Heads up - Improvements to watched threads coming

[BeccaMumsnet]

Hullo everyone,

Just a heads-up: we wanted to let you know we've been working on some changes to improve the way our 'watched threads' option works, and we’re going to be releasing them today.

As you know, at the minute, if you want to receive an email notification when someone posts on a thread you yourself have posted on, you have to check the ‘watch this thread’ box when you post your message. From today, the box will be automatically checked.

Our thinking was that because, in the immortal words of Ferris Bueller, , it can be easy to miss replies to threads you’ve posted on, so it’d be useful to keep you updated as a matter of course.

Some crucial points:

• Fear not: we absolutely won’t email every time someone posts after you have - and if you’re still looking at the thread, we won’t mail you at all.

• You’ll only get ONE email after you’ve left the thread, to say it’s been updated.

• If the idea of receiving any such emails makes you want to weep/tear out your hair/throw a toddler-style tantrum on the kitchen floor, DON’T PANIC: you can do a one-time-only opt out, by clicking on customise at the top of any thread, and unchecking ‘Auto-watch threads I start’ and/or ‘Auto-watch threads I post on’.

• If you’d like to adopt a mix-and-match policy and be alerted to replies on some threads but not others, simply uncheck the auto-watch options in customise, and check the ‘watch this thread’ box underneath the message box on the thread you’re interested in.

Hope all of this makes sense, and sounds useful. Do shout if you've any questions (we know we can rely on you )

Thank you all
MNHQ

I realise by the way that my impassioned outburst about every thread I post on suddenly being added to my Watch list shows that I failed to fully comprehend the appallingness of this change.
I shall now make sure I untick the stupid sodding box under each post on each thread. I presume I'm going to have to do that on EVERY SINGLE STUPID SODDING POST now because I'm damned if I'm going into Customise!

So far nothing has changed for me on mobile site. Still different colours for me & op.

I'm clicking nothing !

This is happening lots. Changes and upgrades to keep up with other social media/new software and lots of users complain.

Might help if there was consultation. But MN has become so huge, I don't think users opinions matter anymore.

Consultation doesn't always mean complaisance, PrivatePike, as I'm sure you know. (I've been flabbergasted for a long time that they kept the 4 MN styles going without deciding to override the fewer and fewer users that wanted to keep what they were used to.)

But at least consultation jabs you to think about things and to muster cogent arguments for doing something or not. There's a limit to the amount of grandfathering-in that a commercial site can justify but some of these changes are steps that I can't imagine would have been taken with more thought.

Thanks, Private !

I'm heeding your warning.

Bloody annoying as I said on AIBU thread that users with visual issues, epilepsy etc haven't been considered at all. Again.

MNHQ could you let us know what is going on? I have, too late!!, learnt that removing the 'put into your watch threads' removed the colours and I'm lost!!!

HELP!HELP!!!!

Also could you explain why you think that all the threads people are posting in should be on the 'threads i'm watching'?
I thought that the 'threads I'm on' was for that. To follow threads where you have posted before. I use the 'watch this thread' when I want to follow what is going on wo posting!!

And please please get the colours back! It's unreadable wo them.

Rather than consultation though, maybe asking how people are using the site and what they see as important or very useful would help. Well at the very least it will keeping the customers/users happy ensuring that the site is still used as it was.

One question that users might put to MNHQ is 'If we were starting with a new site and this was the set-up, would we accept certain changes as necessary for successful use?' If the answer was Yes, then they should implement them even if it means an apparent going back on what was originally said.

Think they will currently, Maryz. Sit tight and create a spam filter for the emails for now!

At the moment, I'm pretty certain the colours would disappear, MaryZ. I suspect any change away from Classic would be more.......subtle.

Apparently if you change nothing, they wont Maryz. Don't quote me though, I guess it could change at any time.

I don't have the time or energy to get embroiled in it all again.

Yes I use it and like it.

Everyone has told me it will, Maryz. So I'm sticking with what I have and refusing to change a thing. I'm even afraid to namechange now just in case that sets it off.

I would be happy with one colour for OP and one for me.

Everyone has told me it will, Maryz. So I'm sticking with what I have and refusing to change a thing. I'm even afraid to namechange now just in case that sets it off.

I would be happy with one colour for OP and one for me.

Do you think MNHQ have barricaded themselves in, broken out the tin hats and emergency gin yet?

Maryz I have clicked nothing, stayed away from the Customise Click of Doom™ and still have colours and MN Classic. And no emails.

Be brave, young Jedi.

But View where were the threads from frustrated mumsnetters wanting emails whenever threads were updated, bemoaning the fact that posting on a thread added it to TIW. What problem was this change meant to solve?

MNHQ haven't answered any questions as to why this 'improvement' has been made. They have simply fucked off a lot of their users. Just as they did when the new mobile site was introduced.

For what it's worth the new test app highlights OP and my posts in different colours which can be chosen from about five options - admittedly only our names are coloured but if this has been built into the new app why was it considered unnecessary on the site? There's no logic at all

its not an improvement, its plain daft, why change what was not broke,
I had my posts in one colour and op's in another and could click on a thread without it being added to my watched.

now me and OP are same colour. when I am drunk i WILL answer myself, I know it,

My TIW hasn't changed, Maryz, if it helps.

Like Fiderer I'm being brave.

Feeling very wibbly at all the changes though.

LittleBear

Could it be that perhaps HQ have noticed the rare, occasional threads where ops don't return and some pps whinge about the op not returning ?

Surely if you've posted on a thread you will remember, and return to said thread if you want an update ?

Sounds like we could get loads of threads bemoaning ops who never return to update.

I had so nearly forgotten the awfulness that was the mobile site too. This is bringing it all back.

It was horrible.

Clicking and deleting things off TIW is ok Maryz just avoid customerise like it has a bad cause of plague!

I was thinking about what makes a website accessible the other day. I am creating quite a list of things that make it unusable, and there are stuff that I do like. Accessibility is a HUGE problem on the web, and as yet the legal implication of failing to provide reasonable adjustment is not something that has annoyed me enough to look into it. But it just has. I can change the size of the text only by zooming in, but that can lead to exciting layout issues when upgrades are happening. The customise colours are incredibly useful as I can then access the text easier without worrying about unreadable colour combinations. Apparently we should live in a country where reasonable adjustment can be expected, unfortunately that does not seem to make one bit of an impact for some businesses/organisations when they are doing their planning and implementation.

Samcro

I want to offer consulation, but will be a bad idea ?

I can see me talking to myself too, if all these changes over ride everything eventually. And I don't drink.