Notifications: Do you use it/care?

I spent the last few days updating the notifications system, partially because the current system is buggy, partially because it was a good programming experience (and a pain in the ass).

I wrote code to convert all the old notifications to the new system, and as I'm going through it, I found a number of the old ones were broken, and thus couldn't be converted. Others converted, but converted with bad data. Most of this stuff is from the early days of the notifications system, with the latest stuff intact, but I don't have a solid date when data becomes most "good".

Now the question: do you ever check your notifications? Prior to this thread, did you know it existed? If you didn't, its at the top right of the screen, the small exclamation mark next to your mail icon. Currently, its hard for me to pull notifications for a particular person, characters, game, etc. The new system makes it a lot simpler for me to find all the history data associated with something specific. So I could write a page that shows everything that happened recently related to a game. I could find the entire history for a character, from creation to retirement.

Part of this is about the old history: should I convert and keep the old data, errors and all? Deal with the mistakes, and just go forward? Or wipe the old stuff, and start from whenever we switch to the new system?

I check notifications, but I admit that I only do so when I've got little else to do. I noticed it when I first registered and saw what it contained, and also noticed an odd quirk when someone approved my character application for their game (perhaps these are the broken ones). I'd have "GM approved Character (System) to 's game: " with nothing at the end.

Personally, I'm okay with losing the old notices and moving forward. However, this is from the perspective of a new player and non-GM, so I don't really have anything I'd consider worth keeping.

Will the new system signal any new notifications, similar to unread private messages?

I don't have any signaling system in place right now, but that's mostly because I'm not sure what you'd want to signal. It'd be easier to do now for sure. Also, the idea was to make it easier to setup something like a game history: be able to click a link and see any activity that's gone on in a game (who joined, who approved a character, etc).

I've never used them -- it's been easy enough to check character acceptance (for example) by looking at the game. If there was a way to record the last-viewed date and then change the icon from maybe a green ! to a red ! if there are new items in it, that'd be more likely to get myself to click on it.

I find the "You did X" notifications unhelpful -- I'm pretty okay with remembering what I've done. That could also be an interesting area to throw in the ability of an @mention (low on your priority queue). So if someone @falryx'd it'd be in my notifications feed with a link to the thread. I'd find that immensely more interesting and useful that "You edited your character."

As to old notifications disappearing -- I wouldn't have any concerns there.

I've checked it on occasion but only when there's nothing else going on. I prefer to manually go to my games to see what's up. The notifications aren't something that I use regularly or will miss if they goes away. I'm not a GM though.

If i have a notification i look. Otherwise i would never check my mail.

For emailed notifications it never sent me an email ever. So basically i have several pages opened always on my phone. However I basically have one page I always check "latest post" to see if my ganes have been updated.

Notifications aren't emailed; would that be preferable? Right now, it only emails if you get a PM, get a game invite, someone applies to your game, submits a character to your game, or if a game opens matching your LFG settings.

I guess that was when you subscribe to a thread that i meant. I would like notifications on that. Emails don't seem to work for me.

Any GM's that would find notifications useful? Like knowing when someone edits their char or being able to monitor the history of a game (including actions other GMs may take?).

If I don't hear anything in the next two/three days, I think I'll convert to the new notifications system, but actually disable notifications entirely. If it becomes more useful in the future, I'll add it back.

as GM I would like to have option to inform to the player that his turn is required/on sequence or he need to do something. (update CC/do post/provide some additional data)

The notifications system is historical data. I've considered adding a system to prod users, but I haven't figured out how to do it without leaving it open for abuse.

I think it could be tied to the turn system.
Once GM set turns per week attribute he can issue same amt of notifications to the player.
Player missing? - notification to ask for ooc sequence of action for period he is missing or that his turn will be skipped
Player did not updated CC/ made mistake in CC? You send him details how to correct it.
Player had question and you want to notify him as part of the game or transfer ooc data - works for that.
etc

Agreed. I intend to build a turn system... in turn *sunglasses fall onto my eyes*.

I just send players private messages.

Also, you probably don't need that much restrictions on the prod system. It's probably sufficient if 1) only GM's can prod and 2) they can only prod players in their game. If a GM is abusively prodding you, you probably want to leave the game anyway.

Awesome David Caruso evidence.