Notification changes

For the improved system:

1) How about coding a way for us to subscribe to notifications so we don't all have to leave empty comments?
2) Can the notifications be re-formatted so that the emails actually say what listing it is, instead of just linking to it? Preferably in the header?
3) Any way these could be in a 'daily digest' form?

Side note:
I found this site, http://www.mapchannels.com/DualMaps.aspx . It might work well as a replacement for the map link - they could even be embedded in the theater pages.

I understand the problems but now I am gettting no notifications at all. I really looked forward to the notifications so that I could see replies and updates on theatres that I have made comments on.

I also wish the email subject line would name the theater, or at least its number, so I don't have to open each email to see which theater it's about. It gets very time-consuming, especially if there are multiple posts about the same theater.

You have to memorize the numbers-1139 is the NuWilshire, 5 is the Los Angeles and so on. I know most of the theaters that are repeatedly commented on.

Yup. I'm not getting any notices at all too. I even get notifications to theaters that I haven't been to, so I don't subscribe to them at all.

When we reset the notifications, we had to delete everyone's notification preferences, because many people were getting notifications they no longer wished to receive (and there was no way to change settings for specific users).

So, if you're not receiving any notifications, that's why. Going forward, as you make new comments on theater pages, you'll be able to sign up again for notifications.

Again, we're sorry for the inconvenience to some of you, but this was the only possible way to fix this feature and make sure it works correctly for everyone.

Sounds like you threw the baby out with the bathwater. Couldn't people just remove themselves from the unwanted pages?

All our preferences were deleted! That's terrible. I realize this isn't set up as a democracy, but I'd think most of us would have voted to tolerate an occasional phantom email rather than lose track of many theaters we were following.

Patrick, I think this move will hurt most when we lose track of the thousands of old timers who posted their valuable comments on one or two theatres and may never come back without a reminder. Many are not theatre buffs and it seems like wasted email resource list to dump them.

Yes, I have memorized many theater numbers, but you have to first open the email to see the number. And sometimes that's an awful lot of emails (though apparently not a lot lately!)

After a two year bout with a life threatening illness and surgery the mail notification was what was helping me renavigate CT. I looked forward everyday to see what people's comments were and the updates to the theatres that they added. Too many theatres to go back and make new comments on so that I will get new mail. I guess we will have to live with it, although I wish there had been a better way to resolve the problem that caused this.

I changed email addresses 2 months ago and emailed you guys 3 times to let you know and i have still not received any comments in my inbox.

Obviously there is still a record of all the pages any user has commented on - it's on each profile page. Whoever does the code should figure out a way to put a checkbox next to each page we have commented on (and a select all button) so that we can re-subscribe to comment feeds quickly. Otherwise I expect that this will kill a lot of the discussion on this site.

Also, come to think of it, is there any reason the new comment itself can just be sent in the email? This would probably decrease the server traffic considerably.

I would also suggest that the reason this problem cropped up was that the theaters and blogs were on the same numbering system. A less-destructive solution to this would have been to change the blog system so it wasn't on the same database. The comment system is the backbone of this community, and it's in some respects broken now.

Thanks for your input, guys. We really wish there was a better way to deal with this problem too.

Unfortunately, we didn't write the blog system, so there's no way for us to renumber blog posts as you described, BWChicago. And even if we could, changing those pages would mean that we'd create broken links wherever anyone had linked to them.

We've always had a strong community on this site... and I don't think this temporary setback will jeopardize that.

Thanks again for understanding.

My wife says thanks. All of the notifications go to her blackberry as well as mine. She asked if CT was mad at me because the e-mails stopped showing up. I told her I hadn't violated any policies recently, as far as I know.

I understand that it was a problem with keep getting emails when they didn't want them, but this is also quite upsetting, as the only way I would keep current with any of the comments people made in all the theaters I am interested in was through those notifications. Now no one has any idea if someone made a comment in them, without checking every theater, which is a lot for many of us. I wish there was a way to check "watch this theater" or something to that effect so that we would know when commented in a theater, and we could get on that list without just making an "empty" comment to every theater we are interested in to set the emails coming again. Either that, or perhaps a longer running list of "newest comments", instead of just the last 10 or so theaters with new comments. That way, even if we haven't signed into the site for a few days, or even a week, we could run through a list to see which theaters have new comments in them.

"I'd think most of us would have voted to tolerate an occasional phantom email rather than lose track of many theaters we were following." I agree!!

It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to make a comment in any theater you want to keep current with, but there isn't a "watch this theater" box or anything, and I want to avoid having to make empty messages in any theater I would like to recieve notifications on. it's a shame really that this was the only situation, as it was a wonderful way to keep track of many theaters we have interest in.
I also didn't mind the occasional phantom email, and much prefer it to what happened, but such is life.

Time to rework the entire site, the interface does seem a bit antiquated.