Change in Activity summary emails

[Basil]

If there have been periods where you have been inactive on the forum for a while, you may have noticed that the site will send you a "Activity Summary" email that lists the most recent (25) topics or posts that have been added since your last visit. Recently, a member emailed me with a valid criticism of those summary emails.

The Problem: For better or worse, we have a couple of forums on our site that are just for general chit-chat by members who like to engage in topics other than those related to British cars. Hence, we have a "Pub" and a "Humor" forum. It's just human nature I guess that people like to engage with others in topics other than their cars some times, which has made those two forums rather popular. Often, these summary emails end up with a lot of topics and posts from these two forums. Since the summary emails were only set to include the 25 most recent topics or new replies to topics across all forums on the site, the summary emails would end up including too many posts from these off-topic forums.

My attempt to fix:

I have just changed the settings for these summary emails so that now topics or posts from those "off-topic" forums (The Pub and Humor) will not be included. Only new threads and new posts/replies from British car-specific forums (and my forum happenings) will be included in the future. I have also increased the time span a member must be inactive before they start to receive the summary emails. In the past, a member would start receiving these summary emails when they have been inactive for 14 days, then receive additional summary emails every 14 days thereafter as long as they are not active on the forum. I have changed this so that, going forward, a member won't begin to receive the summary emails until they have been inactive for 45 days, then every 30 days of inactivity thereafter (but the summary emails will cease after a year of inactivity.) This should greatly reduce the number of summary emails members receive. Also, a member can choose not to receive these summary emails altogether by deselecting the "Receive activity summary email" checkbox in their account preferences.

Hope this helps going forward.
Basil

 

[NutmegCT]

Thanks for the update. Seems your changes are for the good of BCF, and will smooth the whole notification process.

I know nothing about the inner working of BCF, but does the summary email actually help members, and get them involved more? I use the "watch" feature a lot, to keep up to date on specific threads, and the "What's new" to tell me of the latest posts.

 

[Basil]

Thanks for the update. Seems your changes are for the good of BCF, and will smooth the whole notification process.

I know nothing about the inner working of BCF, but does the summary email actually help members, and get them involved more? I use the "watch" feature a lot, to keep up to date on specific threads, and the "What's new" to tell me of the latest posts.

There is debate in the XENFORO (forum software) community as to the effectiveness of the summary emails. In theory, it is meant to encourage members who have not been on the site and active in a while to pop in and visit the forum, and perhaps participate.

From personal experience as a forum member vice an admin, I belong to a photography forum that uses these same summary emails. I will say that there have been several times when I've seen a topic of interest in a summary email that has prompted me to visit said topic (click the link in the email) and, in many cases, reply to the thread. So from my own first-hand use of the summary mails as a member of a forum, I'd say they can definitely encourage members to participate. The problem up till now is that those summary emails were flooded with Pub and Humor posts, and not British car related content. Hopefully that will change going forward.

Using the "watch" and "What' new" features is great, but sadly 99% of members don't even know those features exists (despite my best efforts to educate members with tutorial videos, etc). The summary emails are automatic by default (can be turned off in preferences) so that the inactive member will be prompted with content without having to be proactive and "watch" certain topics.

 

[John Turney]

I guess that's why I get summary emails from a couple of other forums that I rarely frequent.

 

[Basil]

I guess that's why I get summary emails from a couple of other forums that I rarely frequent.

Most likely. I used to send these out after 14 days of inactivity, but have increased it so a member won't get their first notice until they have been inactive for 45 days.