Email notifications to AskMe threads

December 3, 2008 1:58 PM

Is there a good way to get email notifications of updates to AskMe threads?

Most AskMe threads seem pretty low traffic affairs. Is there a method (within the Metafilter environment, or via third-party) to get an email notification of an update to an AskMe thread, either one which I have posted, or one posted by another user? Thanks for your advice.

posted by Blazecock Pileon to feature requests at 1:58 PM (17 comments total)

You might be able to subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on your question and then use something like Feed Mailer to have the new comments sent to yourself. But there's probably a better way out there somewheres.
posted by katillathehun at 2:02 PM on December 3, 2008

If you use a newsreader like Google Reader, you could subscribe to the thread feed (the subscribe link at the top of every thread) and you'll be notified whenever there's something new. Some quick googling revealed Feed My Inbox which might be a way to get updates via email using the same feed URL.
posted by pb at 2:03 PM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

See also: rss2email.
posted by bonobo at 2:04 PM on December 3, 2008

I thought about RSS readers, but the email part seemed like the missing bit. I'll check this out in more detail. Cheers.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:05 PM on December 3, 2008

Can I get a RSS feed for when someone removes de-favorites something I posted?
posted by blasdelf at 2:35 PM on December 3, 2008

Also, an RSS feed for comments I've posted that were poorly-edited?
posted by blasdelf at 2:42 PM on December 3, 2008

As an aside, if you're more interested in like casually browsing recently-resolved older threads (as opposed to what I gather is the thread-specific update notification BP is asking about), check out the "Recently Resolved" sidebar of the askme Answered tab. When an asker (or one of their contacts, or one of us us mods) adds the "resolved" tag to a question, it hops to the top of that list, so it can be a fun way to track late updates to older posts you might otherwise have missed.
posted by cortex at 3:15 PM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

Oh, actually, there could be an issue with using Google Reader on AskMe threads: it will remove a feed after a period of inactivity. I'm not sure how long that period is - a month or three - but it's definitely under the year that an AskMe thread stays open.
posted by Pronoiac at 4:26 PM on December 3, 2008

I know Google Reader marks items read after you've left them unread for 30 days, but I haven't experienced a feed being dropped for inactivity. A quick search of their docs didn't turn up an expiration period—it'd be nice to know what that is.
posted by pb at 4:59 PM on December 3, 2008

When an asker (or one of their contacts, or one of us us mods) adds the "resolved" tag to a question, it hops to the top of that list, so it can be a fun way to track late updates to older posts you might otherwise have missed.

The painful thing is when someone adds the tag but doesn't add a resolution!
posted by smackfu at 5:58 PM on December 3, 2008

About expiration - I noticed it on a dormant but not read-only wiki I ran, keeping an eye out for spam. Give me a bit, & I can check my server logs for an answer.
posted by Pronoiac at 6:49 PM on December 3, 2008

Everyone just post your email in this thread and I'll send you an update myself whenever something cool happens.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:19 PM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

[e-mail]
posted by philomathoholic at 12:10 AM on December 4, 2008

Potomac Avenue reads Metafilter so you don't have to.
posted by lukemeister at 6:28 AM on December 4, 2008

Well, that's certainly going to free up a lot of time.
posted by MrVisible at 8:35 AM on December 4, 2008

pb: I couldn't get a clear answer; there's some ambiguity about the client name that I couldn't immediately resolve.
posted by Pronoiac at 10:07 AM on December 4, 2008

Thanks for taking a look anyway. I'll keep an eye out for that info.
posted by pb at 10:31 AM on December 4, 2008