Forum Usage

[Eaglezsoar]

I have a question on subscriptions and this forum.
If I subscribe to a forum in my mind I should be notified of any and all topic changes within the subscribed forum.
If the above is the case then why should I ever have to subscribe to a topic?
Many times I come into the forum and view for unread posts and I am presented with dozens of posts that I have not read and I was never notified that the post exists.
This is causing me confusion because I obviously don't want to subscribe to every topic, there are thousands of them but I do want to be notified of changes to the topics
within the forums that I am subscribed to. I hope that I am making sense.

[Eaglezsoar]

24 views and not one response. Thanks for the great help guys. I would delete the message but I am leaving it as a testimonial of how many users actually care
about another. Sometimes I wonder why I spend so much time on this board doing the best I can to answer people's problems, no one seems to care about anything
but the problems that THEY are having. What a world we live in.

[Lochemage]

aww, don't be like that I did read it before, but I didn't know how to answer it. The only subscription system that I use here is just the email response when someone replies to a thread I have posted to, so I don't have any experience with using the other forms of subscription notifications. Sorry.

[Eaglezsoar]

I appreciate the fact that you took the time to acknowledge the message. Even if I don't know the answer I try to respond to messages because
I don't want users to feel that they are being ignored. There is nothing worse then leaving a message on a forum and getting no responses. I understand
that most do not know the answers in a lot of cases but very few will take the time to say that. The fact that you did indicates that you care more
about people than most. My point is that this attitude pervades our entire society and we wonder what the world is coming to. A simple answer for most is
to look in the mirror. Thanks for responding.

[dpmacri]

I appreciate the fact that you took the time to acknowledge the message. Even if I don't know the answer I try to respond to messages because
I don't want users to feel that they are being ignored. There is nothing worse then leaving a message on a forum and getting no responses. I understand
that most do not know the answers in a lot of cases but very few will take the time to say that. The fact that you did indicates that you care more
about people than most. My point is that this attitude pervades our entire society and we wonder what the world is coming to. A simple answer for most is
to look in the mirror. Thanks for responding.

Eaglezsoar, I read the message, too. And like Lochemage, I didn't know the answer. My tendency is to only reply if I believe I can add something to the topic. That said, I see your point about getting "some" response, even if it's "I don't know ".

FWIW, I appreciate your helpfulness on the forums. I *know* when someone posts in the New User forum that you're going to give them a nice welcome. And I was glad to get that when I started out here. Based on your feedback here, I'm going to *try* to be more proactive about responding to requests, if when I don't know the answer.

[Jimustanguitar]

I get notified when people update topics that I've subscribed to...

Perhaps it groups the responses, so if several come in it only notifies you once or something like that?

[Lochemage]

I get notified when people update topics that I've subscribed to...

Perhaps it groups the responses, so if several come in it only notifies you once or something like that?

I believe that this is the case. It is supposed to only alert you once per topic, until you make your next visit.

[dpmacri]

One more comment regarding Eaglezsoar's frustration with lack of posts. I often read the forums from my iPhone when I'm in between things. And posting from the small device is challenging (I've occasionally posted words without any spaces -- apparently my fat thumbs weren't hitting the space key ). What I *wish* I could do in the cases where I've read things from my phone is to mark them as "unread" so I could go back and respond later. But to my knowledge, there's no way to do that. I've searched the phpBB forums and have seen requests for this feature, but don't believe it's implemented.

[Eaglezsoar]

Thanks for all the answers. Sorry I was so grumpy. I think that it is a combination of things that cause the issues I see about not being notified on new posts in forums that I am subscribed to.
There was a guy who put in a new post in troubleshooting that no one had responded to in 24 hours and I was not notified about the topic. The only reason I found it is because I scan for unanswered posts.
That's what started all this questioning on how the forum works. Admin and owners aren't responding so I am just going to drop it and go back to the old fashioned way of finding posts by scanning for unanswered
and scanning for posts that I have not been notified about. It works but I still miss some messages which makes us look bad for not answering within a reasonable time and makes me feel bad because I take it personally.

[geneb]

Do what I do, click the "View Unread Posts" at the top of the main forum page. You'll never miss one.

g.

[jmpreuss]

Do what I do, click the "View Unread Posts" at the top of the main forum page. You'll never miss one.

g.

This is what I do too but what I would really like is if I could get a digest of all new posts in an email, like how I can in a google group. I find it frustrating that for each unread post with a history I have to find out where I last left off reading it. Unfortunately I don't think this is a feature that can be added on if it isn't built in.