Send notification / comment to specific user

In a previous issue management application we had a piece of functionality that we miss in Jira. Namely, the ability to send an issue notification email to one or more users.

For example, if I want to get input on an issue from someone other than the reporter or assignee I have to either send them an email to them and reference the Jira issue, put the person on as a watcher, or assign the issue to the person.

What would be preferrable would be the ability to send an inquiry / comment to a specific user such that the assignee does not change and that person does not now have to remove themselve from a watch.

Another motivation for this functionality is the use case where an assignee needs input from multiple other users. Currently in our organization, people tend to use assignment as a way of getting input to an issue.

The problem with this approach is that it turns what could be a parallel process in to a serial process. For example, if I need to get input from three people and use assignment as the way of getting their input in to the issue the input requires assigning the issue 6 times along with the latency for each step.