mefi mail alerts

January 3, 2009 12:16 PM

Mefi Mail Alert Options?

I love the mefi-mail system, however I find myself wishing I noticed it more often. Partially my own fault -- I have a 22" LCD running at 1920x1200, which puts that tinsy "x new" alert up in the highest depths of the right hand corner that I never look at.

Would it be possible to have one or more of the following?

1. Alert me somehow when I have new messages with a box across the top of the page (you have unread messages from the last 5 days).

2. Email me on new messages (I know I know .. it defeats the purpose).

3. Show me, on the first page I visit when I start a new session (ie, havent used mefi in over 20 minutes) that I have new messages?

posted by SirStan to Feature Requests at 12:16 PM (30 comments total)

Email me on new messages (I know I know .. it defeats the purpose).

Click the second checkbox on your MeFi Mail prefs, on the prefs page. It looks like this:


posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:18 PM on January 3, 2009

ooooh image tag!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:19 PM on January 3, 2009

Greasemonkey: You've Got Mefimail!
posted by gleuschk at 12:23 PM on January 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

Sorry Mathowie.
posted by SirStan at 12:26 PM on January 3, 2009

Animals Sitting Like Humans.
posted by Sailormom at 12:33 PM on January 3, 2009

It needs a little drop down for additional notification options such as "Bark twice like an entusiastic collie."
posted by Wolfdog at 1:02 PM on January 3, 2009

So, in the same vein as this feature that we already have, I was thinking the other day it'd be nice to have a "mark as unread" feature. I tend to use various communications as a to-do list, where someone might MeFi mail me about something, and I want to leave it marked unread as a remind to act on it. Obviously, once I read it to know what it is, I know longer have that reminder. Is this at all an option? I guess I could be sending all of my MeFi mail to my email and leave it unread there, but it'd be nice to have that option here.
posted by niles at 1:28 PM on January 3, 2009

var div = GetElementsByTagNameAndClassName('div','mefimessages')[0];
if (div && /[1-9][0-9]* new/.test(div.textContent)) {
div.style.backgroundColor = '#d55';
}
posted by ryanrs at 1:42 PM on January 3, 2009

I never get any MeFi Mail. :(
posted by sveskemus at 1:50 PM on January 3, 2009

it'd be nice to have a "mark as unread" feature

MeFi mail is meant for really lightweight in-site private messages so we skimped on the features purposely. This would be one of those features that takes us down the path of recreating gmail, so naw, we won't be adding it, sorry.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:36 PM on January 3, 2009

fair enough. I guess I'll have to start using the actual to-do list I went out and bought back in November. Right after I find it....
posted by niles at 3:03 PM on January 3, 2009

Speaking of mail, I was just thinking you should get rid of the feature where you get a stupid, fake mail when you post something. Because I posted something, and I thought, ZOMG I GOT A MESSAGE! But it was a false message.
posted by moxiedoll at 3:09 PM on January 3, 2009

You can turn off the stupid, fake mail in your preferences, but I am kind of curious as to what the intended purpose of it was/is. ("I made a post?!?!! Really?! When did that happen?!")
posted by Wolfdog at 3:18 PM on January 3, 2009

I agree. Every time I get fake mail I am momentarily excited, then sad.
posted by kbanas at 3:31 PM on January 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

It's so you always have a link back to your post in case it gets deleted.
posted by sveskemus at 4:10 PM on January 3, 2009

I never get any MeFi Mail. :(

Me either. MeFi should have some sort of pen pal service!

PenMe Not to be confused with GimpMe.
DearMe Though we'd be out of a name for the Southern Anachronists MeFi module, which would be a shame.
SincerMe Hmm maybe not.
EleanorRigMe No.
ScrivenMe ?

ScrivenMe it is.
posted by cowbellemoo at 4:30 PM on January 3, 2009

Do deleted posts disappear from your profile page?
posted by Wolfdog at 4:37 PM on January 3, 2009

Wolfdog: "Do deleted posts disappear from your profile page?"

Yup.
posted by sveskemus at 4:39 PM on January 3, 2009

How about if the little mail envelope icon flashes or blinks when there's new MeMail?
posted by netbros at 4:47 PM on January 3, 2009

Well, hell. I just sent sveskemus a MeFiMail , but if cowbellemoo or anybody else wants one - I'll send them something too. Just send me a MeFiMail, name a subject and in your MeFiMailbox will be a poem about it, directly addressed to you.

(note that hint - if you want mail, send mail - it's the internet, silly, so communicate! but don't stalk because that's just creepy!)
posted by Sparx at 4:48 PM on January 3, 2009

netbros writes "How about if the little mail envelope icon flashes or blinks when there's new MeMail?"

Please save us from animation on every single page of metafilter. If you really need this kind of attention getter then just enable the email notification. Many mail packages will flash a message on the screen; play a sound; and animate an icon in the notification area (and you can get it to integrate with nethack so that a daemon hand delivers you a message).
posted by Mitheral at 5:14 PM on January 3, 2009

ooooh image tag!

One way you can recognize a god is that they can violate the laws of physics.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 5:18 PM on January 3, 2009 [3 favorites]

What monitors do you have? My two LG 22s look pretty nice at 1680x1050, but I wouldn't mind trying out a couple 1900x1200 to see if I like em better.
posted by ODiV at 5:38 PM on January 3, 2009

yeah, anytime I come across someone saying that never get mail, I send them something. It's fun.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:53 PM on January 3, 2009

Please save us from animation on every single page of metafilter.

I'll take that as a no then. Ooh, this is close, 1-1.
posted by netbros at 7:30 PM on January 3, 2009

To do list -

find my to do list

posted by Pronoiac at 8:45 PM on January 3, 2009

Oh, hey, there's a to do list. So that's good - I can check that off.

Where's the edit button?
posted by Pronoiac at 8:49 PM on January 3, 2009

You can turn off the stupid, fake mail in your preferences, but I am kind of curious as to what the intended purpose of it was/is.

1) So the poster has a link to the post, to try to prevent "I thought I posted something yesterday, but I can't find it, did you delete it?" threads/emails.
2) AskMe (and maybe other subsites) only regenerates the front page every couple of minutes, so it actually takes some time for a question(/post) to show up. The mefimail will prevent "I posted something, but it's not on the front page" threads/emails.
3) AskMe sends one-month-later reminder mails, to encourage "best answer" marking.

Here's the original discussion about the feature.
posted by Plutor at 8:13 AM on January 4, 2009

So the poster has a link to the post, to try to prevent "I thought I posted something yesterday, but I can't find it, did you delete it?" threads/emails.

I kind of figured as much, but sending an automatic email for every single post ever made (when, what, about 1 in 30 get deleted?) just strikes me as a hilariously characteristic metafilter way of dealing with that problem. "Make sure the posts still stay up on the poster's profile page? Nah. Send an email when a post is deleted? Nah. Send an email - which can be deleted/lost - and probably will be out of habit - for every single post made - but you can turn off that feature - but then you won't be able to find your deleted post - except there's an external blog that catalogs them that's not even buried in a FAQ somewhere? SWEET SOLUTION."
posted by Wolfdog at 9:24 AM on January 4, 2009

Craigslist sends you an email when you post. eBay sends you an email when you post an item. You can opt out (and I would, if I could not-opt-out of the month-later AskMe mails). It's be silly to alert people that their post has been deleted. If MeFi did, I think it would actually encourage response threads.
posted by Plutor at 5:40 AM on January 5, 2009