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Forum Notifications Do Not Arrive

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 11:31 AM

  Snaike:

  As for the actual smilies... I wish I knew.  lol

  If I could only find a forum post here where I saw a smilie... Then reply to it purposelessly, and re-open my reply via the Edit button: the code would magically appear. :-) Perhaps smilies were posted in a previous version of this forum software, where inserting them was made possible by the interface in the compose window.

  As to fixing the forum, it definitely isn't a priority, but I wouldn't underestimate it either. If the intention is to have a vibrant user community, one should make all one can to ensure communication within the community runs smoothly. I'm sure I would never have bought all the clubs I purchased from WGT, had I not read recommendations of those clubs in the forum here. Dysfunctional forum notifications equal fewer visitors to the forum webpages, and thus (ultimately) perhaps less money and profit for WGT.

  And, this particular forum section is called Bug Log. For any software developer, a bug tracker is of the utmost importance. Users may forget they have ever submitted an issue in this forum section, unless they're reminded by those email notifications to return and provide their feedback as to whether the issue has been successfully fixed by WGT or not.

• nivlac 2,188 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 11:44 AM

  The smilies you've seen are being linked from offsite using the Insert Media button.  Basically, they're just inserting a picture of a smiley.

   

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 11:48 AM

  Thanks. 

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 12:01 PM

  As if to celebrate the discovery, I received no fewer than four email notifications containing nivlac's post, as well as four notifications containing my own first post to incorporate a smilie.  

  So, I'd better shut up or I'll get flooded with these the next time I open my mouth. Thanks a lot to everyone for their imput.  

• nivlac 2,188 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 12:40 PM

  I did edit that post twice.  Once to change a word and once to add a sentence.

  Perhaps you're receiving a 'fresh' copy every time I edit it?  But that only explains 3 copies, not 4.  So, I dunno.

  I won't edit this at all.  Curious to see how many you get this time.

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 1:13 PM

  That probably isn't the explanation. The 4 notifications about your previous post I received all contained the same, original version of your post, including the typo and minus the additional sentence. The size of the body of all 4 emails was identical: 1,119 bytes in a HTML file. The 4 emails were all sent within a second: the first three at 11:49:00 (GMT -0700), and the fourth a second later at 11:49:01 (GMT -0700). That by itself would indicate a delay of about 5 minutes after your post appeared on the webpage (11:44 AM, it says above).

  Moreover, I received the 4 notifications about your post intermingled with the 4 notifications about my own post, so the order in which the mail server sent those notifications was: your post – my post – your post – my post – your post – my post – your post – my post. All 8 emails sent within a second from 11:49:00 (GMT -0700). And, I never edited my own post repeatedly, so that wouldn't justify the quadruple delivery. (That's what you get for titling a thread Forum Notifications Do Not Arrive. Now there's too many of 'em!)  

  On the other hand, I correctly received only a single notification about your most recent post. (OK, I'm gonna duck now, expecting an email bombardment as this post gets delivered to my mailbox a handful of times in the next few minutes.)  

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 1:31 PM

  Now here's something interesting. At the bottom of each email notification you receive, there's a line that says:

  To stop all notifications of any updated items from World Golf Tour, go to Edit Profile, click on the Site Options tab, then under Email Configuration, set Send Notifications to "No".

  Does anyone know where the Site Options tab is located? I haven't seen it on this site so far. Well hidden, or is it a feature yet to be implemented? There's the My Profile webpage, of course, but no Edit Profile to click on anywhere. There's also the Account webpage, but again you can't really "go to Edit Profile" because there's no such link. This site-wide Email Configuration might be a useful thing, once the user locates where it is.

  PS: Only a single notification about my previous post so far; tides are turning!  

• nivlac 2,188 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 2:30 PM

  Under Account > Contact Info there is a check mark box for 'OK to Contact Me'.

  However, it's location might lead one to believe that you won't receive any prizes if that is unchecked so it's somewhat confusing.

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Wed, Jul 15 2009 2:42 PM

  I know this tick-box, but I doubt that's the one the email notifications talk about. The description sounds very different, and Send Notifications and OK to Contact Me sounds like 2 completely separate things to me. Besides, this contact tick-box is preceded by an explanation that says it relates to tournament prizes; no mention of discussion forums there.

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Sun, Jul 26 2009 12:01 AM

  Nearly 2 weeks later, I can report that the bug of receiving multiple notifications for the same post has been fixed.

  What Still Is Not Fixed: You still receive email notifications for posts only in those threads that you yourself originated. That is probably not what the forum software author intended, as the Email me replies to this post check-box is available for you (and activated by default!) even when you post a reply to a thread not originated by you.

  Related Bug: The check-box just mentioned is only available for you once you submit your post and then re-open it via the Edit link. (The same bug occurs for the Quote button and Preview Post, likewise not available as you are composing your post for the first time. I'm opening a separate bug report thread for that important issue, as it's not directly related to email notifications.)

  Clarification Desirable: The check-box is currently described as Email me replies to this post, but a clearer, more appropriate solution might be a three-way radio button allowing the user to choose one of the following three options: Email me replies to this post / Email me replies to this thread / Do not notify me of replies.

  Functionality Extension Desirable: The same 3 options should ideally be made available even to forum users who haven't contributed to a particular forum thread yet; perhaps a link at the bottom of each thread, titled Subscribe to This Thread, might activate email notifications for that particular thread for any user who clicks that link. An analogous amenity would be to place a Subscribe to This Forum link at the bottom of each sub-forum, allowing users to click the link and receive email notifications for each newly created thread in that sub-forum. To save bandwidth on GWT's mail servers, email notifications would not necessarily have to contain the text itself of the post they point to; they would simply contain a clickable link to the new post submitted to the thread / sub-forum. Also, it's not necessary for email notifications to be generated in the HTML format; switch to plain-text, and you've instantly reduced the email notifications bandwidth on GWT's mail servers by half at least. To save even further bandwidth, only one notification might be sent for a new reply to a thread, and no new notifications for that thread would be sent to a user before that user actually revisits the thread. (All of the above is standard functionality for leading forum software packages such as vBulletin and phpBB.)

  Related Bug: You are currently also emailed copies of your own posts. (But only in threads you yourself originated, see the main bug detailed above.) You either shouldn't be notified of your own posts, or there should be a separate check-box titled Email me a copy of this post in addition to the proposed three-way radio button Email me replies to this post / Email me replies to this thread / Do not notify me of replies, so that user expectations are set correctly.

  Thanks a lot to WGT for fixing these email notification bugs / obliging these feature requests in future! Naturally, the importance of these bugs / feature requests is secondary compared to the game itself.