bothersome E-mail thread notification

[TCO]

Don't let the title put you off. I just needed some spice to get people interested. Let's find out how people feel about the e-mail notification feature.

There are two issues:

1. How much do people need it/like to use it?

2. How much does it inconvenience people.

In terms of number 1, let's put 2 simple levels in:
A. Don't use it/don't need it
B. Use it/need it

In terms of 2, let's put 2 simple levels in:
A. Am sometimes inconvenienced by it
B. Am never bothered by it.

Instead of doing 2 polls, I'll just do 1 covering the complete topic. (4 options.)


Feel free to expand on your vote by posting a text comment with further description of your feelings.

[Makeo]

i turned it off immediately. It was annoying.

[TCO]

I voted for the first option. Let me expand a little on that vote:

I haven't ever used this feature here. Pretty simple. Also when I've used it at other boards, it quickly became a bother. Spam in my mailbox. Also, I don't have a tough time checking where new posts have been made. And I shudder to think how many emails I'd get if I ever did use it at Poly. Considering how active these boards are. Really, gentlemen, this option is more suited to a slow-moving usenet board where you ask research questions but don't chat, the way people do here.

Regarding bother: I've often had small delays with the post registering (Is suspect that the email system is part of that.) I've often gotten unwanted message screens telling me there's a "failure to deliver". I've occasionaly lost a post or had the post not go through because of the "failure to deliver". I've also experienced some Poly down times when the server load was too high (I think this kind of system is a reasonable ocntributor to that.)

So net, net for me Poly would be better without this feature.

[SITS]

I use the feature a lot and it doesn't bother me.

I've set up a 'Poly box so all the thread notifications go into there which makes it a lot easier to manage.

I find it very useful. If I post in a number of threads or have an interest in certain ones it is nice to know when someone has posted. I have a easy link to go directly there which makes me more attentive to the thread and I offer more. I've really missed it the last few days as it does help me to keep an eye on things that interest me.

Of course I prefer to be able to get on and post and if disabling the notification option makes that possible then so be it. But a fully working board should have the option.

[TCO]

SITS,

Very interesting post. Glad to hear the opposite side. 2 questions:

1. Do you experience any of the posting bothers that I mentioned (artifacts of the e-mail notification system)?
2. What's this about the email notification being down? It's still producing those false error messages. Sounds like they disabled part but not all of it...

[MarkG]

I don't need/use e-mail notification AND it sometimes bothers me

how can you be bothered by something that you dont use?

[SITS]

Originally posted by GP
SITS,

Very interesting post. Glad to hear the opposite side. 2 questions:

1. Do you experience any of the posting bothers that I mentioned (artifacts of the e-mail notification system)?
2. What's this about the email notification being down? It's still producing those false error messages. Sounds like they disabled part but not all of it...

1) I do experience those problems - from what I understand it is due to the server being very busy. If the server was better then it could cope with it.

2) It seems to be very hit and miss at the moment. Before I could expect 20+ emails but now its about 5 with other thread going 'un-notified.' I got the impression this was because of the server load but I might be wrong.

[TCO]

Dear Markos, please try to keep up...

Originally posted by MarkG

I don't need/use e-mail notification AND it sometimes bothers me

how can you be bothered by something that you dont use?

The third paragraph of my second post answers your question...

[MarkG]

Originally posted by GP
Regarding bother: I've often had small delays with the post registering (Is suspect that the email system is part of that.) I've often gotten unwanted message screens telling me there's a "failure to deliver".

if you are bothered because it something takes more than 2 seconds and a message other than "thank yuo for your post" is displayed in the screen, i'm deeply sorry....

I've occasionaly lost a post or had the post not go through because of the "failure to deliver".

can you describe the situation more specifically? since these messages appear on the redirection screen and are in no way stoping the process of posting i cant imagine how it could have happened?

I've also experienced some Poly down times when the server load was too high (I think this kind of system is a reasonable ocntributor to that.)

the fact that we havent disabled it until now should give you a hint that it has not been a problem in our case....

[TCO]

Originally posted by MarkG
if you are bothered because it something takes more than 2 seconds and a message other than "thank yuo for your post" is displayed in the screen, i'm deeply sorry....

I never tried to say that these were of same level of seriousness as other recent problems. If you consider them to be insignificant, vote for no bother. If you consider them minor but still worth fixing, post that they bother you. Every person will have his own judgement. It's a poll...

[TCO]

Originally posted by MarkG
can you describe the situation more specifically? since these messages appear on the redirection screen and are in no way stoping the process of posting i cant imagine how it could have happened?

It happened relatively infrequently. Maybe there was someother issue involved.

[TCO]

Originally posted by MarkG

the fact that we havent disabled it until now should give you a hint that it has not been a problem in our case....

Well, you've said before that you really don't have a good handle on which features load the server. It seems reasonable that there would be fair amount of callups and instructions related to this feature. And Rah's point about time delay also implies that there is some reasonable loading from this feature.

But is there some way we could get a real answer here? Do you know? Will you share it?

[Provost Harrison]

Actually I would consider it to by nigh on useless and if you ever do it, to be more of a pain in the arse than anything because you just end up with your inbox flooded when you should remember which threads you want to check anyway...

[johndmuller]

I find the "Subscription" feature very useful, particularly for my PBEM turn threads, but occasionally for discussion threads as well. I bookmarked the Subscribed Threads page and can fetch/refresh it to see if anything is happening in my PBEMs without having to find each of them separately in the multipage forums.

The Subscription option seems to come with "E-mail Notification" as part of a package deal. Depending on the circumstances, they can both be useful but the e-mail, while it has the ability to get your attention if you've forgotten completely to look at the turn threads has a couple of drawbacks too. It can be a bit spammy sometimes, but the real spam is still far ahead in my mailbox, so that isn't a big problem; if it were, I could probably easilly filter out or sort those messages into a separate folder. More serious problems are the sometimes failure to get notified, which makes it undependable and the often large lag times (2 or 3 hours is not uncommon) between the post and the sending of the email, not to mention the possible delays within the net.

I haven't found a way to decouple the e-mail notification from the subscriptions; personally, I think I would like to have the subscriptions without the e-mail, but some may want it the other way (although they are probably already happy just never looking at the Subscribed Threads screen). So . . . .
-Is there a way to separate subscriptions and email already or some cute workaround?
-If not, is it possible to make them separate options??
-Would you please do it if it is possible???

Thanks

[TCO]

What is subscription as opposed to e-mail notification.