RFC - Add option in ACP for notification by email opt-out or opt-in

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xgarb
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RFC - Add option in ACP for notification by email opt-out or opt-in

Post by xgarb »

I see this mentioned quite a lot in the forums that admins want to set new accounts to have

Notification email sent when new PM received
Posts set to notify on reply as default
New topics (forum watching) set to notify as default

There's quite a lot of discussion about this with generally the users wanting one of these as an admin option and the PHPBB mods/admins saying it would be spamming the user with too many emails.

Personally I think it's essential to have an email sent to notify the user when they receive a PM or a reply to a post. They can set these options but they have to find them first.

So.. for the admins that want it, I'm requesting that an option is added to ACP to allow an admin to set an initial default for

Sending emails when a PM is received.
Sending emails when a user's post is replied.

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Bullseye!
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Re: RFC - Add option in ACP for notification by email opt-out or opt-in

Post by Bullseye! »

Finally someone has posted it... I was about to post a RFC myself, no need now :)

As stated on the other forum, this option is need as I have nearly lost all my people to facebook now, some even think the site no longer exist because they don't get notifications, the smart phone generation depend on notifications & often expect them to be set up by default...

parshakov
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Re: RFC - Add option in ACP for notification by email opt-out or opt-in

Post by parshakov »

+1

Here are a few arguments I sounded in this topic: New users don't get email notifications for private messages by default
  • When you have a forum where people come to seek advice on how to treat a sick/injured animal, getting no notifications by default may cause the death of the animal. This is so weird that I have to go and hack the code in order to make sure that new user get PM notifications by default. I hope phpBB 3.2 will at least have a setting in ACP for that.
  • I had no complaints before upgrading to phpBB 3.1 and I got a lot of complaints after upgrading, when new users stopped getting notifications by default. Again, after "hacking" notification settings I never got a single complaint.
  • People see their email inboxes as convenient hubs for all notifications. You can't expect them to check your forum every 5 minutes to see if they received a new PM.
  • I don't want to ask all new users on my forum to go to their CP and change notification settings manually as soon as they log in.
  • It would be nice if new users could at least select notification settings while registering an account, not after...

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DavidIQ
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Re: RFC - Add option in ACP for notification by email opt-out or opt-in

Post by DavidIQ »

Here:
https://github.com/DavidIQ/EnableRegEmailNotify

Just drop that into "yourforum/ext/davidiq/EnableRegEmailNotify", enable the extension, and you're all set. Quick and simple way to enable email notifications for PMs, replies, moderation queue, and default topic reply notifications to "Yes". Took all of 15 minutes or so to create (likely others have made a similar extension). And no it's not as simple to add to the core.
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CarpCharacin
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Re: RFC - Add option in ACP for notification by email opt-out or opt-in

Post by CarpCharacin »

DavidIQ wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2016 12:48 am Here:
https://github.com/DavidIQ/EnableRegEmailNotify

Just drop that into "yourforum/ext/davidiq/EnableRegEmailNotify", enable the extension, and you're all set. Quick and simple way to enable email notifications for PMs, replies, moderation queue, and default topic reply notifications to "Yes". Took all of 15 minutes or so to create (likely others have made a similar extension). And no it's not as simple to add to the core.
I think that it should at least be released as an official extension.

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DavidIQ
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Re: RFC - Add option in ACP for notification by email opt-out or opt-in

Post by DavidIQ »

CarpCharacin wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2016 2:08 am I think that it should at least be released as an official extension.
I don't see what for. There's not even an ACP part to it. There are much better and important things to do as official extensions than a very basic extension. That is why the extension community exists.
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david63
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Re: RFC - Add option in ACP for notification by email opt-out or opt-in

Post by david63 »

And, for what it is worth, I have one ready for 3.2
David
Remember: You only know what you know -
and you do not know what you do not know!

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Bullseye!
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Re: RFC - Add option in ACP for notification by email opt-out or opt-in

Post by Bullseye! »

Thank you so much for all the support, I will give this extension a try.. :)

netpog
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Re: RFC - Add option in ACP for notification by email opt-out or opt-in

Post by netpog »

This is very important to our group, as well. I'm moving a lot of conversations FROM email into phpBB, so the phpBB administrative bad attitude about email is ironic. It makes it much harder for me to get the group to embrace the new forum.

These are normal people (non-technical, as you call them) who do not love to explore and change all their preferences. I really do need them to show up with the CORRECT defaults, which certainly includes email notification of PMs. The fact that I can't easily set that default is vexing.

Similarly, my community has a bunch of different working groups. I'd love each group to be subscribed by default to their respective forum. But again the phpBB fear-of-email problem is making phpBB an unlikely solution.

I spent a career in the games industry, where you don't get to make unusable products. The defaults have to be appropriate for your users. The semantics have to be immediately obvious (unlike the hilariously non-intuitive permissions structure, say). And the contempt for users and administrators that I've seen in other threads is shocking. For example, our forum should be interesting enough that all the users visit every day automatically. Well, the users want to stay in touch, but they've lives, and the conversations are intermittent. That's why group-level-controllable subscriptions and PMs going to email is all-important.

netpog
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Re: RFC - Add option in ACP for notification by email opt-out or opt-in

Post by netpog »

DavidIQ wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2016 12:48 am Here:
https://github.com/DavidIQ/EnableRegEmailNotify

Just drop that into "yourforum/ext/davidiq/EnableRegEmailNotify", enable the extension, and you're all set. Quick and simple way to enable email notifications for PMs, replies, moderation queue, and default topic reply notifications to "Yes". Took all of 15 minutes or so to create (likely others have made a similar extension). And no it's not as simple to add to the core.
David, thank you!

I will surely install that. Forgive my ignorance: Will I be able to control each of those from the ACP? Or must I edit the extension's source code?

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