When I start a new post, I get an e-mail notice when someone has replied to the thread. Great!
But if I respond to a thread, I do not always get notice that a new response has been posted. If I subscribe specifically to the list, I do get that e-mail. But sometimes, even without subscribing, I get e-mail notification of a response. Basically, it is inconsistent in whether or not I get an e-mail about a response posted when I do not subscribe to the list. Any idea why and can I change anything in my setting so that I get an e-mail about a response posted on any thread to which I have contributed?
Further, when the board is slow, I think it’d be great to get responsed e-mailed directly to people. I’m imagining that this would slow things down or just isn’t possible - is that correct?
Tibs.
There’s a setting in your control panel for email notification, i.e. you’ll get an email each time someone posts to a thread to which you’ve already posted (including, presumably, the ones you’ve begun).
But I’ve also noticed that even though I have that box checked - making email notification a default - when I am posting that box is not always checked, and I have to remember specifically to check it myself.
As I look below this window right now, it’s not checked. But when I was responding in another forum earlier, it was.
Ahhhh, thank you, Dantheman. I will make sure the box is checked from now on.
If we can check this box - what then is the purpose of subscribing to a list?
Tibs.
You only need to check the box once per thread.
The “Email Notification: emails sent to you whenever someone replies. Only registered users are eligible.” box is unchecked by default. I personally recommend that people not use the feature because it puts additional load on the server. Instead keep a list of threads that interest you in you browser bookmarks or in a file on your hard disk.
Subscribing to a thread and checking the Email Notification box have the same effect. The “subscribe to thread” feature has the advantage that you can subscribe to a thread without having to post in it.
Ok, so that’s a big change from the old format? I mean, when “email notification” in one’s profile/settings was checked in the old format, you would automatically get an email when someone posted to a thread you had already posted to. This is not true now (at least not for me); I have that checked, and I only get emails intermittently.
By the same token, at the bottom of each thread there is a box for email notification. If your personal profile has “email notification” set to default, then why isn’t it actually set to default in each thread you post in?
In other words, why is that setting even available if I have to remember to check the box anyway??
Because I’m not remembering to check it (and because I’m assuming the default in the control panel actually works), I am missing a lot of messages.
[By the way, I already posted to this thread once (obviously), and I did get an email notification that someone else posted after me. But as I am posting right now, that box is NOT checked. Am I going to have to recheck it every time?)
Emails can be intermittent because the server is so busy, and only because you get an e-mail if someone posts to the thread after your last visit. Why is the checkbox not defaulted in the reply window if you choose that to be the default in your user CP? I don’t know, maybe it’s a bug, or maybe it was caused by some of the customisations the administrators have applied to the reply window. In any case, I will repeat my recommendation from before: Instead, keep a list of threads that interest you in you browser bookmarks or in a file on your hard disk.
You also ask: “But as I am posting right now, that box is NOT checked. Am I going to have to recheck it every time?)” I answered that question in my previous post: You only need to check the box once per thread. As soon as you reply once to a thread with the box checked, the thread should show up in the list of subscribed threads in your user CP.
An additional problem is that there are several ways to post a message. At the bottom of any thread, there’s a box for “Your reply”; just type and click “Submit Reply”. But there’s also a button for “Post Reply”, and you can click the “Quote” button to get the post reply window up.
Now, I clicked the “email notification” box when I posted to this thread earlier. It’s not checked now. I take your post to mean that even though it’s not checked, I’m still going to get an email because I checked the box earlier. Ok, that makes sense, and it’s fine with me.
The main problem is that if one forgets to check the box at any point, one will not (apparently) get an email notification - even if he/she has that box checked in the CP. It does sound like a bug, and a darn big one, for if I checked that box in the CP, I would then assume that I would not have to check it again, at any time. But since there’s a bug, that logic can be tossed out the window as being false.
Perhaps the best way for me to handle it is to simply remember to check the box the first time I post to a thread or click the subscribe button for a thread. That sounds like it would cover everything. But, as I said before, the drawback is that one doesn’t always remember to check that darn box. 
By the way - slightly off topic - when I do get the notification, this appears in the email:
This isn’t true, at least for me. While I was composing these past two messages, I received two notices about new messages at a Stephen King thread (yes, two notices, same thread). Is this just me?
No, I get e-mail alerts while still visiting the board - sometimes while still reviewing posts in the very thread that I got the alert about.
Tibs.
dantheman, the board doesn’t actually keep track of your visits to individual threads, but of visits to the board as a whole. I’m not entirely certain what the software considers a “visit”, but page requests might count, and posts certainly do. So, what happened would be something like this:
You posted to Stephen King thread at some time in the past, and subscribed (either automatically or manually).
You opened another thread here
Someone posted to the S. K. thread
The board noticed that the post was after your last “visit”, and notified you
You opened some other thread here
Someone else posted to the S. K. thread
Board again noticed that this was after your most recent visit, and that it hadn’t notified you yet this “visit”
Board sends another e-mail
Does this make sense?
Humm…
Ok. If I was still on the board, although on a different thread, when the first new post to the SK thread is made, then I’d get an email from the board. But then if I’m still on the board, albeit on a different thread, it shouldn’t email me a second time - it knows I’m logged into the board (never mind being on the thread itself).
It just seems to me that it’s a bug in the system. I think this bug existed in the last software version, too, and it’s not a horrible, pain-in-the-ass bug.
Now that Arnold has cleared up the email notification thing, I’m being extra-careful to click the box the first time I post to a thread.
I suppose it might be considered a bug, but there’s really no fix. There’s no good way for the server to know what threads you’re actually looking at… At best, it might know which ones you’ve requested, but there’s no way (without some really ugly Java/Javascript and server-side coding) to know which pages you’ve stopped looking at. So, for all the server knows, you’ve still got that thread you were looking at last week up on your screen.
Ok - and thanks for the replies (sorry about the hijack, Tiburon) - but what if one logged out after posting to a thread? Hm, I should try this (will do tomorrow when the connection’s faster)…
Just wondering if I post to thread A, then log out, then receive an email notification, will I then receive a second one? The system should not recognize me as being logged in, so it should wait until I go to the thread and leave it again (log out again?) before sending another notification.