AWF Newsletter - thoughts?

[Jon]

I am looking into whether or not it would be worthwhile having an AWF Newsletter that basically just periodically sends out an email with the most popular forum threads from Access related areas. It would be autogenerated and no embellishment from me.

Any benefit in that for members?

 

[TexanInParis]

I am looking into whether or not it would be worthwhile having an AWF Newsletter that basically just periodically sends out an email with the most popular forum threads from Access related areas. It would be autogenerated and no embellishment from me.

Any benefit in that for members?

I already get a weekly update of popular posts by setting an option.

 

[isladogs]

Yes this does seem like deja vu all over again. How would this differ from what you set up a couple of years ago?

 

[Jon]

I was under the impression that people weren't getting the emails from what was set up before. I also get emails each week from my hosting provider saying about errors in sending emails out. So, I have no idea if anybody is actually getting anything at all.

 

[Gasman]

I have not seen them in a while?

 

[isladogs]

I stopped getting them a long time ago but as a regular visitor they weren't really useful to me
However @TexanInParis says he/she gets them

 

[Jon]

Yes, I was thinking that regular visitors may have less utility from them. Part of the problem is that when people come here, lots then forget about the place later on. A newsletter gives them a gentle nudge that we still exist. The idea I had was to increase engagement of those who are not one of the regulars.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I don't know that I need a newsletter because, like Colin, I visit often enough to have a feel for what is going on. However, there is one metric that might be of at least passing interest. How hard would it be to have a list of articles ordered by "hits"? We already know how many articles have been updated. But knowing which articles are most popular for readers might trigger some of us to do brain dumps on that topic in one of the appropriate sections.

 

[AccessBlaster]

I am looking into whether or not it would be worthwhile having an AWF Newsletter that basically just periodically sends out an email with the most popular forum threads from Access related areas. It would be autogenerated and no embellishment from me.

Any benefit in that for members?

I use an alias email because I don't want a ton of notifications clogging up my personal email, I rarely check it unless I'm registering something.

 

[AccessBlaster]

If there were a link with site statistics I'd probably check it out.

 

[NauticalGent]

I think it's a great idea, maybe some members could write an article for the periodical...?

 

[ebs17]

the most popular forum threads

According to which criteria would these be determined? Number of posts?

Many posts can arise if the original question was asked unclearly and many inquiries are necessary in order to even understand the issue. Many posts can also arise if additional discussions are held about (dispensable) secondary theaters of war.

 

[Jon]

According to which criteria would these be determined? Number of posts?

Many posts can arise if the original question was asked unclearly and many inquiries are necessary in order to even understand the issue. Many posts can also arise if additional discussions are held about (dispensable) secondary theaters of war.

It is auto selected so not sure of the criteria. Maybe it is number of views, or number of replies within a certain period.

 

[ebs17]

I just mean that a newsletter should also be interesting enough in terms of content for me to subscribe to it. I myself avoid notifications from forums about contributions because my inbox would overflow. I prefer statistics in the forum, such as the latest posts, top-rated topics, most-read topics, what interests others (newcomers versus regular visitors), are there exciting new topics , ...

The idea I had was to increase engagement of those who are not one of the regulars.

They would have to be particularly motivated.

 

[bob fitz]

I was under the impression that people weren't getting the emails from what was set up before. I also get emails each week from my hosting provider saying about errors in sending emails out. So, I have no idea if anybody is actually getting anything at all.

I can confirm that I receive an email every week with links to the site's most popular threads.

 

[NauticalGent]

I was under the impression that people weren't getting the emails from what was set up before. I also get emails each week from my hosting provider saying about errors in sending emails out. So, I have no idea if anybody is actually getting anything at all.

It is hit or miss with me. At first, I was getting them like clockwork but I cant remember the last time I received one. The notifications on watched threads acts funny sometimes too...

 

[Jon]

It sounds like a crapshoot at the moment.

 

[Isaac]

Honestly to me .. if I could pick ONE thing I would like AWF to improve, the single most useful thing to me is the same thing I have thought since I first came: That the red #, which displays for unread stuff over the Notification icon, would remain red until such time as I have navigated to ALL things which gave rise to the red #, to which I have not yet navigated.

That red # is the most useful thing in the world - until you click it once (doing nothing else), then it goes away, even though you still have 7 new things to navigate to, and have to try to remember them. If it's possible?

 

[Isaac]

Also I agree with ebs #12 post, wherein they made the implication that attributing value or worth to threads solely according to # of posts might not be the way to go.

This reminds me of the discussion we had a while back on Accepted answers (where the original poster determines which solution is best, an approach I think is irrational, as the OP is the person literally least qualified to know which solution is best, they were the ones who lacked knowledge on the very thing in the first place), whereas, Voting (by other members) is a little bit better, because other experienced members vote on a solution, which lets the posters know what other experienced users think, which is a lot better than the poster letting everyone know what the poster thinks..(the latter is only good if you subscribe to the old joke Hey! It Compiles. Ship it! wherein one clicks Execute and it seems to 'work', thereby the OP thinks it is the best solution...a common newbie mistaken approach on how to evaluate success).

Suggesting that threads have value due to # of replies is a dangerous way to go IMO. In fact more often than not they are the result of a situation where the OP needs to be told to go do Step 1 before trying to do Step 5, but people will spend dozens of hours anyway trying to help them do Step 5 - frankly it makes not only the OP but the whole community look unprofessional & unwise because our ego of wanting to post answers is outweighing our discipline in enforcing the sequential steps the person should have taken.

I think what Doc mentioned would at least be a little bit improvement over that - that is, derive popularity from Hits, not posts.

But I would almost pay for the red # to be more intelligent

 

[Jon]

Honestly to me .. if I could pick ONE thing I would like AWF to improve, the single most useful thing to me is the same thing I have thought since I first came: That the red #, which displays for unread stuff over the Notification icon, would remain red until such time as I have navigated to ALL things which gave rise to the red #, to which I have not yet navigated.

That red # is the most useful thing in the world - until you click it once (doing nothing else), then it goes away, even though you still have 7 new things to navigate to, and have to try to remember them. If it's possible?

Perhaps it is by design. Let's say someone hasn't been to the site in a while and they see 30 notifications. Am I correct in thinking they would have to go to each notification page to remove them under your suggested system?