Several of Gwulo’s users have reported receiving email messages from Gwulo that are empty – no subject or body.
That was caused by the comment notification feature, that sends you an email alert when someone comments on one of your posts. I’d missed a step in setting it up on the new site, so it would send out correct alerts if the comment was made to a regular page (Person, Place, etc), but not if the comment was made to a photo.
It should be fixed now, but please leave a comment below if you notice any other problems with the notifications
'New comment' email, but old comments
A couple of readers have reported getting alerts of new comments, but when they look at the text of the comment they see it was written several years ago.
The software that sends out the notifications is triggered whenever someone creates a new comment, OR when they update an old comment.
While I'm fixing some of the problems with embedded images not displaying correctly, I'm having to edit old posts and comments, When I save the changes, you receive these notification emails.
It will settle down as the pages get fixed, but if you find the notifications irritating you can turn them off by using the 'You can disable this ...' link in the notification email.
Missing notification mail
Hi David, just by chance I saw that you made a comment on the place Belcher's Street Public Toilet (1st and 2nd generation) [1922- ]. Receiving a notification mail would have been helpful.
The other day it was the image The Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Co Ltd = 香港黃埔船塢有限公司1963 (from Flickr, no way to edit it).
Regards, Klaus
re: Missing notification mail
Hi Klaus,
If you edit your user profile, under 'Comment follow-up notification settings' you'll now see a new option: 'Receive content follow-up notification e-mails'.
Please tick the box to enable it, then scroll down and click save, then in future you'll be notified if anyone comments on one of your pages.
Regards, David
Changes to notifications
Previously, notification emails were sent from the admin@gwulo.com email address, and started:
It looked as though I had sent the email, so new users often replied to the email, then I'd have to explain it was an automatic notification, and they should reply on the website so the original commenter can see their reply.
To try and make things clearer, future notification emails will be sent from notify@gwulo.com, and begin:
The rest of the notification emails will continue to show the links and the comment text.
If you notice any problems after this change, please let me know in the comments below.
Regards, David