Why do so many people reply to Watched Threads emails?

[Renegader]

So many people reply to emails they get when they reply or create a thread. For example, when someone creates a help thread and they get an answer to it, the person always replies to it in the email.

Is it really that confusing?! Maybe if you reply to the email it should automatically post your message? o.o

 

[TheBigK]

That's nothing. Few of our users reply to thread by first 'reporting' the thread and composing their response in the 'report' window.

 

[ENF]

That's nothing. Few of our users reply to thread by first 'reporting' the thread and composing their response in the 'report' window.

Wow. lol... Never seen that one before.

 

[CTXMedia]

I had a similar issue with PC notification emails - people were responding to the notification email (the one that tells them there is a new reply), thinking they were replying to the other person in the conversation - leading, of course, to their reply ending up in my mailbox and the respondent quite often frustrated because the intended recipient didn't get their reply.

I added a new first paragraph advising that it was a NOTICE only and that they should LOG IN TO REPLY TO THIS CONVERSATION - which helped to reduce the emails.

You could also remove the actual reply/post text from the notification emails so that users have to login to read it; that would also stop them replying to the notification emails.

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[Morgain]

I mostly got this on Conversation notifications. Understandable as the XF design on the notification is poor.
I changed it using the kind of prominent notice Clickfinity mentions.
But XF doesn't make it easy to edit the email templates. You have to switch admincp into Development mode which can only be done by editing a script in FTP.

 

[Andrej]

But XF doesn't make it easy to edit the email templates. You have to switch admincp into Development mode which can only be done by editing a script in FTP.

It isn't that hard if you think about it.

 

[Morgain]

It isn't that hard if you think about it.

No it's not that hard
IF someone tells you that it needs switching to Development mode
and IF you know how to do that
or IF someone tells you
and IF you know how to FTP
and IF you know the correct file to edit
and IF you know precisely WHAT to edit without messing up the file, or someone tells you.

Given all that it's moderately easy.
If you don't know one of those items you're lost. XF has a weird template system where part of the notification emails are available in the admincp as templates under Appearance, but half are only accessible like this. Makes not much sense.

 

[Naatan]

I find sending these sort of emails from "Do Not Reply" is usually sufficient. Of course there wills till be people who simply don't know anything about technology that will just send a response, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

From a technical standpoint it would be fairly difficult to securely determine the poster just from an email response. There are ways of course, but it's questionable.

 

[Digital Doctor]

If the email included no content ... other than the title and saying there was a reply ... people would be less likely to respond ... as they don't have anything to respond to ! Then again, the email wouldn't be that helpful.

Can't you send an auto-reply WITH SOME BIG ALERT IN IT ... with their message ... saying they have to post it in the forums ?

 

[Andrej]

No it's not that hard
IF someone tells you that it needs switching to Development mode
and IF you know how to do that
or IF someone tells you
and IF you know how to FTP
and IF you know the correct file to edit
and IF you know precisely WHAT to edit without messing up the file, or someone tells you.

Given all that it's moderately easy.
If you don't know one of those items you're lost. XF has a weird template system where part of the notification emails are available in the admincp as templates under Appearance, but half are only accessible like this. Makes not much sense.

Exactly. If you don't know something, this is a great place to ask for help.

 

[Jeff Fuqua]

Is there a step-by-step somewhere to re-design the email notice?

 

[Arty]

Is there a step-by-step somewhere to re-design the email notice?

If you want to change text, edit phrase conversation_reply_email_text in admin control panel.

If you want to change template, add this line to library/config.php:

$config['debug'] = 1;

and then you'll see "Development" tab in admin control panel where you can change email templates.

 

[Jo Fox]

If the email included no content ... other than the title and saying there was a reply ... people would be less likely to respond ... as they don't have anything to respond to ! Then again, the email wouldn't be that helpful.

Can't you send an auto-reply WITH SOME BIG ALERT IN IT ... with their message ... saying they have to post it in the forums ?

Would even that work? My forum - recently still on 'another' platform, sends email alerts with DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL within the text. Makes no difference at all!

It's the same as people emailing via Contact Us that they've registered but cannot post replies. Naturally when I check, their account is "Awaiting Verification"!! They just don't read the messages.

 

[RobinHood]

I think a lot of people have started to get used to Facebook's system whereby you can reply to a notification email to respond to a message or a status update.

It's very handy, and I use it a lot as I tend not to log into Facebook as often as I used to, yet I still communicate with some people people via the messaging system. It's nice being able to just use my email client, although this feature does then reduce the number of ads served to me as I no longer have to log in to the site to reply.

Would an email reply system like that ever become feasible for XF?

 

[Jo Fox]

Heaven forfend! For a community like mine (BS), public communication is vital as we have something like 2,500 guests reading per month but only a few hundred members. I would hazard a guess that half at the very least are scared, anxious people searching desperately for information they would never be able to find on Facebook. They don't register because they can barely switch their computer on.

 

[Digital Doctor]

Would an email reply system like that ever become feasible for XF?

It has been requested.

One way to eliminate responses to these emails is to REMOVE all content from the "Alert email".
Simply say someone has responded.

Another idea is to bypass email altogether and make them "Facebook alerts".
I'm sure that would cause other problems