Instant email notification to be removed

[rconn]

Because of the highly negative reactions to the forum email notification ("Watch Forums") option, I will be removing it from the forums tonight.

The "Watch thread" option will still be available.

 

[Steve Fabian]

Because of the highly negative reactions to the forum email notification ("Watch Forums") option, I will be removing it from the forums tonight.

The "Watch thread" option will still be available.

Does this mean that if this thread were created tomorrow, no message would be sent with the text "Because of the highly negative reactions to the forum email notification ("Watch Forums") option, I will be removing it from the forums tonight"?
Our negative comments could be summarized by "the 'watch forum' option is insufficient", but it is much better than just alerts to tell us somebody opened a new thread with such_and_such title. I do not want alerts - I want to see ALL posts, including my own. If you disable that, I'll see new posts once a month or so... As Vince, Scott and I often said: we want mail delivered, we don't want "general delivery"...

 

[rconn]

Does this mean that if this thread were created tomorrow, no message would be sent with the text "Because of the highly negative reactions to the forum email notification ("Watch Forums") option, I will be removing it from the forums tonight"?

Correct. (Though it would still be available via RSS.)

Our negative comments could be summarized by "the 'watch forum' option is insufficient", but it is much better than just alerts to tell us somebody opened a new thread with such_and_such title.

Well, no -- your comments thus far could be summarized by "this feature is horrible and my life is now an unendurable hell". There hasn't been any hint of a desire to continue using email notification in its current incarnation. And since the changes you're demanding are not possible at this point (requiring significant changes by the XenForo developers) the only alternative I see is to disable it.

I do not want alerts - I want to see ALL posts, including my own.

You cannot get your own posts via email (a XenForo restriction and one that I agree with).

 

[samintz]

Please don't remove the instant notification. I wondered why I wasn't getting any new posts and decided to visit the forum and discovered you had made the change to the new forum software. So I just set up the notifications today and find it quite usable.

-Scott

 

[Steve Fabian]

Correct. (Though it would still be available via RSS.)

Well, no -- your comments thus far could be summarized by "this feature is horrible and my life is now an unendurable hell". There hasn't been any hint of a desire to continue using email notification in its current incarnation. And since the changes you're demanding are not possible at this point (requiring significant changes by the XenForo developers) the only alternative I see is to disable it.

The problems were not with the email notification, which today worked just fine (except issue below), but with the need to access the forum by a browser to make new posts, and to search for new posts via browser. Stopping "watch forum" full-post notifications would result in my not reading the forum accept when I feel like browsing the web once a month... If the RSS feeds work properly, so that I get all posts, including posts starting new threads, in my mailbox (at least one Wordpress blog is delivered to my mailbox via RSS perfectly well).

You cannot see your own posts (a XenForo restriction and one that I agree with).

Do you not keep copies of messages you send? Without copies of my own posts neither my own threads are complete in my local archive, nor those I replied to. Please do not substitute your own judgment of what customers should have for the customers' own. In this case when I post by browser I do not have a copy, unless I use "copy and paste" into a file and separately mail that file to myself (it needs to be in the mail archives) - a much more cumbersome process. Searching my local archive is faster and requires less internet traffic - I pay by volume.

 

[samintz]

Do you know if it is possible to get the forum to pop-up a notification window like Gmail and Google Calendar do for new posts?

 

[rconn]

The problems were not with the email notification, which today worked just fine (except issue below), but with the need to access the forum by a browser to make new posts

Unless you want to write your own XenForo addon, it's extremely unlikely you will ever be able to do that. What you could do in the past is irrelevant; that software either no longer exists (SparkList) or the feature would not be supported in the new version we were going to be forced to use in another couple of weeks (vBulletin). Unfortunately, I have to make decisions based on the real world, and not an ideal but nonexistent user utopia.

Stopping "watch forum" full-post notifications would result in my not reading the forum accept when I feel like browsing the web once a month... If the RSS feeds work properly, so that I get all posts, including posts starting new threads, in my mailbox (at least one Wordpress blog is delivered to my mailbox via RSS perfectly well).

You have exactly two, and only two, choices:

1) Continue using email notification in its current form. There is a (small) chance that at some point in the future it may be enhanced, possibly even including one of the features whose lack you say make it currently unusable / undesirable.
2) Do not use email notification.
3) There is no third choice.

Do you not keep copies of messages you send? Without copies of my own posts neither my own threads are complete in my local archive, nor those I replied to. Please do not substitute your own judgment of what customers should have for the customers' own.

I'm substituting my own knowledge of what is currently possible, for the customer's fantasy of their ideal world. What you want is not currently possible; there is no way to be emailed copies of your own posts. There is absolutely nothing I can do about that, regardless of whether I agree or disagree with your wants.

 

[rconn]

Do you know if it is possible to get the forum to pop-up a notification window like Gmail and Google Calendar do for new posts?

Not exactly. The Alerts tab will show a little red popup (showing the number of posts) when you have new posts or conversations.

 

[Steve Fabian]

Unless you want to write your own XenForo addon, it's extremely unlikely you will ever be able to do that. What you could do in the past is irrelevant; that software either no longer exists (SparkList) or the feature would not be supported in the new version we were going to be forced to use in another couple of weeks (vBulletin). Unfortunately, I have to make decisions based on the real world, and not an ideal but nonexistent user utopia.

Google groups is one of many where I can receive all messages as email, and respond to them as email, without the necessity of using a browser. But - just as Vince wrote, too - needing to use the browser to reply is not the worst thing that could happen. The software world is catering to the lowest common denominator (where the money is), and the sophisticated users are thrown back to hieroglyphics (now called icons).

You have exactly two, and only two, choices:
1) Continue using email notification in its current form. There is a (small) chance that at some point in the future it may be enhanced, possibly even including one of the features whose lack you say make it currently unusable / undesirable.
2) Do not use email notification.
3) There is no third choice.

I don't care whether new posts are delivered to my mailbox by RSS feed or email notification, as long as they are DELIVERED. And I mean all new posts to any of the forums or subforums, including posts that start new threads and posts that are replies to already started threads.

I'm substituting my own knowledge of what is currently possible, for the customer's fantasy of their ideal world. What you want is not currently possible; there is no way to be emailed copies of your own posts. There is absolutely nothing I can do about that, regardless of whether I agree or disagree with your wants.

Not getting copies of my own posts will probably result in my posting essentially the same thing more than once when I forget what exactly my response was to a thread. Oh well...

 

[drrob1]

1. I have read about rss being an option, but when I posted asking for instructions, I never received any.
2. There is another option -- Rex could use a google group for support. From what I can tell, there is a core group of passionate users that is being squashed. I cannot see how this is a good thing for Rex. Or JPSoft.

 

[rconn]

1. I have read about rss being an option, but when I posted asking for instructions, I never received any.

It depends on what you're using for an RSS reader. If you click on any of the RSS icons on the forum pages (either the individual forum feeds or the global one at the bottom), you'll get the feed. If you want to use a particular reader, just copy that URL into your reader.

 

[rconn]

2. There is another option -- Rex could use a google group for support.

I'm a member of several Google Groups, so I know that Google Groups are simply awful in so many ways. I know of no commercial operation using them, and for good reason. I'd rather feed my head into the blender than try to move the support forums to Google Groups. And there is the additional minor drawback that it is impossible to import the existing messages and users -- I seriously doubt I could get more than a couple dozen of the existing 900 members to follow a move to Google Groups. And it would then become nearly impossible for any potential new members to find or browse the forums. (Not that browsing would do any good, given that all of the messages would be gone.)

From what I can tell, there is a core group of passionate users that is being squashed. I cannot see how this is a good thing for Rex. Or JPSoft.

I cannot see why the half-dozen noisy core group of passionate users can so blithely ignore the hard realities I've discussed in excruciating detail in several dozen previous messages. It doesn't matter how passionate you are; you cannot have what you want because it doesn't exist. I've spent more than 100 hours of time getting the email notifications working for the half-dozen users demanding it, and I've gotten absolutely nothing back from it (certainly no appreciation of the effort). There's nothing more I can do at this time, and there's zero motivation for me to do it if I could.

I have to make some hard choices about moving the forums while minimizing the pain to the existing user base. I'm sorry you only got 90% of what you wanted, but repeated nastygrams about the missing 10% won't wish it into existence.

 

[vefatica]

I've spent more than 100 hours of time getting the email notifications working for the half-dozen users demanding it, and I've gotten absolutely nothing back from it (certainly no appreciation of the effort). There's nothing more I can do at this time, and there's zero motivation for me to do it if I could.

I have to make some hard choices about moving the forums while minimizing the pain to the existing user base. I'm sorry you only got 90% of what you wanted, but repeated nastygrams about the missing 10% won't wish it into existence.

100 hours! I figured you were simply turning things on/off. Thanks for the effort (I mean it).

 

[rconn]

Drat -- if I'd only known I could flip some secret switches, I coulda saved myself a few thousand lines of PHP coding ...

 

[David Marcus]

It depends on what you're using for an RSS reader.

I've never used RSS other than to click on the icon in Firefox for a few websites. The resulting live bookmarks strike me as not very interesting. I'm perfectly happy to keep reading the forum as webpages, but am curious if an RSS reader would be a significantly better way. If so, I'd take the trouble to use one.

 

[samintz]

Thanks for the effort (I mean it).

Me too. I was apparently late to the party as I didn't join until yesterday. But I find the current setup quite usable.

 

[WavSlave]

The original (read: uninformative) email notifications certainly weren't much to write home about, but being able to see the full text of a post in an email message as is currently happening is very satisfactory to me. Of course, replying via email is no longer possible but I think that's probably okay for those of us who are very infrequent posters.

Rex, if this change in content is your doing, know that the work is indeed very much appreciated (as is all your work). I hope the decision to do away with email notifications has now been rescinded.

 

[Steve Fabian]

The original (read: uninformative) email notifications certainly weren't much to write home about, but being able to see the full text of a post in an email message as is currently happening is very satisfactory to me. Of course, replying via email is no longer possible but I think that's probably okay for those of us who are very infrequent posters.

Rex, if this change in content is your doing, know that the work is indeed very much appreciated (as is all your work). I hope the decision to do away with email notifications has now been rescinded.

I, too, appreciate that new post bodies are now available by email - but only if you are connected to the internet at the time. I have just switched ISPs, but my email is hosted on a non-isp server, so it should have been accumulating there. However, the last message is from the 15th at 03:02 EST (spam). The latest entries of this thread had not been delivered. I am set to "watch forum" on all forums.

 

[rconn]

I, too, appreciate that new post bodies are now available by email - but only if you are connected to the internet at the time. I have just switched ISPs, but my email is hosted on a non-isp server, so it should have been accumulating there. However, the last message is from the 15th at 03:02 EST (spam). The latest entries of this thread had not been delivered. I am set to "watch forum" on all forums.

WAD, and that has been discussed exhaustively in previous messages. If you don't go to the forum, you will not receive subsequent email notifications for that thread.

And no, it cannot be changed.

 

[Steve Fabian]

WAD, and that has been discussed exhaustively in previous messages. If you don't go to the forum, you will not receive subsequent email notifications for that thread.

And no, it cannot be changed.

It's also a question of speed. My new ISP throttles downloads after I reach a certain amount within the billing month. Repeatedly downloading the same material (the new posts change the page, so it must be sent again in toto) every time there is a new post is such a waste...What's strange is that new replies(other than my own) to old threads have been emailed earlier in the week, I have even been able to set up message rules no longer used... though they were never able to determine which forum the new message beloged to, only new thread titles include that. Do I need to reenable RSS feed for each forum?

 

[rconn]

The entire page is not resent, unless you have disabled your browser cache. Rereading an updated page will typically send < 10K, so unless you're reloading each page several thousand times, I don't believe this is a real issue.

The RSS feed will tell you about every new thread. It will not tell you about individual posts, and it will not provide anything other than a thread title.