CUNY Academic Commons

The new bbPress plugin has email subscriptions built-in for anyone subscribed to the topic, while the BuddyPress Group Email Subscription plugin is tailored for BuddyPress groups.

The BuddyPress Group Email Subscription plugin is not compatible with the new bbPress plugin yet; some development time will be needed to add this functionality.

Thanks, Ray. I guess the question is whether the box should be hidden when Group Email Subscription is active. I can see a few viewpoints:

1. Hide it because users may find it confusing -- they might think they have to check the checkbox to get email updates, even though they already are getting email updates via group email subscriptions (GES hereafter)

2. Show it because it opens options for users -- they can have GES set to no email but can subscribe to individual threads if they choose

I would go with (1) hide it for now, until we can better work out how to deal with the two email subscription routes (bbPress and BuddyPress). I think the number of people who want to subscribe on a per thread basis get trumped by the possible confusion and people will still be able to use the BuddyPress email subscription options.

small side note: Boone, if we're going to continue to use this Redmine install for both CBOX and commonsinabox.org tickets, perhaps we should create separate categories for them? Your call

Boone, if we're going to continue to use this Redmine install for both CBOX and commonsinabox.org tickets, perhaps we should create separate categories for them

We're not going to use it for Commons In A Box. We have Github trackers for that. If people don't feel comfortable posting tickets there, they can post them here under n'importe quel category, and Ray or I will move them as appropriate.

Okay. So is your preference for both CBOX and commonsinabox.org tickets to be on Github, or just CBOX tickets?

Use Redmine for commonsinabox.org tickets, because commonsinabox.org is a private website that only I have the ability to modify, while Commons In A Box is the software project that anyone can contribute to.

Adding Ray as watcher so he remembers to check back here

I'm assuming here that we're talking about Commons In A Box itself, where standalone bbPress forums are possible. If we're talking about commonsinabox.org, then we could probably remove the box and assume that users will get notifications of the activity items created by forum posts (that's right, isn't it Ray?)

Boone, about the latter point, you're right, GES automatically supports anything recorded into the group activity stream.

However, if you edit a bbPress group forum post, another email will be sent. We'll need to fix this for GES; I'll add an issue on Github for this.

• A member replies in a forum topic you've started
• A member replies after you in a forum topic
• Receive notifications of your own posts?

I think these features are enhancements and we could look into supporting those in a future release of GES past the CBOX launch window.

About hiding the subscription checkbox, I think we could hide bbPress' subscription checkbox if we're on a BuddyPress group topic; if we're on a regular bbPress forum topic, then leave it as-is.

The caveats with this approach is the subscription checkbox will be hidden in one instance and shown in another instance, which means the UI won't be consistent. I think this is rather minor though, but some users might bring up this point.

Thanks, Boone. I'm down with everything you say above, but I do think we should hide the box in commonsinabox.org

I signed out for Thanksgiving and missed some great clarification from Ray and Boone. Thanks, that makes it much clearer. I don't have much to add. I agree that it's fine to remove the checkbox for commonsinabox.org

For CBOX I agree with Boone and Ray that, for now things may be best left as they are, and that integration with GES in the long term is the way to go.

If you wanted to do any short term bandaid work for CBOX the only thing that I can think of is to make the text around the checkbox more verbose.
1) CURRENT: NOTIFY ME OF FOLLOW-UP REPLIES VIA EMAIL
2) SLIGHTLY MORE: NOTIFY ME OF FOLLOW-UP REPLIES TO THIS TOPIC VIA EMAIL

I thought of adding a third option which was even more verbose and explained the situation but it got too long and was possibly more confusing. Duplicate emails are probably less confusing in the end.

If/when this is revisited we should also address the "Subscribe" link at the top of the page (It appears to be the same thing as checking the checkbox but the different wording on the two, subscribe/notify, doesn't make that clear).

Just to update everyone, Boone and I have made some code changes in Group Email Subscription that will temporarily address this problem.

We've hidden the bbPress subscription checkbox when you're on a BuddyPress group.

Great -- thanks!

For the cbox site, I think that part of the reason I'm seeing double notifications (http://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/issues/2343) is that I'm subscribed in two ways: through BP group settings and through the BbPress checkbox, which I checked before it was hidden.

Now that the checkbox is hidden, I don't think there's a way for me to uncheck the BbPress settings, right? For people in my situation (or just for me if I'm the only one in this situation) would it be worth doing the following:

1. Seeing who is subscribed through BbPress settings and manually unsubscribing them
2. Subscribing those same people through BP Group email settings if they are not already receiving notifications

This would have the result of having people subscribed through only one option and allowing them to be able to adjust that option. Thoughts?

would it be worth doing the following

It'll take me an hour or two, so IMO it's not worth doing, but feel free to override and I will get to it sometime next week.

What if we take this in stages, with the first one being a quick check (next week or whenever) to see how many people this is affecting. That affects the worth-the-time question for me. If you could do that, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

Hi Matt:

For the cbox site, I think that part of the reason I'm seeing double notifications (http://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/issues/2343) is that I'm subscribed in two ways: through BP group settings and through the BbPress checkbox, which I checked before it was hidden.

I added a code snippet to cbox.org to disable the bbPress plugin from sending any emails.

I believe your double notifications issue is the result of cbox.org not running the latest version of GES; I think if we update GES on cbox.org, then this issue should resolve itself.

Cool - thanks, Ray!