Mute for everyone

Sometimes a point — one item Scout raises, with the proof behind it — is genuinely not worth anyone's attention, and it is not worth each person hiding it separately. Mute for everyone is the Owner and Admin action that takes one item out of the whole workspace's view, with a reason on the record, and puts it back just as easily.

Mute and Hide are different things

• Hide is personal. It removes an item from your own view and changes nothing for anybody else. Any Member can hide.
• Mute for everyone is workspace-wide. The item leaves every Inbox, every count, and every morning brief. Only an Owner or Admin can do it, it always carries a reason, and it is reversible.

Muting is not deleting, and it does not stop Scout reading your tools. Scout keeps observing the whole time; it simply stops putting this item in front of people.

Mute one item

1. Open the item in your Inbox. It must still be open — an item that has already settled cannot be muted.
2. Open the item's actions menu and choose Mute for everyone…
3. Read the dialog. It is headed WORKSPACE-WIDE · AUDITED and says what will happen: "This point will leave every Inbox, count, and morning brief without being deleted. The reason and your name stay in activity history."
4. Type a Reason. It is required, up to 500 characters, with the hint "Required · saved with the audit event" and a live character count. The placeholder asks the useful question: "Why should everyone stop seeing this point?"
5. Choose Mute for everyone. The button reads "Muting…" while it saves.
6. Read the confirmation — "1 point muted for everyone." — and choose Done.

Write the reason for the next person, not for the log. "Customer cancelled this order by phone on 3 September" tells a teammate in six months what "not relevant" never will.

Mute several items at once

Bulk muting works from a team scope or the All scope, not from Mine.

1. Set the scope pill to a team or to All.
2. Tick the rows you want. The toolbar appears with the selected count under the heading ADMIN ACTIONS.
3. Choose Mute for everyone…
4. The dialog lists the first three items by account and title, then "And N more selected points". Type one Reason that covers all of them.
5. Choose Mute for everyone, then read the result: "N points muted for everyone.", or "N confirmed · M need attention" with a line per item that did not take.

Each row is checked and recorded separately, so one stale item fails on its own rather than spoiling the batch. The reasons you may see are that your workspace role changed, that the item changed elsewhere, that it cannot be changed from its current state, or that Scout could not confirm the saved change.

How a muted item appears afterwards

Muted items go to Settled, the searchable archive of closed work. In the archive a muted item's close reason reads Suppressed, and its receipt records "Suppressed for workspace" with your name, the time, and the reason you typed. Receipts cannot be edited afterwards.

You can find muted items deliberately: in Settled, filter by close reason. The filter offers Handled, Dismissed, Cleared by evidence, and Suppressed. See The Settled archive: searching past work.

Unmute and bring it back

Reopening a muted item needs an Owner or Admin — an ordinary Member cannot undo a workspace mute, which is the point of it.

1. Open Settled and find the item, or open it directly from a link.
2. Choose Unmute for workspace on the row, or open the receipt and use ADD BACK TO INBOX? → Unmute and add back.
3. In the dialog, type a Reason — the placeholder asks "Why should this point return now?" — and choose Unmute for everyone.

The note beside the control explains what returns: "Unmuting lets this signal reach the inbox again for this account. Scout kept observing the whole time, so it returns with current evidence." Dates and evidence are recomputed on return rather than replayed, so an item comes back with today's facts, not the ones it had when you muted it.

Good to know

• A mute takes no close note. The Reason is the record instead, and it is required — Scout will not let you mute without one.
• Muted items stop counting. They leave the section counts, the scope counts, and the morning brief, which is exactly why muting rather than ignoring is the right answer for noise.
• Muting is the only closure a person can undo across the whole workspace. Items Scout settled on evidence — the reply landed, the invoice cleared — cannot be reopened by hand at all.
• If the same kind of item keeps needing a mute, rate it Not useful or Wrong as well. Verdicts feed back into how Scout weighs that kind of point; a mute only clears the one in front of you.