Notify me upon replies by default

[userwhoforums]

In my opinion, the user setting, "Notify me upon replies by default", should default to ON... for every user, by default.

I have researched how to change that. And I have done so on all my forums. However, I think the default install of phpBB should come that way.

The major discussion platforms, like Google Groups for example, always work this way. It encourages discussion.

"Notify me upon replies by default" should always default to ON.

Of course, users can turn it off any time they want to ---- on an item by item basis, or even as the overall default for themselves. But if it is ON by default, conversation happens so much faster and better.

In fact, every time I Register at a new forum, the very first think I do is go to the User Control Panel and turn that setting on. I just don't understand why it's not on by default.

A forum seems almost useless without that feature turned on.... like an alarm clock without a bell.

[MattF]

If you have an active forum, I would hope you have one hell of a good server because it will be sending out notification emails like crazy if every user had this feature turned on! You may even exceed limits on outgoing emails imposed by your server.

But also, the general consensus here would be that such notifications are invasive, and therefor should be off by default, and at the individual users discretion if they want to receive that kind of in-flow of information to their emails by subscribing to the topics they want to hear from (and not subscribing to those they don't).

[drathbun]

I absolutely disagree. Unless I explicitly sign up for notification emails, I don't want to get them.

[brunoais]

^ that.

[userwhoforums]

Google Groups seems to operate quite a large number of "forums".

Why do you suppose they have taken the opposite approach?

Email notification is ON by default for every thread, for every user.

Google seems to be doing ok.

As long as it is easy to turn off --- by thread, or globally for the user --- it should present no problems.

It does, in fact, encourage more participation... and faster replies.

Google Groups, Yahoo Groups, even Facebook, they all have message notification ON by default.... and not only for messages you Replied to! They have it ON by default for ALL posts & replies.

[DavidIQ]

Right...after you change your settings (most of the time). The same is the case with phpBB and pretty much all other forum software out there. You, the user, has the option to enable that feature in your user control panel and auto-subscribe to any post you reply to or to subscribe to all forums if you wish (though this could be improved by making all forums available in the UCP for subscription -> RFC idea). In fact Facebook has gotten into trouble and has been bashed for automatically violating user's privacy rights by automatically setting new privacy settings for them instead of giving them the choice.

[Senky]

This could be implemented in planned notifications in phpBB (or it has been rejected?), but surelly not by sending emails, nor even posting PMs.

[DionDesigns]

Google Groups seems to operate quite a large number of "forums".

They're not "forums", they're newsgroups, which are very different than forums on a phpBB board. The fact that Google Groups sends out email reply notifications is irrelevant to how things work (or potentially should work) in phpBB.

Does any other discussion board software (vBulletin, IP.Board, SMF, MyBB, PunBB, Xenforo, etc) have this option enabled by default? If so, that would be relevant, and folks here would probably look at the support board for that software to check whether anyone has commented about the feature.

For what it's worth, if this option were ever enabled by default in phpBB, I would hack the code to disable it.

[DavidIQ]

Does any other discussion board software (vBulletin, IP.Board, SMF, MyBB, PunBB, Xenforo, etc) have this option enabled by default?

Not for vB at least. I've registered on a few vB boards pertaining to Android development and I always have to go into my user control panel to enable the auto-subscribe setting.

[drathbun]

Apple's support board has this off by default. They're doing okay too. To be honest, my preferences (stated earlier) aside, I'm not even sure this would be legal in many countries. It's easier to leave it off than to potentially have to research every different country and their requirements / prohibitions on sending emails.