Should "notify about replies" default to ON?

[LotBlind]

I noticed this is off by default. I'm thinking there's two reasons it should be on:
- most people are interested in replies and prefer not to have to manually check each forum to see if there were any (?)
- it's easier to click "unsubscribe" in the notification mail than to dig the setting up from your control menu on-site

Opinions?

[PACO]

I'm in favor of having it off by default. For the active posters, it's an annoyance to constantly get e-mails when they are already browsing the forums. For the people interested in the feature, it is available to turn on. I'm curious what other people think?

[Sauron]

Off. I just click on new posts at the top and it shows them.

[Monk]

Welcome to the forums LotBlind.

This is actually configurable per user in this version of phpBB. Navigate to:

User Control Panel > Board Preferences > Edit Posting Defaults.

You'll find an option there to default to having notifications on.

[LotBlind]

I see the active users are in a different position from those who might not have as much invested into the discussions in these particular forums. However, when you're a first-time, random user (and when the default setting is the most relevant to you), you probably don't want to add another forum to your list of "remember to check these".

What I'm saying is it should be on by default for every post, but each post notification in your e-mail should have the option given to disable your subscription to the feed completely as well as just to that particular thread. Would that be doable?

Monk: you might have realized I already found it, but thanks anyway!

[Sauron]

You make a good point about keeping users coming back to the forum.

[LotBlind]

So yeah the more I've thought about this the more clearly what I suggested is ideal. The few people who showed up in this thread saying otherwise don't matter since:
a) They probably didn't see what I meant (my bad)
b) I'm not sure if they represent the average anyway. It looks like the thread had over 150 views (only a few opinions strangely), but I'd like to think, without knowing about the actual hit counts for this site, that the people who saw this thread are mostly those who do indeed tend to hang around a lot and read most or all new topics whether they've participated in them or not. Again, I can't say if randoms like me are in the majority or minority (by view count minority, but by sheer numbers maybe majority), but I don't think such people would be interested in getting involved in forum affairs like this, so they probably don't even see this thread.

But yeah, if possible:
- default ON
- to opt-out of notifies for a single thread, click the link in the e-mail
- to opt-out of notifies for every thread, click the other link in the e-mail

Nobody has to see any more effort with this than clicking on an e-mail link once. Especially great because randoms don't necessarily enjoy having to locate and navigate the user menu for a new forum they've just arrived at, despite it being fairly simple in this case.

Flaws to my logic?

[mrgrins]

I like when I get coupons from pizza hut in my email but shit man, I dunno what I signed up for to get cow paddy daddy weekly farm news. I hate cows. gahdang methane factories gave me pink eye.

[blade]