canonknipser wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2017 3:07 pm
My personal opinion:
If you receive to many mails, you are going to trash them without reading.
If you are interested on the topic of a board, you will visit it quite often.
Being active on a lot of forum platforms, I disabled all email-notification (except for those where I have to act as a administrator or moderator) because those mails spam my email-account..
First, if you are receiving that many emails from forums you're addicted and need to get a life.
I say that with great respect and no small amount of humour. But most of my members, as well as myself (and I've been on Internet forums since the 'net was Fidonet) aren't that immersed. I post to a number of different forums--from gaming to support to lifestyle forums. But I control email input by the threads I subscribe to...and I don't consider it spam since I "asked" for it with my subscription.
That said, if I get...say...fifteen email notifications from a particular thread on any given forum i can scan the excerpts and decide whether I want to participate. At which point I just follow the link to the first of the fifteen and delete all fifteen from my email program en masse. Click shift click...how hard is that?
As the software (not just phpBB) has become less and less intimate, less inclusive and less powerful in terms of what it offers the average user; as it has moved closer to the run-of-the-mill social media paradigm, many users have moved to Facebook.
DWFII wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2017 2:37 pm
give the receiver a "heads up" by including an excerpt.
This should be done by choosing a good topic title (something different from a "Hi" or "Help" ...), so you can decide to read the topic if you are interested. On "good" boards the moderator team has a look on topic titles as well.
In my mind, the excerpt is a reaching out and a mark of respect...for the user's time, commitment and right to choose. On my forum users are not allowed to create new topics. So choosing a "good" topic title is not an issue. None are along the lines of "Hi."
There has been many a time, esp. on lifestyle forums when the reply to a post is simply "thanks" or a smilie. On the basis of an excerpt, I might appreciate that the discussion is going forward but not want to go to the forum at that moment. Or perhaps the discussion devolves into a spat (never happens here) between two individuals. I don't always feel like I'm obligated to bear witness and the only way I might know is to see the excerpt--it gives me a choice as a user.
Horses for courses, obviously but surely choice is good. and more choice even better. heck, you migh create such an extension and even (gasp) offer Admin or the user the ability to turn off excerpts.
How revolutionary might that be? !
How hard?