CUNY Academic Commons

Thanks for bringing this up Maura. I agree that it could use some revision. The subject line is essentially made up of four parts currently:
USER_NAME, FORUM_TOPIC, GROUP_NAME, [CUNY Academic Commons]

Your revision changes it to:
FORUM_TOPIC, GROUP_NAME, [CUNY Academic Commons]

leaving out the USER_NAME. Also you added the "re:" at the beginning and removed most of the connective words between the parts.

I agree that starting with the forum topic is a good idea. I'm not sure about "re:" and I think the USER_NAME should be added back in, even if at the end. There are times when that info could be important. The connective words are not so important for experienced users but may be helpful for less experienced ones. For example using either forum or topic differentiates it from an announcement.

Some alternate suggestions:
topic TOPIC_NAME in the group GROUP_NAME was updated by USER_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
or
topic TOPIC_NAME was updated by USER_NAME in the group GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]

"was updated by" could be changed to something like "has a new post by"

The above examples would read
topic "Get ready for Open Access Week" in the group "Open Access Publishing Network CUNY (OaPN CUNY)" was updated by Maura A. Smale [CUNY Academic Commons]

topic "Get ready for Open Access Week" was updated by Maura A. Smale in the group "Open Access Publishing Network CUNY (OaPN CUNY)" [CUNY Academic Commons]

I like the idea of reconsidering and condensing the email subject line, but I agree with Chris that the poster's name is crucial information. When I look at the subject line of the email, the poster's name is more important to me than the message topic.

My proposal:

CURRENT SUBJECT LINE: Maura A. Smale replied to the forum topic "Get ready for Open Access Week!" in the group "Open Access Publishing Network CUNY (OaPN CUNY)" [CUNY Academic Commons]

REVISED SUBJECT LINE: Maura A. Smale replied to "Get ready for Open Access Week!" | Open Access Publishing Network CUNY (OaPN CUNY)

This would be USER_NAME replied to "TOPIC_NAME" | GROUP_NAME

We might also institute a character limit on TOPIC_NAME and abbreviate overly long topic names with ". . ." to keep the subject lines reasonable.

I like Matt's suggestion, except with "in" instead of a pipe:

USER_NAME replied to "TOPIC_NAME" in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]

For new topics:

USER_NAME started "TOPIC_NAME" in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]

I have a feeling that truncating long topic names will cause confusion. Most email clients can handle long topics just fine, and super-long topic names are probably not that common.

Looks good to me, thanks!

Sounds good. Do you all still think [CUNY Academic Commons] is necessary?

I also like the version with in instead of the pipe and having the name first is good with me too. It seems to make for more economical use of the inbetween words (replied to, started). We're losing the fact that it is a forum but that is probably OK.

I do think we should keep [CUNY Academic Commons] at the end. I'm not totally tied to it by my reasoning is:
Being at the end it's not an issue for this issue we're dealing with
It ensures people know that it is coming from the commons (although the email address also does this)
and it is something people can filter on (again, could do that with email)

Keeping words like forum and [CUNY Academic Commons] are probably more beneficial for new users than experienced ones.

• Forum (start and reply)
• Announcement
• Files
• Docs (create, update, comment)
• Invites

• Messages

Here are the Subjects with alternatives I was able to track down. I did it kind of quickly, feel free to nitpick.

When someone creates a forum post¶

USER_NAME started "TOPIC_NAME" in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
- new wording suggested in this issue

When someone updates a forum post¶

USER_NAME replied to "TOPIC_NAME" in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
- new wording suggested in this issue

When someone posts and announcement¶

New update in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
- this is current some alternatives below:
New announcement in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
USER_NAME made an announcement in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
New announcement by USER_NAME in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]

When someone uploads a file to a group¶

USER_NAME uploaded the file: FILE_NAME to GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
- this is the current Subject, alternatives below:
USERNAME uploaded file FILE_NAME to GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]

When someone edits a file in a group¶

USER_NAME edited the file: FILE_NAME in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
- this is the current Subject, alternatives below
USER_NAME edited file FILE_NAME in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]

When someone creates a BP Doc¶

USER_NAME created the doc DOC_NAME in the group GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
- this is the current Subject, alternatives below
USER_NAME created doc DOC_NAME in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]

When someone edits a BP Doc¶

USER_NAME edited the doc DOC_NAME in the group GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
- this is the current Subject, alternatives below
USER_NAME edited doc DOC_NAME in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]

When someone comments on a BP Doc¶

USER_NAME commented on the doc DOC_NAME in the group GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
- this is the current Subject, alternatives below
USER_NAME commented on doc DOC_NAME in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]

When someone invites another person to a group¶

[CUNY Academic Commons] You have an invitation to the group: GROUP_NAME
- this is the current Subject, alternatives below
You are invited to join GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
USER_NAME invited you to join GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]

When someone sends a message to someone else¶

[CUNY Academic Commons] New message from USER_NAME
- this is the current Subject, alternatives below
New message from USER_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
- if we want to include the subject
New message from USER_NAME: SUBJECT [CUNY Academic Commons]

When someone requests friendship¶

[CUNY Academic Commons] New friendship request from USER_NAME
- this is the current Subject, alternatives below
Friendship request from USER_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]

Thanks for the inventory, Chris.

I think your suggestions are good, much better than what we currently have in place. I would suggest going even further, cutting words like 'doc' and 'file', since they don't really provide information that's useful beyond the verb that's already there. So:

USER_NAME edited DOC_NAME in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
USERNAME uploaded FILE_NAME to GROUP_NAME

etc.

Thanks Boone,
I debated "doc" and "file" myself. I'm not sure it's clear to new users what the difference is so I kept the words in. But I'm not sure if that really addresses the problem. You may be right that it doesn't really provide any more information. Perhaps there could be text inside of the email that lets the user know whether it's an doc or a file (and perhaps we could consider the bodies of the emails later as to not spend more time now).

Taking your suggestion we might also change "edited" to "modified" or "changed" for file and then the verbs would be different between file and doc actions

FILES
USERNAME uploaded FILE_NAME to GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
USER_NAME modified FILE_NAME in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]

DOCS
USER_NAME created DOC_NAME in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
USER_NAME edited DOC_NAME in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]
USER_NAME commented on DOC_NAME in GROUP_NAME [CUNY Academic Commons]

Looking at it again, if we want to have USER_NAME start all Subjects (this is not necessary just an option) then we can change the last two regarding messages and friendship to something like:

USER_NAME sent you a message [CUNY Academic Commons]
USER_NAME sent you a message: SUBJECT [CUNY Academic Commons]

USER_NAME requests your friendship [CUNY Academic Commons]

Great -- thanks, Boone.

Thanks Boone!