The problem with filter sharing forcing filters on everyone has been addressed in JIRA 3.13 by Favourite Filters:
http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/JIRA+3.13+Release+Notes#JIRA3.13ReleaseNotes-Favouritefiltersanddashboards

Please upgrade to JIRA 3.13.

It is also possible to subscribe to filters that a user does not own, as long as they have been shared with the user.

There is a common them with JRA-3021 here, where individual users want to "hide" shared filters. Shared filters are really useful, but the proliferation of shared filters in a large team makes them cumbersome for people to manage.

In particular, I have some really nifty portlets that are driven by filters. These filters are useful for the portlets, but not useful for people in general. In order to share the portlets with others, I have to share the filters, but nobody wants to see these filters in the shared list.

Perhaps a solution is to manage the list of "who the filter is shared with" distinctly from "who the filter is visible to".

Hi Melissa,

The best way to subscribe an email list to a filter is to create 'dummy' users for each group and subscribe these users to the appropriate filters.

Thanks,
Brian

I'm managing implementation projects in jira, and I want to be able to setup filters for each dev in a project, and subscribe them to their own filter so they receive daily updates of their open tasks. However, I can't subscribe an individual user to the filter. I don't want to share all 15 of the filters and ask them to subscribe, I need to do it so they are definitely getting the email lists. Is there a way to do this?

Darn, I just noticed you can actually also subscribe to group-shared folders. I was always looking for the subscription link right where it is when i look at MY filter. In the case of shared filters, it's only available in the "manage filters" screen.
I guess this issue can be closed, or renamed to "ability to share filters with multiple groups"

Yes, that too, absolutely

Agreed - it would be nice to share the filter with multiple groups perhaps - so as the users who can view the filter can be more specifically defined.

It will do for now, but as the usage of jira grows in the company and extends to much more then the development team now, it is a bit "annoying" that non-dev people get our stuff in their filters

No Problems! Let us know if this addresses your requirements sufficiently.

Regards,
Keith

Oh, sorry Keith, I must admit I didn't try the global sharing.. only group sharing.