Annoying Alert Emails

[Jason76]

Some find them annoying. However, on the other hand, some keep up to date with them. How do you feel about them? Well, on my hosting, I need SMTP, which is a remote server for email - so in that case, until I find something good, I'd rather disable email alerts.

Oh, by the way, I am referring to XenForo as not being compatible, email-wise, with my hosting.

 

[Azareal]

Email is kinda annoying, although some really like it, in fact some even like Reply By Email and what-not in Discourse, etc.

I would minimise the use of email though, if possible, as if you send too many emails, then all your emails might wind up being treated as spam, which makes things difficult for when you send the more important emails.

 

[Jason76]

Email is kinda annoying, although some really like it, in fact some even like Reply By Email and what-not in Discourse, etc.

I would minimise the use of email though, if possible, as if you send too many emails, then all your emails might wind up being treated as spam, which makes things difficult for when you send the more important emails.

Well, oddly enough, email marketing is still king - but I don't see how! I guess, certain sellers really develop a good relationship with the list.

 

[Allenafaith]

I only use email alerts when I’m watching something I feel is important. Other than that, they really annoy me so I ignore them or delete them.

 

[Cam]

One thing that really irritates me is the email alerts XenForo has when someone replies to a topic that you are following. By default, some forums have you automatically following a topic if you have replied to it, so that setting can be reallly irritating. It’s something you can easily opt out of, but I think it’s an annoying feature to begin with.

 

[Azareal]

One thing that really irritates me is the email alerts XenForo has when someone replies to a topic that you are following. By default, some forums have you automatically following a topic if you have replied to it, so that setting can be reallly irritating. It’s something you can easily opt out of, but I think it’s an annoying feature to begin with.

There are a couple of things I find annoying about XenForo's alerts. The first one is how it frequently wipes the alerts clean, as if we're living in 2004 with tiny hard drives and if you click on the bell, then it'll mark all the alerts as read, not just the ones you've clicked through on, so you wind up relying on the UCP for viewing those with no sense of what you've seen and haven't.

As for emails, I generally use a lower tier email for forums, so the spam from those won't get in the way of the more important things.

 

[Jason76]

Honestly, Carlos X gave me some good advice for email setup - but the SMTP problem didn't have anything to do with that. In the end, I have to switch hosts or make an SMTP connection.

Anyway, the XF 1 didn't have this thing going on, so I don't understand why they added it for XF 2? Does it make it better?

 

[Azareal]

Honestly, Carlos X gave me some good advice for email setup - but the SMTP problem didn't have anything to do with that. In the end, I have to switch hosts or make an SMTP connection.

Anyway, the XF 1 didn't have this thing going on, so I don't understand why they added it for XF 2? Does it make it better?

I would be guessing that they're using PHP's mail() function.
It uses `/usr/sbin/sendmail`, I believe.

It would somewhat suffice, however it isn't present on every operating system (the most notable one being Microsoft Windows) and I hear it's very slow.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/1328368

Emails send with sendmail also have a far higher chance of being blocked outright or landing in someone's spam folder. Also, this is abstracted away with PHP, but invoking sendmail involves something like this (Golang example):

msg := "From: " + site.Email + "\n"
msg += "To: " + to + "\n"
msg += "Subject: " + subject + "\n\n"
msg += body + "\n"

sendmail := exec.Command("/usr/sbin/sendmail","-t","-i")
stdin, err := sendmail.StdinPipe()
if err != nil {
    return false
}

err = sendmail.Start()
if err != nil {
    return false
}
io.WriteString(stdin, msg)

err = stdin.Close()
if err != nil {
    return false
}

err = sendmail.Wait()
if err != nil {
    return false
}
return true

From a security perspective, that is distinctly horrifying.

https://github.com/php/php-src/blob...27424790222536235502/ext/standard/mail.c#L467
PHP's implementation.

https://github.com/php/php-src/blob...27424790222536235502/ext/standard/mail.c#L580
https://github.com/php/php-src/blob...27424790222536235502/ext/standard/mail.c#L601
Notice the similarities?

https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/8d3f8ca12a0b00f2a74a27424790222536235502/ext/standard/mail.c#L62
Also, this does not suffice as validation. At all.

 

[Martee]

I always turn off email alerts unless the thing I'm looking at is integral. I get enough spam and strangely enough I get offered millions of dollars everyday by obscure foreign princes and charitable organisations.

The only 'useful' email alert I'm down with is when I'm being mentioned as I check things through my phone so seeing if I need to log on to sites I frequent is always useful.