Unless I am missing something small, all I am seeing is the * explaining email, and renaming of the top 2 names. I like the asterisk a lot, I do not like renaming tracking to watching at all. No way. Never.
The amount of confusion that would cause is huge! Besides the implications that all discussion regarding topic/category subscription types here on Meta would be invalid, anyone who has been using Discourse for the last 3 years has worked with these titles. Imagine the confusion if all of a sudden you have a bunch of topics subscribed, and topics that you never said to watch marked as such. If you want to rename the titles, great, but no way should a titleâs meaning be changed.
I think itâs very unfortunate that âWatchingâ and âTrackingâ were not reversed. Tracking suggests that it is more than merely âwatchingâ.
With regards to any change causing some confusion, yes that may be unavoidable (tho possibly mitigated) but DC is the platform for the next 10 years and the last 3 really were really all about getting it to this point.
How about as a compromise âWatchingâ is changed to âSubscribedâ - that fits the hierarchy better imo, though I would argue that whatâs currently âtrackingâ really is just âwatchingâ.
I donât know. Maybe it has more to do with how much and what meaning one imparts to certain words.
To me, âtrackingâ is a bit more removed than âwatchingâ.
That is, if I am tracking (my mind goes to âas in hunting, stalkingâ) something I may be following it at a distance.
Iâm interested, and I do hope to catch up to it, but I may not be âon top of itâ
If Iâm watching something, it means Iâm right there up close enough to see it at the moment.
In any case, Iâm not so sure it is the âwordsâ that need to be changed, and in fact I think changing them now would be a very bad thing.
On the other hand, if the descriptions of what each setting means could be made more understandable for those unfamiliar with them I think that wuld be a good thing.
My problem is, I know what they mean and I know what they do. So the settings and their descriptions and effects make perfect sense to me as they are now. But I have lost the ability to see them with the fresh eyes of a Discourse newbie.
I am in the exact same boat. I can remember being confused when I first used Discourse 2 years ago as an internal forum for a job a worked, and the difference between the 4 items was not at all clear. Like @Mittineague I am not sure how we can explain it better, but as mentioned above I strongly agree that using an existing âtitleâ for a different description is not a good idea, and I also agree that changing titles isnât necessarily what is needed here - description is far more important.
I agree. This is one of the features that can be greatly simplified to enhance the user experience. I think it is valuable to consider how others are approaching the same experience, e.g. Facebook below
Yes, there are edge cases where you need very precise settings - but mostly, a good user experience is created when the user is not always presented with too many options. In this case, i feel it will be much easier to solve it in a way that Facebook did. Youâre always âwatchingâ what you post and comment on - which you can turn off on a post setting.
In my opinion, there is very little reason for a notification setting such as âtrackingâ to exist. It is simply too granular.
I also believe that the muting setting should be separated from notification settings and treated as either
a second layer to âflaggingâ content as on Twitter, or
a separate option on posts on the same level as bookmarking and flagging, as on Facebook
I would argue that there are much more than edge cases for why we have the settings we currently do. For example, you say there is little reason for tracking to exist. I am a moderator on another Discourse. I track every single category, and thus every topic/post that is created on the site. This ensure that everything is in my new or unread pages, and I read everything that comes onto the forum. I donât want to be watching everything, because then ârealâ notifications would be buried within the mass of new posts, and I donât want normal, because I might miss things. There are likely many more examples that are not edge cases, but off the top of my head I am not thinking of them. Essentially, there is a very real use case for posts to be marked new/unread without generating a notification.
As for your mute suggestion, I donât agree either. Muting on Discourse is different than Twitter and Facebook as you are muting topics or categories (at least when discussing muting along with track/watch), not users. I donât want an option to mute a topic when I am flagging a user. Also, the Facebook image you took appears to have the equivalent of mute in the same menu as other notification related settings, as well as the equivalent of flagging.
But, I digress. This topic is discussing the wording of the topic subscriptions from a UX perspective. If you want to redo the functionality of the topic subscription system I would suggest making a new feature topic.
âNormalâ doesnât tell me anything as a user, I donât think it should exist.
The large amount of text detailing tracking in the UI currently complicates it, you have to read quite a lot to work out which one you want. The textual descriptions of âTrackingâ and âWatchingâ are very similar.
I believe that the option to âGet Notificationsâ should be separate and only shown when âTrackingâ the topic.
This simplifies the need to add so much text to the menu, but still very clearly understand when you will get notifications.
Here is a screen grab of mock-up of possible replacement in different states:
Yes, if you are are moderator - not for the 99% of your other users who donât need such a granular setting. My post is regarding the user experience for a normal Discourse user. Moderators obviouly have other needs than normal users.
My point is you can create settings for everything, but sometimes this ends up confusing users more than benefiting them. In the case of how you control notifications on Discourse, i would argue weâre making it harder for users to understand.
OK, normal user example. Imagine a user on a game development site. On that site there is a suggestions category where users can post suggestions for new/improved features in the game. This user likes to follow the suggestions, as she tends to give feedback and add on to them when she can. She likes to know when there is a new topic and/or post for her to read when she visits the site, but she doesnât need to get a notification (and then an email) every time there is a new post.
Another example. Take a user here on Meta. This user writes a new topic in the support category about an issue on his site. After creating this topic he sets notifications to watching so he is immediately notified if someone responds. After a few days of back and forth, the issue is solved, and no new posts occur. A few months later someone has a similar issue, so they post in his thread. The original user tries to help, but canât, and lets other post. Now, the original user is getting notifications everytime someone posts. He still likes to see what is going on (in case he can help further), but really doesnât need notifications anymore.
I absolutely agree. Too many settings becomes messy, confusing, and just plain difficult to deal with. However, I feel it is hard to argue that going from 4 to 3 subscription types is going eliminate a lot of confusion. Also, for users who have been using Discourse for years, getting rid of a subscription type will be tough. Something between normal and watching IS needed - otherwise there is no need for the new and unread pages, and no quick way for users to track if there are new posts in an interesting topic without being notified of every post.
Going back to the idea of changing the topic subscription descriptions, what if the wording was changed to make it clear that each âhigherâ option is the ones below it plus more. Something like:
Watching
Tracking mode + a notification for every new reply in this topic. Tracking
Normal mode + a count of new replies will be shown for this topic.
I was starting to write up a new topic on this subject, but your suggestion is so close to what I am thinking of, that it seems better to just pick up where you left off.
A small tweak to suggest is just to also remove the Mute option. I fail to see why itâs necessary at the topic level. When youâre not watching a topic, you only get notified when youâre quoted or mentioned anyway.
This way, itâs a single click to Follow or Unfollow a topic.
Not only is the interaction much simpler, but I am not overloaded with choices.
And once youâre following a topic, you have a single click to also get notifications for the topic.
Thatâs the same number of clicks it takes today to watch a topic, but with a lot less reading. It also makes it clear that Iâm both Following the topic and subscribed to Notifications.
I find these mock ups very unconvincing; you want to add even more buttons to every single page in Discourse? You find ânormalâ notification state confusing? Why would we stop offering the mute notification state?
Keep in mind my original suggestion was aimed to move things forward without the need to change underlying systems / data storage and almost a year ago.
I would also be happy with the removal of âmutingâ and would still keep two buttons to separate the notification state.
I think âFollow / Followingâ & âSubscribe / Subscribedâ are interchangeable and changing the ânotification stateâ should always have the word ânotificationsâ mentioned in it as a name - i.e. âDonât make me thinkâ.
As such I donât agree with the mock up by @mcwumbly (sorry buddy).
