Notification settings and topic specific notifications

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One of our staff members pointed out an issue with notifications and how following works along side the notification preferences and subscription management.

For instance if you follow a forum say 'General' but you only want to be notified of new topics not new comments, then you would have your preferences set to the below:

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However if you then choose to follow a specific topic, you won't receive notifications for comments on the topic, which I think is important because when following specific topics you should be notified of everything to do with that topic including new comments or at least have options specific to that Topic, i.e. follow comments, status updates but for that topic only.

What do you think?
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Vladimir Mullagaliyev co-founder
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It will not works in some situations.
For example:
I want to receive notifications about status changes only for 2 topics in our forum. I do not want to receive notification for each comment.
I will subscribe on it topics and select "Topic status updated" settings only. If this settings will not applied to subscribed topics (forums only) I can't do it.
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Vladimir Mullagaliyev co-founder
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  • Under review
It will not works in some situations.
For example:
I want to receive notifications about status changes only for 2 topics in our forum. I do not want to receive notification for each comment.
I will subscribe on it topics and select "Topic status updated" settings only. If this settings will not applied to subscribed topics (forums only) I can't do it.
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Clinton Coney
Thanks for your response Vladimir.

I am still confused as to what the "Follow"/"Following" button is for. 

If you can't use it to follow specific people or topics/threads then there is no need for a follow button to appear on each topic / profile. You would just follow the forum or sub-forum section that you wan't and set notifications for that. Although this means you would still receive notifications about all posts in the specific area of the forum.
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Vladimir Mullagaliyev co-founder
Quote from Clinton Coney
Thanks for your response Vladimir.

I am still confused as to what the "Follow"/"Following" button is for. 

If you can't use it to follow specific people or topics/threads then there is no need for a follow button to appear on each topic / profile. You would just follow the forum or sub-forum section that you wan't and set notifications for that. Although this means you would still receive notifications about all posts in the specific area of the forum.
You are able to subscribe or unsubscribe to the forum, category, tag or topic. 

Why we show the button "Subscribe" in each topic?
It shows status of your subscription to the topic and give you way to subscribe or unsubscribe from current topic. Let see two different situations:

1. You want to receive notifications by few topics only.
You can unsubscribe from firum and subscribe to these topics only.

2. You want to get all notifications by forum but do not wont to get notifications from some topic from the same forum.
You can subscribe to the whole forum but unsubscribe from current topic.

Subscription checks by the way: topic->tag->category->forum

The notification settings by notification type (in user profile) it the second layer of filtration and it applied to any objects.
Well, we have 2 layers of notification filters:
1. Subscription to the object (topic, forum, category, tag)
2. Filter by notification type (new topic, new comment, new status, etc.)