Topic: NOTIFICATIONS IN TOPICS AND POSTS

[Admin]

email notifications for topics and posts have been disabled for members.

This is due to members not unsubscribing from notifications, causing an overload on the server's smtp (outgoing) mail, causing it to delay to the next day.

we are willing to consider turning them back on if members can cooperate and not use them for every little topic there is, or, if someone wants to purchase a much larger dedicated server for us.

it wouldn't be a problem if people would go to their profiles, click on notifications and email.. and unsubscribe from topics they no longer need email notifications of replies from. After checking server logs to see what the problem with outgoing email was, we noticed in the past week, there were over 1200 pending notifications going to only 4 members with an average of 30 topics marked for notifications.

[Vikki]

yikes!!...crikey!!

[Jesse]

oh snap. well I had just unsubscribed from like 4 pages of mine. 

[Admin]

I have a catch-all account setup at the moment which will catch all spam email spam bots send to random addresses, then bounces them right back instead of sending an 'account not found' error message. this should help alot, i'll be monitoring the log this week to see how it goes.

gotta love it though.. 6 years and never had this problem before.. that's really how busy the site has gotten, even when people dont post, they read and get notifications.

we currently have a limit of 1000 outgoing emails per day..where most hosting and servers are set to 250 or 500. You can imagine what the bandwidth we go through daily must be and why it's costing so much these days (plus prices keep going up, never down).

[Vikki]

yea so true.

[Jesse]

I have no idea what that means. haha.

[Admin]

it's simple jesse...

hosting and servers have a limit on SMTP PACKETS.. which is outgoing emails from the server.. each packet is one outgoing email.

The limit is so prevent people from getting accounts for spam specific purposes (and the cost of it all. email really isn't free, and soon enough, everyone will be paying per email to send one or have to buy packages in advance to send a set number of emails, kind of like buying postage stamps)
All hosting services, dedicated servers, and email specific accounts (gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc..) have a limit between 250 and 500 emails sent per account per day, some even have a limit per month on top of that. once that limit is reached, all outgoing mail is saved ont he server until the limit resets, then sent again (which could be alot saved, causing the limit for the next time to be reached instantly).

What I jsut did is create a catch-all email account for when spambots which are automated programs that send emails to random accounts at addresses, even if they don't exist, when they send to addresses at kckellyville.com that dont exist, the server would send a reply eror message back, which counts as outgoing mail.. this catch all account is set to bounce the incoming email back rather than send the error message (which will also back-flood the spammer as the mail is bounced back to where it really came from and not re forged(fake) address they put int he reply to area.....hehehe)

now the limits can be raised, but it costs money to purchase additional smtp packets which are sold in blocks of 50, and aren't always needed, so it would be a waiste of money many times.

you will also see a bit of an increase in speed on the site as the sever is processing less email (which obviously uses machine resources)

I honestly never figured on having to mess with all this.. after 6 years, it's never been a problem.

[Jesse]

Oh wow. That made sense though!

[Dorktastic Kelly]

i pretty much understood all that, but i don't think jesse will be able to
haha
didn't sound much simpler than what u said before

edit: or nottttttttttttt lol

[Jesse]

you callng me stupid? gosh callie, I see how it is.


jk

[vannesscmarie]

Is it a good thing or a bad thing.  I don't understand!!!!  I am a paying member and do not want to see this site go away do I need to pay more?  I don't mean to be a blond.  I am just confused.  I also did not know we could turn off our e mail thing.  I was never much a fan of always getting the e mail but it did remind me to come back.  That was before I was here every day.  LOL  

[Admin]

it's ok vanessa.. site isn't going anywhere.. it's jsut been really tough recently due to the economy. not many people have money to contribute and such, especially the younger members, but we always find a way to keep the site going! soemtimes it jsut means, cutting out a luxury here or there...

paying subscribers can still do the notifications for topics... sicne they contributed, they sort of pay for that priviledge (and a few other things ehre and there that otehr members aren't able to do).

i'm hoping we'll have the new forums done by summer.. everything is easier to find on them. the current forums can be a little confusing to many since there are so many features and settings, it's not always easy to find them all.

[Dorktastic Kelly]

it's good that we're getting a lot of traffic in the fact that we want members
however, we can't afford for people to just subscribe to a crapload of topics because there are only so many notification emails that can be sent out a day, and if it goes over that, it gets backed up to the next day

that's bad...
so bottom line, the traffic can be good as long as people aren't subscribed to unnecessary topics

edt: alan beat me

[Admin]

hahaha Callie..

i'm working on a limitation of how many topics can be set for notification per member.. thing is, there are over 3000 registered members, about 1000 of them are active accounts.. but i'm working on it!

[dutchgirlfan]

oef...srry I guess this is also my fault then...im subscribed to pretty much topics...
im gonna clean it!!
Posted on: February 15, 2009, 11:00:00 PMso I cleaned it...oh I feel so embarresed....i had way too much notifications...I have to pay more attention to it..

I was wondering.
Could I get a notification for just a few topics which im posting pretty much instead of 20 notifications on more 'announcement/temporary' threads (like new threads or something)