# Subscribed thread notification change



## Makai Guy (Feb 29, 2008)

When you subscribe to a thread on the board you may select to receive email notifications of new posts.  These notifications, by default, include a link to the thread and the text of the newly entered reply.

Despite a prominent warning not to do so, many users reply to those emails, thinking they are replying to the poster of the reply in the thread.  Such reply emails go to bbs adminstration, not to the poster of the reply.

Effective immediately, email notifications of new posts in threads to which you have subscribed will NOT include the text of the new reply.  You will have to follow the link in the email to return to the thread on the board in order to read the reply and/or add you own additional reply to the thread.


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## JeffW (Feb 29, 2008)

While I understand the reason for the change, count me as one who doesn't like it.  I very much liked being able to see the post in the email, without having to open a separate connection to TUG.  Also, you could see all replies; it seems like now, you only get a notification when there's one OR MORE new replies.  Again, I don't like it.

Is there a way you could change either the sender of the email, or the 'reply to' address, such that an replies goe to basically a null account, or perhaps one that automatically returns an, "You shouldn't have replied to this message.." email.

Is it just new users, or also old users?

Jeff


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## Makai Guy (Feb 29, 2008)

This is an across the board change - there is no way to change it for just the "offenders", as the bbs does not provide a way to separate them out.

Every time somebody replies to admin, thinking they are replying to the post, the admins must then write back informing them that they have written to the admins rather than to the intended recipient.  We can send a pre-written canned response to make it as easy as possible, but it still must be done manually.  You suggest just ignoring them (by having them go to a dead address) but we will not do that.  These people are taking the trouble to attempt to send a reply and they deserve to be informed that their reply did not go where intended.

We are constrained to work within the limitations of our bulletin board software.  I've searched for a way to have these notifications sent from a different email address many times, but the only setting we have uses the main admin email address for everything.  If we COULD have a separate address for these, we could have the server send our canned autoreply back for all mail sent to that address, but this option is not open to us.

My apologies for those that don't like this change, but it's been a long time coming, and is only being done after lengthy consideration and attempts to find another way around it.


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## Fern Modena (Feb 29, 2008)

Doug,
Is there anyway that a filter could be made of the text that goes out (something that shows it is subscribed) and then set up an autoresponder for just that filtered mail?  

I can live with the new system, but I gotta tell you I like the old way better.  I probably will change my profile not to subscribe automatically.  Since I generally scan the BB daily, the notice without the text isn't worth it to me.  

I do understand your position, though.

Fern


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## Makai Guy (Feb 29, 2008)

Fern Modena said:


> Is there anyway that a filter could be made of the text that goes out (something that shows it is subscribed) and then set up an autoresponder for just that filtered mail?



Fern - I thought about doing that within my Thunderbird email program.  That wouldn't be a good solution because it would only work when I had my computer up with Thunderbird running, and it would only apply to MY copies of the messages, but not the ones that go to the other admins.  

But [smacking forehead] I kept looking for ways to do this within the vBulletin software by changing the address used to send the notification; I never thought of seeing what I could do via filtering at the server.  I'll bet there's something that could be done there.  Thanks for the prod.


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## Makai Guy (Feb 29, 2008)

OK, I think I've got something that will work.  I'm restoring the inclusion of the reply text into the notification emails.

If you reply to those emails, you should now get a notice back from a dummy email address that advises you of the error.  Unfortunately, the autoresponse setup at our server doesn't let me include the full text of your reply, but just cite the Subject and From headers.


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## Fern Modena (Feb 29, 2008)

Great.  Thanks for taking the time to do the work-around.  

Fern


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## Makai Guy (Feb 29, 2008)

Fern Modena said:


> Great.  Thanks for taking the time to do the work-around.
> 
> Fern



Hmm.. my first test didn't go so well.  The reply didn't go to the admin address, as hoped, but I didn't get an error notification back, either.  Wanna give it a try and see what you get?


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## Makai Guy (Feb 29, 2008)

Makai Guy said:


> ... but I didn't get an error notification back ...



I think I found the problem - had a typo in the autoresponder setup.  The error messages should now be sent out to those trying to reply to the notification messages. 

Would still appreciate it if one or two of you could try to reply to a subscription notification, and report back what happens.


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## Fern Modena (Feb 29, 2008)

When I get one I'll see what I can do for you.

Fern


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## Makai Guy (Mar 1, 2008)

The notifications I've been talking about referred to people that selected the "instant email notification" option on a subscribed thread, as those tend to be the ones where folks tend to enter replies.  

I forgot all about there being a "daily email notification" option, as these hardly, if ever, receive email replies.  Perhaps it is more obvious, when the email contains more than one bbs post, that a reply email will not go back to the poster.

I've now extended this to all replies to all subscription notification emails.


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