Private/Internal Messaging vs Email

[severenz]

Soliciting for feedback on this guys...

I'm torn on the whole internal messaging and email thing. When do we email and when do we send internal messages.

Currently, the user can control "personal messaging" aka "someone sent you a message" emails with a single setting. The current friend messages go through this engine and I'm thinking this isn't the best.

I'm leaning towards the following:

1. Leave messaging option for just personal messages
2. All "process generated" or "action requiring" emails like: friend Invite, Friend Accept ,Friend Reject, Room Added - Needs Review, Your Room Was Approved, Your Room Was Rejected should be sent directly as emails regardless of this status.

Perhaps that means I add a "cancel account" link which would prevent any invites/emails from going out?

Thinking out loud here. Thanks for any feedback or suggestions.

P.S. After imminent 2.0 launch, I plan to eventually convert all outgoing emails to HTML format. They will be pretty and everything will be linked accordingly.

[Dragavan]

I am a person that does likes having a say over how things get sent to him. So I would be against having emails sent to me that can be initiated by others (such as friend invites or room reviews) that I don't have a no-email option for. That's just me.

[donteatpoop]

If I'm just popping into the site, I like the "someone added a room" notifications popping up. Much better than leaving the site later, checking my email, and having to come back to approve something. Just my thoughts anyway.

[Usoki]

I'm with DEP on this one. The notifications that pop up along the header are nifty, and I enjoy them greatly. Although I have appreciated getting e-mails when I didn't realize I had been checking the site while logged out. Every now and then, my computer logs me out, and without any visual clues, it takes something like trying to check ratings to make me realize that I'm not logged in. (That being said, I do appreciate the lack of a header userpanel taking up room and generally being obnoxious.)

Is there a way to make it so that only notifications that are x hours old will be sent out over e-mail? Or if someone goes on a room-making spree, I only get one e-mail for all the rooms instead of an e-mail per room? I don't know how complicated or worthwhile that would actually be. I'm just thinking of how I appreciate getting FB e-mails most of the time, except for when I participate in a wall post convo, and get tons of e-mails about it, even though I was there the whole time.

[severenz]

I hear what you all are saying. Here's my problem and maybe it doesn't bother you all.

I submit a friend request. It creates the message with the accept/reject links but the email notifications don't have them. Just a link to the message with a generic "so and so sent you a message, click to read". You have to click the link, see the message, and then accept or reject.

Perhaps the simple answer is to just include the real message in the email notification?

[Usoki]

Oh, I get you. It never really bothered me- not because I don't find it annoying, but because it's a pretty common thing.

Actually, that would be super helpful to include for any notifications. Instead of seeing "click here to see the message", actually seeing the message would be nice. Not only would it solve your worries about the allow/deny links, it would let you know whether or not you needed to care about what the message was. If it was a long and thoughtful message, head to the site and send something back. If it was a three word reply, deal with it later.