T16:37:24Z")
One may disable notifications from the Pit by clicking on the bell at the top of the Pit category and setting it to “mute”. One may also visit the preferences tab of their profile, then navigate to Notifications-\>Categories from the left sidebar, and mark The Pit as a muted category.
Note that The Pit will also be hidden from the categories page under a spoiler box called “Muted Categories”. Topics from The Pit will not appear on the “Latest topics” page, although there is a hidden “Latest _muted_ topics” [page](https://boards.straightdope.com/latest?state=muted).
~Max
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2020, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/personal-e-mails-directing-me-to-the-pit/917306/8 "2020-08-06T01:44:56Z")
Looks like that will worh. Thanks
But there no such options under email preferences
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2020, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/personal-e-mails-directing-me-to-the-pit/917306/9 "2020-08-06T01:55:27Z")
Oh. you mean under the OTHER Email heading on the same page. Got it.
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2020, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/personal-e-mails-directing-me-to-the-pit/917306/10 "2020-08-07T03:20:51Z")
Maybe Discourse is trying to let you know that people are talking about you behind your back. And not saying nice things:
> [@I pit jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jtur88-you-are-a-fucking-ass/776309/160):
>
> Words fail me.