Is there a difference at all between subscribing to a thread and checking the email notification box when replying? Also, is it OK to keep all of my subscriptions to old threads, or should I be unsubscribing when the thread dies off?
BTW, the subscription list in the Control Panel is one of the best new features around. I can keep tabs on threads from lots of different forums, when I used to forget about a bunch of them just because they were buried in with 100s of others.
I’ll admit it: I’ve never used the feature before. Although I just subscribed to this thread. 
I think the difference is that you can subscribe to a thread without posting to it. From the looks of it, both actions mean that you’ll receive an e-mail when the thread is updated. Bear with us, though: the e-mail notification option you click whilst replying has been known to be a bit buggy, probably because of the volume of posts and the stress on the server. It wouldn’t surprise me if the subscription feature showed similar flaws.
Also: when a thread dies off, you just wouldn’t receive e-mails about it anymore. Keeping old subscriptions doesn’t tax the server.
I think.
Deleting old subscriptions puts more strain on the server than not deleting them–after all, if you keep them, the server needn’t do anything.
I’ve used the subscribe feature a fair amount, and I haven’t had any problems with it. I also don’t notice any problems with the e-mail notification, but I still get intermittent notices. Remember, it only sends out new notices when you visit and log in. Since I tend to browse logged out when I’m not at my computer, I don’t get that many notices.
Until someone revives a two-year-old thread.
I think when you sign up to receive email notification you are automatically subscribed to a thread… which seems, well, stupid somehow.
I’m not sure exactly what you’re getting at here…Do you think it takes up too much space? I agree, it’d be nice if there were a way to handle e-mail notifications without taking up server space, but that’s probably impossible.
I think there’s always been a list of threads to which you were subscribed, and now is the only time you’ve been able to see it.
What confused me was that, after I tried them out, they seemed to do the same thing, but had totally different names. Personally, I would totally dig a subscription list that didn’t email me notifications, so I was kind of hoping they were different.
That way, I could have a convenient list of my favorite threads without the hassle of deleting 100s of emails, and without the server load of sending 100s of emails.
That’s true, ultrafilter. I guess I didn’t really think about how the information was stored.
You could always use the bookmark feature of your browser or create a document on your hard drive to keep a list of interesting threads.
Could the email function be turned of somehow (no emails sent)? If that could be done while keeping the ability to subscribe to threads, people could be told to check their subscribed list to check for new replies. Of course, you’d need to check that there would be a net benefit on performance (i.e., not sending emails versus more accesses to the subscribed list).
This would make my day. I’d love to have a place to keep track of threads I didn’t want to forget about, but I’m not interested in having my inbox clogged with notices (that, apparently, aren’t 100% reliable).
YMMV, but I have a filter set up on my account to funnel all of the notices to an SDMB folder, so I can purge them easily, and they don’t clog up my regular mail. Since I’m on this damn board constantly, and checking the subscribed list regularly, I don’t need to rely on the emails.
Arnold, I thought about bookmarking, and have for a couple of choice threads, but it doesn’t tell me if there are new posts, I’d have to check each thread to find out. My habit now is to check the subscribed list first thing, and read all the new posts. Only after I go through all of those, do I go to each forum to check out what new threads are around. It has absolutely made my SDMB experience better, more bang for the buck, if you will.