Include reply in Topic reply notification email

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orschiro
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Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by orschiro »

This is how the email looks at the moment:

Image

The email could deliver more value by including the reply into the email so that the recipient can decide whether it is necessary to click on the link and go back to the forum to respond or not. I imagine the following:

Image
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Brf
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Re: Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by Brf »

The problem with this idea is, if you do not go visit the forum, you will not receive anymore notifications for other replies. The purpose of omitting the post text is to force the user to visit the topic and thereby reset the notifications.
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Re: Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by warmweer »

Brf wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 2:10 pm The problem with this idea is, if you do not go visit the forum, you will not receive anymore notifications for other replies. The purpose of omitting the post text is to force the user to visit the topic and thereby reset the notifications.
Ok, we can avoid that by replying to the notification by mail, which will insert the reply in the forum and reset the notification. Naturally many members will receive mailnotifications like that and feel compelled to reply.

I'm not quite sure yet on how to vote but I'll use max 2 letters.
Spelling is freeware, which means you can use it for free.
On the other hand, it is not open source, which means you cannot change it or publish it in a modified form.


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Ibedejo
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Re: Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by Ibedejo »

There are use cases where something along these lines may come in handy. One, that could then be even a bit more sophisticated than a simple all or nothing solution.
Nevertheless I still would prefer this to then materialize in form of an extension and not as part of the core, though.

So: "no" not because I dislike the idea as such but for it being part of the core.
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Re: Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by warmweer »

Ibedejo wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 9:07 pm So: "no" not because I dislike the idea as such but for it being part of the core.
That's also my NO, I'll probably never vote NO for an extension, but Ideas is about core.
Spelling is freeware, which means you can use it for free.
On the other hand, it is not open source, which means you cannot change it or publish it in a modified form.


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Re: Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by Brf »

warmweer wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 6:49 pm Ok, we can avoid that by replying to the notification by mail, which will insert the reply in the forum and reset the notification. Naturally many members will receive mailnotifications like that and feel compelled to reply.
What?
The reset is done by reading the topic, not by replying to it.
In any case, you cannot reply to an email and have a post made automagicly.
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Re: Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by warmweer »

Brf wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 9:27 pm
warmweer wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 6:49 pm Ok, we can avoid that by replying to the notification by mail, which will insert the reply in the forum and reset the notification. Naturally many members will receive mailnotifications like that and feel compelled to reply.
What?
The reset is done by reading the topic, not by replying to it.
In any case, you cannot reply to an email and have a post made automagicly.
I should have emphasised my sarcasm. The point I was trying to make (unsuccesfully) was that if notifications also include all the details, then there is no point in going back to the forum (hence my fictional feature that forum activities would be replaced by external actions).
To me this kind of feature just stimulates the "need"/"request" for additional feautures which reduce forumactivity.

Upon reading my reply again, I realise that it's far from clear :oops:
Spelling is freeware, which means you can use it for free.
On the other hand, it is not open source, which means you cannot change it or publish it in a modified form.


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Re: Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by AmigoJack »

warmweer wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 6:49 pmreplying to the notification by mail
In theory this is nice (why accepting user input only via HTTP?), but too complicated to implement:
  • phpBB would need to implement IMAP and a cron job to even be able to have access to the e-mail account.
  • How to deal with BBCode?
  • How to deal with linebreaks? Naturally text e-mail lines will break after 70 to 80 characters - is such a linebreak intended or not for a potential post?
  • How to check permissions per e-mail? The sender (address) alone is not enough, and e-mail headers (where one could put a token into) aren't carried over to replies either. If a potential token resides in the e-mail payload then chances are users are killing this as well...
  • How to deal with submission errors? In the board editor you get an error message, but should a problem with a potential e-mail post be answered with a new e-mail in return? That's asking for high traffic when it comes down to "dumb" people.
  • How to avoid getting hammered or spammed? E-mails can't be rejected, because phpBB would only deal with acting on the e-mail account (while the e-mail provider would need to address this)
  • "The problem is probably not my English but you do not want to understand correctly. ... We will not come anybody anyway, nevertheless, it's best to shit this." Affin, 2018-11-20
  • "But this shit is not here for you. You can follow with your. Maybe the question, instead, was for you, who know, so you shoved us how you are." axe70, 2020-10-10
  • "My reaction is not to everyone, especially to you." Raptiye, 2021-02-28
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Re: Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by warmweer »

AmigoJack wrote: Fri Jan 12, 2018 9:51 am
warmweer wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 6:49 pmreplying to the notification by mail
In theory this is nice (why accepting user input only via HTTP?), but too complicated to implement:
Exactly: hence fictional feature
Having said this, I should add: with current protocols
Spelling is freeware, which means you can use it for free.
On the other hand, it is not open source, which means you cannot change it or publish it in a modified form.


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Re: Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by PlanetStyles.net »

Ibedejo wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 9:07 pm ...
Nevertheless I still would prefer this to then materialize in form of an extension and not as part of the core, though.

So: "no" not because I dislike the idea as such but for it being part of the core.
Just playing some devil's advocate here, but as a community we should be cautious of using this line of thinking as a reason to vote no on suggestions.

Without understanding why it should be an extension and not part of the core, we risk limiting innovation by saying that everything should just be an extension. As we know, extensions are either dependent on the phpBB Team rolling them out, or, an individual developer (and with that comes risks of long-term maintenance etc).

---

My opinion on the suggestion itself is that: It improves the end-user experience significantly enough for a global userbase to justify implementing into the core, and would bring phpBB in line with current best practice.

It's important to consider how the industry generally serve notification emails, eg:

Facebook:
facebook.png
Discord:
discord.png
AirBnB:
airbnb.png
Notice that each notification contains the 'thing' that the end-user is being notified about.

By nature people don't really like being told what to do, so adding notification content to notification emails followed by a call-to-action (eg: Click here to reply) would serve as a much more pleasant experience.
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Re: Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by JimA »

Christian 2.0 wrote: Fri Jan 12, 2018 3:03 pmJust playing some devil's advocate here, but as a community we should be cautious of using this line of thinking as a reason to vote no on suggestions.

Without understanding why it should be an extension and not part of the core, we risk limiting innovation by saying that everything should just be an extension. As we know, extensions are either dependent on the phpBB Team rolling them out, or, an individual developer (and with that comes risks of long-term maintenance etc).
This is something I definitely agree with.

Some of the bigger, more bloaty features are better left as extensions. However, I think that improvements to current features (such as reply notifications) would be something that can be considered worthy improvements for the core as opposed to being extensions.
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Re: Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by Brf »

Well, my point was that we cannot just show the content of one single post. The user would wonder why they are not getting the content of every reply. To make this reasonable, we would have to have a notification--with content--for every reply. Otherwise, the recipient would read the one reply in the Email and then never visit the board, and never get anymore notifications.
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Re: Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by warmweer »

Christian 2.0 wrote: Fri Jan 12, 2018 3:03 pm ...
My opinion on the suggestion itself is that: It improves the end-user experience significantly enough for a global userbase to justify implementing into the core, and would bring phpBB in line with current best practice.
Generally a good way of thinking but it's not because the big players do something that that is objectively best practice. The big players actively promote their new practices as being the best and absolutely indispensable, not because it is but because it brings traffic and traffic is $$.
Christian 2.0 wrote: Fri Jan 12, 2018 3:03 pm It's important to consider how the industry generally serve notification emails, eg:
...
By nature people don't really like being told what to do, so adding notification content to notification emails followed by a call-to-action (eg: Click here to reply) would serve as a much more pleasant experience.
Pleasant for those who want it, but the admin should be able to decide whether that "feature" is desirable for his/her forum.
Also, I think it shouldn't be all that hard for an experienced extension writer to make an extension which does exactly that (I even think that If I wanted to, I could do it - without formatting the text).
My vote won't make much of a difference, but perhaps if it is accepted as a standard feature, a configuration setting to disactivate this feature will be included (and I can live with that :P )
Spelling is freeware, which means you can use it for free.
On the other hand, it is not open source, which means you cannot change it or publish it in a modified form.


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Re: Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by warmweer »

Brf wrote: Fri Jan 12, 2018 3:26 pm Well, my point was that we cannot just show the content of one single post. The user would wonder why they are not getting the content of every reply. To make this reasonable, we would have to have a notification--with content--for every reply. Otherwise, the recipient would read the one reply in the Email and then never visit the board, and never get anymore notifications.
Seconded! and much better worded than I could.
Spelling is freeware, which means you can use it for free.
On the other hand, it is not open source, which means you cannot change it or publish it in a modified form.


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Lumpy Burgertushie
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Re: Include reply in Topic reply notification email

Post by Lumpy Burgertushie »

and, you can't compare a bulletin board with facebook or twitter etc. etc.
they are completely different things. the whole point of web based bulletin boards was to more or less replace the old email based mailing list type of communications.
if you are going to get the text of every post in a notification then there is really no point in having a regular bulletin board to begin with.
just revert back to the old system.


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