I agree that emailing users more often will probably get them to return to the site more often.
I’m less confident than you [sound] that this will have a major effect.
Since our team has been focused on software/​product for a while and haven’t noticeably increased MAUs, I am skeptical that further work in this space will be the magic bullet. For example, we made significant improvements in site speed and didn’t see metrics improve as much as we expected.
Our team has been more willing to email users recently (for example, about Forum events) and I want to be careful about going too far and annoying users/​causing unsubscribes.
Honestly I’m not totally sure why basically none of the default notifications include an email, which makes me somewhat nervous to significantly change this. My guess is that you are a bit unusual in finding lots of email notifications fun, and probably more people would find that overwhelming or annoying.
That said, we do plan to test out making our default notification settings more in line with other sites (for example, making karma notifications realtime by default instead of batched daily) and sending a delayed email to new users explaining how they can customize their notification settings.
We’ll certainly consider changing other notification default settings, but again I want to be careful with this, not just because some people would dislike it, but also because ultimately our goal is not to increase usage. I want people to have a healthy relationship with the Forum, and only use it to the extent that they think is worthwhile.
I feel like changing the notification settings for existing users is probably crossing a line.
Thanks for the suggestions!
I agree that emailing users more often will probably get them to return to the site more often.
I’m less confident than you [sound] that this will have a major effect.
Since our team has been focused on software/​product for a while and haven’t noticeably increased MAUs, I am skeptical that further work in this space will be the magic bullet. For example, we made significant improvements in site speed and didn’t see metrics improve as much as we expected.
Our team has been more willing to email users recently (for example, about Forum events) and I want to be careful about going too far and annoying users/​causing unsubscribes.
Honestly I’m not totally sure why basically none of the default notifications include an email, which makes me somewhat nervous to significantly change this. My guess is that you are a bit unusual in finding lots of email notifications fun, and probably more people would find that overwhelming or annoying.
That said, we do plan to test out making our default notification settings more in line with other sites (for example, making karma notifications realtime by default instead of batched daily) and sending a delayed email to new users explaining how they can customize their notification settings.
We’ll certainly consider changing other notification default settings, but again I want to be careful with this, not just because some people would dislike it, but also because ultimately our goal is not to increase usage. I want people to have a healthy relationship with the Forum, and only use it to the extent that they think is worthwhile.
I feel like changing the notification settings for existing users is probably crossing a line.