Email alerts...

No, unfortunately at the moment it isn't. Sorry about that.

I hope it is top of the list to fix then, as it is pretty much impossible to engage in a meaningful dialogue without it.  It works fine over on Gramophone's similar forum, all part of the Haymarket empire (where AE plays a major part)

Gramophone's is a much, much smaller forum, but I will ask questions about why the 'watched posts' option isn't also available here.

But I fear it will be well down a very long fix-list, and I am sure the impossibility of engaging in a meaningful dialogue without it is pushing things a bit – many on here seem to manage just fine.

It also ( me anyway) makes me ask the question  what value the owners place on the forumship(and the ensuant subscription levels which I am guessing underpin the mag per se, with the ads of course)  versus the useability of the site  and to what extent said owners look at it from a clinical short term  accountancy point of view.

Edit- sorry 1/ the use of short term and accountancy point of view is an oxymoron and 2/ I won't expect an open answer from the team for obvious reasons

Not sure I understand the old question, nor the whole of the second question you ask. It's not a matter of reducing, but expanding, and last time we turned on an email notification system (on the previous site software) we were bombarded with so many complaints about the volume of emails being sent that we turned it off.

Not sure what 'forumship' is, and historically the magazine has a very low subscription rate (unfortunately), with the vast majority of sales being on what is still referred to as 'the news-stand'. And a short term accountancy point of view? Yes, that's why this forum has been going, in one form or another, since the mid-90s, and never, as far as I know, ever made the company a brass razoo.

It wasn't that old-it referred to staffing levels and reductions when the new site was launched.That in itself leads to what I call accountancy decisions- that's the short term bit,not the fact it has been going since the mid 90's.And I did put "to me" which means purely an impression on my part. I understand the e-mail alert workload and the incredible impact it can have but it was the length of the fix list I was referring to.

I was not aware of the low subscription rate and that is a shame but as long as the news stand approach still holds then fine by me.(I wish it was "news stand" then you wouldn't have people browsing without buying and then launching ridiculous accusations of muppetry )

The obsession of people on forums about how the forums work will never cease to amaze me.

BTW, to answer your point about reductions, clicky.

I prefer curiosity rather than obsession- and that curiosity is only aroused by other posts rather than self induced- if you are indeed referring to me.

No, it was a more general observation.

I think that's a bit rich, Andrew.  It is a fairly basic matter of usability, isn't it?  

If you have responded to something, or get a subsequent follow-up, it is nice to know there is some activity to refer to.  Other forums where I contribute significantly, including a professional body, enable this option (though obviously should be optional).  When colleagues have sought advice, it is handy to know when they have responded, perhaps with further queries, for example.

It is much the same for me here.  I wasn't very familiar with the previous incarnation of this forum, but it seems that making it look nicer has removed some basic functions.  Acknowledging that mistake would be reasonable, surely.  And fixing it a matter of days, not months or years?     

This site has NEVER had email alerts, so nothing has been removed and there's no mistake to acknowledge.

I don't understand why people don't just use the Recent Posts link (or what it's called now), then you know what's been updated and what hasn't and there isn't so much traffic here that it's impossible to keep up with. Personally I NEVER go into the sub-forums, unless I want to start a thread.

Erm, no.

If there were one, yes.

Believe you me, if we could rattle through the entire fix-list in a matter of days, all of us here would be delighted. But limited resource means we have to stand in line, and new requests go to to the back of that queue.

This forum is only one – albeit extremely important – part of the site as a whole. Yes, we want using it to be as simple and pleasurable an experience as possible, but at any given time there are likely to be a whole list of demands on our (centralised) web development team and I and the other website editors have to prioritise what gets done when.

A perfect system? No, and it probably never will be, but the time Andrew, myself and Clare spend responding to questions and complaints online and listening to what users want is, I hope, indicative of how much importance we attach to the website. We will endeavour to make improvements when we can.

In that case I apologise.  It has obviously been lacking a basic feature of most forums I have used regularly - about seven of them to date, though I must have viewed 20 or more.

The recent posts do indeed show up, but if you are away for a few days, things have moved on and they are less obvious.  So it's fine if you are a daily user only.

I suppose with over 7000 posts you must have found something worth reading/writing! 

I wouldn't count on that part...