Flaws in our alerts system?

[pyf]

Who thinks there are possible flaws in how the alerts work?

 

[KILLCIDE]

Define what you mean by flaws.

For me, I feel like I don't always get alerted about a thread I'm watching. More recently, I had to find out that someone commented on a thread I'm watching by the "New Posts" section.

 

[Rui]

I haven't noticed any differences between the alert system of the Hive and that of the other XenForo I'm at. Since you didn't specify, I'll enumerate a few points:

• Alerts disappear after 3 months if not opened (though the alert count remains the same after the alerts are removed; this might be a XenForo bug, but at least it tells you how many you've missed).
  
  
• If you open the alert panel, but do not open the thread that generated the alert, you will no longer receive alerts from new posts in that thread. This is intentional XenForo behavior.
  
  
• As I mentioned here, if you use a lot of @, it will not generate an alert for everyone. I'm unsure if it stops at some count, or if no one is notified at all, but obviously XenForo makers noticed this fairly obvious security exploit.

 

[pyf]

Define what you mean by flaws. [...]

Shortcomings due to how the alerts system was designed, and which can be considered annoying / disruptive in some cases. Therefore, I am not really talking about bugs here. As for me, our alerts system works 'as intended' and everything seems to be 'by design' afaik. But maybe some options can be added to it, for "Quality of life" reasons (like for example, a better management of the data flow of alerts), depending on what XenForo natively allows.


For example, afaik our alerts system for Profile Post comments can not be fine-tuned. When Profile Post comments get extensively numerous and that people do not want to be notified of any new comment anymore, I am understanding that they simply can not do that easily. The only way for them to not be notified anymore would be afaik to 'delete' all their comments. But then, some information would be lost / removed from public view (obviously). For the record, iirc @Roland had already expressed such concerns in another, previous similar thread many months ago.

For the record, I am mentioning here that I think no post is deleted on THW, nor on any other forum afaik. 'Deleted' posts / comments are simply masked from public view. The data itself is still readable at moderator level and upwards, and it can eventually be restored.


Another thing I have noticed: I, too, have the feeling that I do not get all the alerts I should theoretically receive for threads I have subscribed to / am watching, but hardly visit anymore. I think it is for the reason you have mentioned already @Rui.

As an example, I do not post anything anymore in our 'Favorite song atm' thread, and I only visit it when I am being mentioned there. And when I then vaguely check out said thread, I indeed have the feeling that I had not been notified of all the new posts there.

What you said @Rui confirms my guess that it is a XenForo feature, which limits the number / rate of alerts a user receives for threads he has subscribed to but does not / hardly visit anymore. This might be in order to save bandwidth / processing power server side, based on the user's surfing habits on THW.


Another thing I have noticed is what I call the 'Dead Zone', for lack of a better name.

It seems to me that in rare and undefined circumstances, *one* new alert and one only, may already be marked as being read already, while in fact it is not the case. The event erroneously marked as read would *always* be the one immediately below the one marked as 'new' in the list of Latest Alerts.

Therefore, as a precaution when I check my Latest Alerts, I always watch the most recent event which is already marked as being read, just to be sure. I also point out that I have not experienced this since quite some time by now.


And finally, I understand that we do not have the possibility to mark / unmark as being read / unread, any event mentioned in 'Latest Alerts' as we see fit. Yet, being able to do so may imho help manage the workflow of alerts in a more efficient and less resource-hungry way.

Personally, I use workarounds to manage this at browser level, by preemptively opening one new tab for each new event. But now my browser is shock full of open tabs, because I can not process them fast enough. Therefore I keep opening more new tabs than I can close. But maybe it is me who is not doing things the right way here...

 

[Rui]

by preemptively opening one new tab for each new event. But now my browser is shock full of open tabs, because I can not process them fast enough.

This happens with me too. I might've caused crashes on the Hive server back in the old days by opening so many tabs at once
I reckon a lot of people do this. From a usability perspective, I'd guess it's either a fear of losing information or lack of easy navigation. That's how I justify multi-tab-opening behavior. Forum software still has not treated this decently.

 

[HappyTauren]

It's funny you brought this up, because I had to delete my comments from your profile where you talk to deepstrasz since I was getting notified every time you replied something solely to him. On forums, this is handled by me not receiving a notification for a new post on the topic UNLESS someone is quoting me, or I am watching it.

So yeah, I agree, it's kinda bad. Facebook has "turn off notifications for this post" for situations like this.

 

[Frotty]

Yup, the alert spam for profile messages is a pain.

 

[Ralle]

Another thing I have noticed: I, too, have the feeling that I do not get all the alerts I should theoretically receive for threads I have subscribed to / am watching, but hardly visit anymore. I think it is for the reason you have mentioned already @Rui.

As an example, I do not post anything anymore in our 'Favorite song atm' thread, and I only visit it when I am being mentioned there. And when I then vaguely check out said thread, I indeed have the feeling that I had not been notified of all the new posts there.

What you said @Rui confirms my guess that it is a XenForo feature, which limits the number / rate of alerts a user receives for threads he has subscribed to but does not / hardly visit anymore. This might be in order to save bandwidth / processing power server side, based on the user's surfing habits on THW.

The problem in this case is often that once a thread is replied to and you get an alert, it will not alert you in the future until the thread is again marked as read by reading the last post.