Follow thread only for OP replies

[Oshino Shinobu]

So, after discussing unresolved threads over here it occurred to me that quite a lot of unresolved threads are ones where someone replies to a thread, then the OP replies but doesn't quote or tag those that they're responding to. People that replied don't check back because they didn't get a notification, thread gets pushed off of recent topics and is never resolved. 

 

To somewhat deal with that, perhaps having the default follow settings for replying to a thread set to be follow the thread and only get a notification if the OP replies to the thread, rather than every reply. Automatically following every thread for all posts is too much for most people as notifications get buried, but only for OP replies would be much more manageable. 

 

While just adding it in the options when following a thread would still be useful, I'd say it would be best used if it was enabled by default so people don't have to remember to follow posts and should hopefully reduce the amount of threads that die because of an OP that didn't quote or tag. Prevents new users who don't really know how forums work yet from thinking it's useless as no one replied to them after the initial post. 

[straight_stewie]

3 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

To somewhat deal with that, perhaps having the default follow settings for replying to a thread set to be follow the thread and only get a notification if the OP replies to the thread, rather than every reply. Automatically following every thread for all posts is too much for most people as notifications get buried, but only for OP replies would be much more manageable. 

Seems like a good idea to me. I very rarely follow threads specifically for those reasons, even when I would like to to see what OP is saying. Of course I'm going to follow this one.

[79wjd]

Am I the only one who constantly checks 'unread content that I replied to'?

[straight_stewie]

5 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Am I the only one who constantly checks 'unread content that I replied to'?

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that essentially a list of things that you would get a notification for had you followed it (and includes threads that you followed as well). It doesn't seem like that list really solves the issue that's being raised here. 

[Oshino Shinobu]

7 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Am I the only one who constantly checks 'unread content that I replied to'?

One of the few, probably. The issue is people don't check back and following threads by default would just give you a ridiculous amount of notifications if you're replying to multiple topics. I try to follow posts from new users that give the impression that they won't use the quote or tagging feature. Even if multiple people replied to the thread, it's very often that no one has replied to the OPs response when they don't quote/tag. Automatically giving a notification when the OP replies would make sense IMO. 

 

EDIT: Also unread content includes basically everything. You can have threads that have replies, but none from the OP, not really making it worth replying again in a lot of cases.