Not planned Alerts for 'posts by followed members'

[Alpha1]

I just discovered the newsfeed today. Im pretty sure that if I didn't hit on it since joining, that many average forum members would never discover it. I find this inconsistent, because watching a thread does cause alerts, while watching a member does not.


I'd like to request the option to receive Alerts for 'posts by followed members'.
Because it makes no sense to alert for every post a followed member makes, an alert per followed member would suffice and such alert could notify that:

Member A has made 3 new posts.


Clicking it would lead to the new posts of that member.

 

[Alpha1]

this would get too chaotic. Imagine following 1,500 people. you would literally get 10,000 alerts a day.

No it wouldnt. You only need 1 alert to let you know that there are new posts in your newsfeed.
Or in other words: 1 alert to let you know that members that you follow have posted new content.

 

[TNCclubman]

so what happens when someone else posts a reply? which coincidently will be happening every 2 minutes for someone with the aforementioned 1500 friends.

Also I was under the impression he wants an alert every time, not just 1 per day for the whole feed...

 

[Alpha1]

Nothing. 1 alert to notify that there is new content suffices. And when you view the new content feed, then the alert disappears. And if new content appears again then you would get 1 alert again. But there would not be more alerts than 1 at a time.

Following more content than you can review makes little sense to me. If you do that, you would have 1 alert for unreviewed content, most of the time.

 

[Brandon_R]

Alerts relate to events that concern you directly, for example:

• user quoted YOUR post
• YOU received a trophy
• user is following YOU

Events that do not directly involve you go to the news feed, which has a completely different architecture. It's simply not feasible to push those kind of events to the alerts system.
Not if you don't want your server to melt anyway.

i agree, we need to start thinking with big boards in mind

 

[Dean]

i agree, we need to start thinking with big boards in mind

I am struggling to figure out what your thoughts are. The bigger the board, the more people posting, and that would mean if at least a few people are online that are in Your News Feeds, then almost certainly there would be a constant flow in the Your News Feeds, you could almost assume it.

If that is the situation, why would people want to be alerted of something they already know exists?

Even in an extremely large forum when following 1 person who randomly posts a few times a month, a quick check of the Your News Feeds would show that when you came online and checked, wouldn't it?

?

 

[Nick]

so what happens when someone else posts a reply? which coincidently will be happening every 2 minutes for someone with the aforementioned 1500 friends.

Exactly. If you keep checking your news feed, you're going to end up in an infinite loop of getting the same 'ol "your newsfeed has been updated" notification. Even though it's one at a time, it's one every 2 minutes, and that's plain annoying.

I vote no. In fact, here's what I have to say about this:

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[erich37]

Even Facebook with their effectively limitless resources do not push alerts/notifications to you for the activity of people you follow/your friends - this is purpose of 'your' news feed, which shows only the activity of people you follow.

O.K. I understand where you are coming from.
Just hard to find the links as from the position where those are at the moment.

 

[Alpha1]

I think that the way newsfeeds are placed / hidden now, they will be forgotten / ignored by most people.

 

[Digital Doctor]

I think that the way newsfeeds are placed / hidden now, they will be forgotten / ignored by most people.

Good prediction.
They certainly are.

But I don't think the Alert per new thread by followed member would work either.

 

[Alpha1]

Facebook may have gotten it right to place the newsfeed in a sidebar widget.

 

[Onimua]

Facebook may have gotten it right to place the newsfeed in a sidebar widget.

Yet all I've seen from a majority of people is how annoying/distracting it is and wish it was removed, so I guess it depends on who you ask.

 

[Alpha1]

Should be easy to add a collapse function.
Facebooks sidebar feed is confusing because it does not display news well. In such a small space its not possible to show more than User A did action B in location C. Facebook is including the posted text as well, which often just doesn't fit in there, rendering the function useless. If they correct that, then I think their sidebar will be useful.