Announcing Changes to Email Notifications
bill_w
May 06, 2010, 09:58 AM posted in General Discussion
On April 15th we rolled out some exciting new features on ChinesePod. In addition to the new dashboard and group functions, we also tweaked some of our default e-mail settings.
Recently though, there have been a number of questions from our users regarding what emails they will now receive. To help clear things up, here is a quick summary of the changes made on April 15th:
1. We removed the Daily Lesson e-mails in favor of more targeted Lesson Notification emails. In the past, everyone that was signed up for the "Academic email" received a notification for every new lesson. For example, Newbie learners were notified of not only new lessons appropriate to their level, but also new elementary, intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced lessons.
As of April 15th, users now receive lesson notifications only for the groups that they have joined (i.e. lessons that are relevant to them). Sending advanced lessons to newbies doesn't make sense for users or for our email servers. However, it has come to our attention that some of these e-mails are not making it to the right recipients and we are making it a priority to get this problem fixed immediately.
2. We began sending 'Activity Notification E-mails,' with a summary of the community activity on posts within the groups that users have subscribed to.
After reviewing user feedback and internal discussion here at ChinesePod, we have decided that these notifications should not be sent by default and instead should be an opt-in feature.
Starting today, the 'Activity Notification E-mails' will be opt-in only and will no longer be sent to you by default. If you want to continue to receive it just go to your profile, select "Edit Profile" and check the "New Activity Notifications" box in the Privacy settings area.
Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about these recent e-mail changes to the site!
Thanks,
The ChinesePod Team
m8r7egy501
May 06, 2010, 04:44 PM"On April 15th we rolled out some exciting ..."
Yes, I am still excited :-(
As this post is of general interest to everybody here - at least to the paying customers - it would be great if everybody could read it. But in fact - if you not subscribed the group "General Discussion" - you will never come across this important information!
This shows quite nicely that the new concept of groups everywhere sucks a lot!
xiao_liang
Everyone is automatically subscribed to general discussion.
go_manly
Actually, we all had to join General Discussion. The only groups we are automatically subscribed to are
1. the level in our profile, and
2. News & Features.
m8r7egy501
You are able to leave "General Discussion"! That should be impossible. The whole group thing sucks with all implications (rss feed, lesson subscription, thread subscription, etc, etc) that a normal user cannot understand.
go_manly
I don't understand why leaving General Discussion should be impossible?? If we can join it, why not leave it?
m8r7egy501
If you leave it, then you cannot read anymore important announcements.
xiao_liang
This is a silly conversation. They linked the post from the news blog, letting everyone know. It very much seems to me that you're criticising for the sake of criticism here.
xiao_liang
May 06, 2010, 07:27 PMEveryone is automatically subscribed to general discussion.
m8r7egy501
May 06, 2010, 10:14 PMYou are able to leave "General Discussion"! That should be impossible. The whole group thing sucks with all implications (rss feed, lesson subscription, thread subscription, etc, etc) that a normal user cannot understand.
m8r7egy501
May 07, 2010, 12:36 PMIf you leave it, then you cannot read anymore important announcements.
matthiask
May 06, 2010, 02:05 PMshouldn't that be a blog post or an announcement in news and features?
on the melody of Don't cha:
"Don't cha wish some threads were more sticky here
Don't cha wish you'd posting here without the fear
of dumpsta ... dumpsta"