Lack of interest Watch thread default preferences

[Sim]

When manually watching a thread, the current default is to not receive email notifications



I always prefer to get email notifications, so it would be good to have a preference option to change this default.

How about a radio button option in preferences to set the default option?

Actually, it would be even more useful to have the option to avoid the popup completely - so the preference could be about setting automatic behaviour when clicking "Watch".

In user preferences:

When watching threads manually ...

[o] show watch choices popup every time​

[ ] always watch and receive email notifications​

[ ] always watch without receiving email notifications​

It might also be useful to change the behaviour when clicking on Unwatch to always show a popup giving more options - because sometimes you want to change how you watch an individual thread. This would be especially useful if the above suggestion about setting automatic behaviour is implemented, so you can easily override things for individual threads.

When clicking "Unwatch":

Unwatch thread ...

[o] stop watching this thread​

[ ] watch this thread without receiving email notifications​

[ ] watch this thread and receive email notifications​

 

[Kirby]

I generally like the idea, but

When clicking "Unwatch": Unwatch thread ... [ ] watch this thread and receive email notifications

doesn't make sense to me - why would I want to watch a thread with email notifications when I click Unwatch?

What would make sense to me is when clicking "Unwatch":

Unwatch thread ...
[o] always completely stop watching this thread
[ ] always downgrade one level (eg. email -> no email, no email -> not at all)
[ ] show unwatch choices if email notification is enabled

 

[Sim]

I generally like the idea, but

doesn't make sense to me - why would I want to watch a thread with email notifications when I click Unwatch?

What would make sense to me is when clicking "Unwatch":

Unwatch thread ...
[o] always completely stop watching this thread
[ ] always downgrade one level (eg. email -> no email, no email -> not at all)
[ ] show unwatch choices if email notification is enabled

Sorry, I may not have made myself clear.

Those unwatch options weren't preference suggestions - they were suggestions for an actual popup to appear when you click on the unwatch button.

At the moment, you simply get a confirmation popup:



... I'm suggesting that we augment this with more choices.

I'm working on the assumption that you typically watch a lot of threads (and thus it makes sense to automate that to bypass the popup if you always choose the same options), whereas you will tend to only unwatch threads occasionally when they are no longer of interest to you - so at that point you'd want more control.

 

[Kirby]

I see, but that stil doesn't make sense to me if the button is labeled Unwatch, no average joe would grasp that
So the link text needs to be changed.

 

[Sim]

I see, but that stil doesn't make sense to me if the button is labeled Unwatch, no average joe would grasp that
So the link text needs to be changed.

I think the logic is pretty clear. You are either unwatching the thread completely (the default option), or changing the way you watch it.

It's not really any different to the confirmation that currently pops up.

"Are you sure you want to unwatch this thread?" becomes more like "Are you sure you want to unwatch this thread? Here are some other choices you may prefer instead"

With the default option being to unwatch, it works exactly the same way it does now - but you also get more choices if you want more control.