IMPORTANT QUESTION

[NFG]

The updated forum allows me to enable email notifications by default.  Currently, if you get a private message, you'll never know unless you check in on the forum and glance at the tiny notification indicator at the top of the screen.

Apparently turning on such a basic feature like "tell me when I get a message" is a violation of the GDPR.  But, I'm not in or from Europe so it doesn't apply to this forum.

But I've heard several people say they ignored important messages for too long because they didn't get the notification they expected when replies arrived.  This used to be a normal, default function, I was surprised when it was disabled.

And of course you can opt-out.

So, should I enable email notifications for PMs or not?  Tell me what you think, please.

[kendrick]

This poll's been open a month and somehow I'm the only vote?

In my day job, a visit from auditors on a subject related to GDPR is now known as bad lawyer encounter number 3. And even if you're not located in the EU, having users or conducting any sort of communication there (business or otherwise) puts you into loads of regulatory obligation. It's annoying, but it's also why places like AssemblerGames and CheapAssGamer shut down, because they couldn't figure out a way to handle it cost-effectively.

So for now I vote no. If we want this community (haphazard and intermittent as it is) to keep going then we should err clearly on the side of caution. The cost of that, though, is that our users will have to get more active in terms of checking PMs and being aware of activity on the site. I log on every day and see if there's a number icon next to the Messages text line, and until GDPR and CCPA get more permissive then that's what they'll have to live with.