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Over the past decade, there has been a trend away from email notifications in general. (And if you have a teenager in your life, you know that they do not use email at all.)  That does not mean that people don't want email notifications, but they do want them to be smarter and less frequent.  We have a few ideas for improving things in that area, and our first salvo in that regard is a new approach to email notifications.

Our goal is to make it easier for Crowdstackers to stay in the loop on what is happening in your community, while also making the "follow" process cleaner and simpler.

Thus, in our next major update, we'll be adding support for a digest-oriented email notification system.  With this new option, all members will, by default, be subscribed to a weekly digest that summarizes new and trending activity across your entire Crowdstack community.  There is also a daily edition that your members can choose, alternatively.

This "What's News" digest will also include upcoming events and posts from specific people that you are following. You will still be able to follow specific posts and members in this new system. And you will also be able to be notified about ALL new posts (across all content types), if you like. The only real loss of functionality - which may be a big one, depending on your perspective- is the ability to follow content by type (and subcategory).

In this new model, members will not be able to follow content by type at all. For instance, you will not be able to subscribe to get notified only about new forum topics, or topics within a specific forum. The module-specific notification model requires a lot of work for members to maintain and can be confusing to understand.

In our opinion, most community members don't really think about subscribing based on content type-- they just want to know what is new (or new for them) = so supporting a complex module-specific notification system is powerful but also way too complex for the average person.

The new system is simple, clear, and very easy to manage.

Importantly, if you love the current system that revolves around following specific content types, you can keep using it.  However, the new consolidated email digest option will not be available for your members. Existing Crowdstack sites will have to opt into the new model if they want to use it and, importantly,  cannot go back to the old model once they have opted in to the new one.

Thus, if you love the current model, keep using it. If you'd prefer a simpler approach that is less confusing and less noisy for your members, then consider the new "digest" model. We recommend communicating the change to your members before you make the switch though, since all of their old per-module notifications settings will be gone and they will simply be subscribed to the weekly digest instead.

Sites created after the release of the new digest system will only be able to use the new model. In other words, the new notification model is the future, but existing sites can keep using the old model as long as they want.

We'll have more details on this on our blog once we get closer to release, likely in the next few weeks.

Replies sorted oldest to newest

That was a long message, so I want to make sure I understood the bottom line.

With the new model all members will be put by default into weekly digest mode, that is, they will get an email once a week summarizing all the posts that were made in the past week. As the administrator I would like to get an email each time a post is made. Will I still be able to change my settings to make that happen?

Mark

MN

Hi @ANON_BM - you are welcome to stay on the current model.  We can't have the two systems co-exist because a major part of the change is simplification of the notification settings for members.  There would be no simplification at all if they were to co-exist... in fact, it would be more complex.

@Mark Neal - Yes, you will be able to subscribe to ALL posts across the entire Crowdstack site. That will be a new option... the key point being that you cannot slice and dice that by content type. It would be an instant notification about all new content on the site... and it would be off by default, so you would have to opt in to get those notifications.  You will also be able to be notified about all new comments/replies.

Ted @ Crowdstack
Last edited by Ted @ Crowdstack

Hi @ANON_BM - you are welcome to stay on the current model.  We can't have the two systems co-exist because a major part of the change is simplification of the notification settings for members.  There would be no simplification at all if they were to co-exist... in fact, it would be more complex.

How can I, as a member, select to remain on the current model? I don't see that as being touted as a possibility.

A

A  key quote from your post, "...In our opinion, most community members don't really think about subscribing based on content type..."  That is a HUGE and SWEEPING generalization that definitely does not fit our community.

Literally everyone in our community subscribes based on content type! And NO ONE in our community would want to to subscribe to ALL posts across our entire Crowdstack site. That would be thousands of notifications for every member, every week.

Thank God we can keep the old system.

 

Rich Melvin

Imagine a classic truck site if you will... it would be broken down by make and generation... I may be interested in the "1st Gen Ford F Series 1948-1952", but the the Chevrolet C10 Forum, and now it looks like the only option will be to follow all trucks of all models and generations instead of the ones particular to me. Just as @Ted @ Crowdstack erroneously presumed I was a site admin, Crowdstack erroneously presumes they know best for notifications and removes features and flexibility.

A

ANON_BM, you have perfectly described our situation with your truck site analogy.

We run a site about model trains. Here is a small portion of the menu structure from that site:

Train Forums
Traditional 3-Rail O Gauge
2-Rail Scale Forum
3-Rail Scale Forum
Tinplate Trains
O Scale Narrow Gauge Forum
S-Scale Trains
Subways/Transit/Traction
Real Trains

Layout Building Forums
Track Plans and Layout Design
Electrical Forum
Scenery and Structures
etc.

  • Someone who is into Traditional 3-Rail O Gauge trains has NO interest in the 2-Rail Scale stuff.
  • Same for someone into Tinplate Trains. He has NO interest in the Narrow Gauge, Subways or Real Trains, etc.
  • The Narrow Gauge guy has NO interest in Subways.
  • You get the idea...

We cannot just lump everyone into a single, site-wide basket when it comes to email digests and notifications.

Rich Melvin

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