#1: Valerie Mates (valerie) on Jan 2, 2019

The other day I looked in this forum for the first time since August or September. I found various comments that I would have liked to have seen months ago. So I am thinking about adding an e-mail option to this forum.

I'd appreciate hearing people's ideas for how this would work.

Some things I've thought of so far:

1) I'd like to have the all new topics e-mailed to me, right away when they are posted. Maybe other people would like that too, so I am thinking that this should be a setting that anybody could choose to turn on.

2) By default I'd like to be e-mailed all of the comments on the (very few!) puzzles that I have posted, and on the topics that I have started. I'm thinking that maybe that would be the default setting, and then people could choose to subscribe or unsubscribe to comments on particular threads. Also some people probably wouldn't want to automatically receive e-mail messages about their puzzles and topics, so there would need to be a setting where people can choose.

Any other thoughts? Also, is e-mailing postings okay? Or would it be intrusive?

What else would make this work well?

Sounds great to me.

Thanks for all you're doing to keep this great site running well. I think of these puzzles as my anti-Alzheimer's medicine!

Another common situation, give a checkbox near the submit for comments on a thread so someone replying can choose subscribe to the thread they commented on.

Sounds like a good idea to at least provide an option to receive email comments.

I think it's fine as an option. I check the forum regularly, to see what's been said about the puzzles I've solved. I don't think I'd like a constant bombardment of email, but others may value the direct delivery of new messages.

I would like getting all messages emailed to me!

I'm all for it

Not for me thanks.

I'm right there with Kristen. I would like it to be an option for those who want emails, but I'm always here, so I don't need the emails, myself. (Besides, I never check my email!) Would Direct Messaging other users be an option, though? I won't push for it if it's too difficult to write into the programming, but it might be a cool feature.

For years, now, the first thing I open is webpbn. (I prefer my first look at the internet to be a pleasant one.) After checking to see if there are any new puzzles, I go to the forum. So emails wouldn't make a difference for me.

I like the set up now. No emails for me, thanks. But like Kristen said, options are nice to have.

Thank you, Valerie, for continuing to keep this site working so nicely. We enjoy seeing you here. I think it helps us feel connected to Jan.

There were a few of us who used to email Jan to notify him when there were issues we thought he would want to know about. I'm not on daily like I used to be, but there are a few people who are who might be willing to alert you to issues you need to know about.

Aurelian Ginkgo -- There used to be a chat system on the site, but if I remember right it broke or had a security problem, and nobody was using it anyway, so it's currently shut down. How do you envision direct messaging to work? Maybe it's possible to add that, depending!

Teresa K -- I would definitely appreciate hearing about any problems on the site. I'll see e-mails quickly, and also postings in the Facebook WebPBN forum.

Big sites used to have internal mail systems where you would retrieve messages on the site. This could be housed on the forum page. This would work for any registered user.


A less programming-intensive approach would be to act as a anonymous proxy where the person would send a DM to [username] (using a form) and the system would then format that into an email and send it to [username]'s registered email. This would only work for those who have registered an email address. Replies would also be more complicated.


Either way it would be very necessary to have a block function to screen out the trolls.

The first one sounds cool, that is, "Big sites used to have internal mail systems where you would retrieve messages on the site. This could be housed on the forum page. This would work for any registered user," as Joe said.

The troll blocker is a good point. Like I said, if it's too much trouble, it really doesn't matter. I'm sure we get out most of what we want to say in the comments. Sometimes, however, I've wanted to say discreet things to people that wasn't everybody else's business. For example, I had a misunderstanding with another user a while back and I regret things I said to her. She hasn't commented on any of my puzzles since and I just want her to know that I harbor no hard feelings and I hope she forgives me. It may also be that I'm overthinking it and she has forgotten all about it: sheer coincidence and all that she's had nothing to say to me. Direct messaging would keep it from being open to everyone to comment.

My preference is for no e-mails to me. Since this seems to be an administrator related issue I'd think it be better to set up a way for the administrator(s), specifically, to be notified.

I don't personally have interest in receiving email notifications of forum posts but there is a me of several years ago that would have loved the idea, so I support the ability to have the option.

I can also see the benefit of some sort of direct messaging system but it seems to me and my admittedly-rusty programming knowledge that would be trickier to implement, and trickier still to implement safely.

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