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Forum Notifications Do Not Arrive

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 8:21 AM

  Notifications from this discussion forum very rarely arrive. I have a Gmail account and have also checked its Spam folder, but very rarely am I notified of a reply in this forum, even though Email me replies to this post is always checked when I submit a post.

  In fact, the only forum notifications I've received recently via email are copies of my own posts right after I submit them. (Probably a bug.) But no notifications of replies to those posts.

  While I'm at it, how do you guys insert smilies into forum posts?  :-)  Not that that is really necessary, but the interface here in Google Chrome does not seem to offer the option to insert smilies. Also, how do you quote other people's posts? Can't see a Quote button here, either! So far, I've done this manually by typing quote and /quote in square brackets, then copying & pasting other posters' words inbetween, but there should be an easier way? Thanks for any help.

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 8:29 AM

  Believe it or not, I've just received, via email notification, three separate copies of my own above post. So, that's a bug multiplied by three. ;-) Although, I'm afraid no notification will arrive after someone else replies in this thread.

  If you'd like to check this on the mail server, the 3 notifications' message IDs are:

  • <PSJ-CS01lrqLvw2FZ8Z00003853@PSJ-CS01.WGT.local>
  • <WGTW03FZ4RgPRCjOuF10000080a@WGTW03.WGT.local>
  • <WGTW04gl4rhYQYx3G5a00000574@WGTW04.WGT.local>

• seveking 983 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 8:48 AM

  I'm having exactly the opposite problem. I get notifications even though I don't have the Email me replies to this post checkbox activated. Gets a bit boring to read everything twice, once on here and once on my email...

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 8:56 AM

  To report on further developments, I also received 3 copies of my own 2nd post above, and – correctly! – one notification for Seveking's post. :-)

  (The point of these email notifications for me is that I lack the time to check the entire forum regularly, so unless the email is sent, it's likely I'm going to miss many/most reactions to my posts.) 

• AvatarLee 1,644 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 9:55 AM

  As for the quote thing... I've found that this is how I have to do it.

  1.  Click "Reply" on the post that contains the text you want to quote

  2.  Say what you have to say.... and click the Post button.

  3.  Press "edit" on the post you just submitted.

  4.  Press the "Quote" button that magically appears now in the Compose

       Tab  ;^)   <--- Safari doesn't work either

  5.  Edit out undesired text and post again

  Sample:

  Faterson:

  To report on further developments, I also received 3 copies of my own 2nd post above, and – correctly! – one notification for Seveking's post. :-)

  Oh and BTW... only the originator of a thread will receive e-mails.  Responders do not get them.

   

• WGTalex 2,087 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 9:56 AM

  Thanks for the reports, we will look into this.

• Snaike 3,678 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 10:43 AM

  The only time that you will get an email notification is when the Original Post is yours.  Just replying does not 'subscribe' you to the thread.

  Hope that helps....

   

  *edit...  I have GOT to learn to read everything.  That crazy Canuck beat me to it with the sneaky last sentence.

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 10:45 AM

  AvatarLee:

  3.  Press "edit" on the post you just submitted. [...]
  5.  Edit out undesired text and post again

  Yes, that's a workaround, but it's heavy-handed (like putting with a driver!), and anything but standard functionality. It's less troubling, in fact, to manually insert those quote user="AvatarLee"and /quote tags in square brackets, which is what I'm doing right now, than to submit an incomplete post only to have to re-open it immediately for further cleaning-up.

  Standard functionality would require a Quote link right next to the Reply link at the bottom left of every post. That's how it is in phpBB, vBulletin, InvisionBoard, etc.

  Also, the workaround and the absence of a dedicated Quote button prevent you from engaging in extended reasoned debates of the classic statement-reaction, statement-reaction type, like this:

  AvatarLee:

  statement

  reaction

  AvatarLee:

  statement

  reaction

  etc. Also, you can't easily multi-quote (quote several posters in a single reply).

  AvatarLee:

  Oh and BTW... only the originator of a thread will receive e-mails.  Responders do not get them.

  That would again be severely limited discussion forum functionality. :-( The standard is to allow each user to subscribe via email to any thread they are interested in, including threads to which they have never contributed.

  There's definitely something wrong with the forum software right now, because you're not even shown the Preview button as you compose your post. That button, too, like the Quote button, is only available once you submit your text and click Edit to re-open the post. Kind of defeats the purpose of the Preview button, doesn't it, if you're not really allowed to preview anything! ;-) I'm sure the author of this forum software meant for the Quote and Preview buttons to appear right away, after a user clicks the Reply link in any post for the very first time.

  It's beta software, of course, and we just need to be patient until these glitches are eliminated. Thanks a lot to WGTAlex for taking notice!

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 10:58 AM

  Snaike:

  The only time that you will get an email notification is when the Original Post is yours.  Just replying does not 'subscribe' you to the thread.

  I'd say this is not what the author of this forum software intended, so it's another bug. Proof? Re-open, via the Edit button, any post of yours in a thread you did not start. The option Email me replies to this post is there, and it's even activated by default. So, someone intended for that functionality to be available for users; the functionality is simply broken for the time being. Now, you could argue Email me replies to this post and Email me replies to this thread is not the same thing; the standard tick-box would be Email me replies to this thread. And, some fine forum software gives you the best of the 2 options, namely both; there are 2 tick-boxes and you can choose either Email me replies to this post or Email me replies to this thread, or both, or none. :-)

  (And, as is the case with the Quote and Preview buttons, the option to receive email notifications likewise only appears after you re-open a post that you've already submitted, although all these things should be available in the original compose window that appears after you click a Reply link for the first time.)

  Any answer as to how some folks are capable of inserting smilies in their forum posts? :-O I checked out the compose window in Chrome, Opera, and Internet Explorer; it looks the same to me in all browsers, missing the various elements discussed above.

• Snaike 3,678 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 11:17 AM

  I was not inferring that the 'reply' was a feature or a bug...  simply stating the fact of the matter.  Whether or not it gets changed, either by WGT or some other outside source, is really no concern of mine.

  Personally, and please don't take offense, changes to the forums should be far, far, FAR down the list for WGT.  Almost all the way to the "We're bored and have nothing else to do today" level of the programmers.  But, that's just my opinion.

  As for the actual smilies... I wish I knew.  lol