Rethinking Alerts

[TheBigK]

I was wondering what was the reason xF alerts don't 'alert' me when -

• The user I am following creates a new thread
• The user I'm following replies to a thread
• The user I'm following likes something
• The user I'm following creates a new resource

At present, the users I'm following or those who've been following me adds nothing to the xenForo experience.

Is there any add-on that lets me have this facility? I'd like to give our users all these options and let them choose their own preferences.

 

[Shelley]

I think the first 3 are overkill personally. You would be receiving alerts too often imo. However, i do like the thought of <if x author> makes a resource release you are alerted (great idea) since there are quite a few authors I'd certainly be interest in being alerted if they posted a resource. Those are just my thoughts and opinion why it's not included.

Off-hand I don't know of an add-on which has the functionality you require although I could be mistaken and it's indeed posted in the resource manager but I haven't seen or noticed such an add-on like that.

 

[TheBigK]

@Shelley - thank you for the comment. The facility is being frequently requested by our members. Their reasoning is that 'following any user' should logically lead to the followers being alerted about the activities of their 'leader' . I'd rather enable all the above options, and let users have control over what they want to be alerted about. Few of the members said that 'alerts' about activities of their friends is the prime reason they login to Facebook and stay updated. I'm not a FB user, so I'm not sure how it works.

Use Case: I personally follow few really amazing engineers on our site and want to be quickly alerted whenever they post something (at least, start a thread). It may mean I'd quickly respond to any query or idea they post on the site and discussion starts building faster than current system where I've to click on 'What's New?' and then find out all the interesting threads that I may want to reply to. When there are hundreds of new threads, a lot of great threads get skipped.

I believe first three suggestions may result into a LOT of alerts; but I'd rather let my users decide what they want. I personally think it'd result into greater forum activity.

For example: I personally would love to be informed when KAM, you , Jake Bunce start a new thread or post a new resource; not in any one specific section; but anywhere on the site.

 

[Jeremy]

Personally, I don't see a reason for the others. Primarily, I use following as a method of quick access to users. Gaining so many alerts leads to glancing over them and missing important ones.

Without knowing the reason behind it, I would assume this is a reason. This type of feature is something I turned off the moment Facebook included it. However, the theory and logic behind it shouldn't be too difficult to implement.

 

[rdn]

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/the-following-alerts.2126/

 

[Donny]

Daaamnnn - is there one for 2.1?
Yup: https://nobita.me/resources/the-following-alerts.49/updates