i have a question for the masses: do you use "favorite" or "subscribe" type features in communities?

for example, this site has "subscribe to this thread" under the forum tools. anyone use that stuff? if there was a quick way to "favorite" a thread, blog or item that was saved to your home page for this site or as a sidebar item, would you use that or do you use that kind of feature on other sites?

btw: this has nothing to do with this site. i'm a user interface designer and i'm trying to decide if using "favorites" in the communities i design is a worth while option. your input is appreciated guys!

thanks

I used to subscribe to threads on other forums, so I did use that feature. I found it useful to track topics I wanted to monitor, but not post in.

On this site, every post gets saved in your "basket" in that little info bar at the top, so I don't find a need to subscribe to every thread... it's already been done for me. :p

I always set my profile on forum sites for "auto-subscribe / instant email notification" for threads that I post in. If I posted in a thread, I want to know about the follow-ups. If I didn't post in a thread, it's rare that I will subscribe to it.

On this site, I set the default when a user signs up for that same instant email notification and auto-subscribe. I don't think many forums choose that default, as it is the most noisy on the server and potentially the most annoying for users that don't want that.

But surprisingly, I can only remember 1 user so far on ninjette.org who asked me how to turn it off. So everyone else is either happy with that setting and appreciates the email notifications & auto-subsubcribe, or they figured out how to disable it on their own.

What some people may not be aware of, is that vbulletin allows you to subscribe to a forum/subforum as well as just an individual thread. That way you get notified for every new post that is made in that forum area, without having to subscribe to individual threads. The use of that might only make sense in some areas, but it's an option if it happens to make sense somewhere for somebody.

I don't use subscribe or have the auto emails either.

I just use the unread option at the top and scroll through to find out what I want to read.

So everyone else is either happy with that setting and appreciates the email notifications & auto-subsubcribe, or they figured out how to disable it on their own.

I got rid of the email part, but kept the auto subscribe - that way I can easily look at the user cp if I need to find a thread i've posted in, it's all right there... on other forums I have my bookmark set to the user cp - here I go directly to the forums page and just use the unread posts feature

+1 for autosubscribe to threads I post in.

:whathesaid: I like the feature and think it would be worth it in any forum with multiple threads.

am using both currently

I like the auto subscribe feature myself, esp ones that post in. For me, right now, I have all kinds of time to be on here, but in the future I probably won't and it is a nice thing to do to keep track of what I have posted, esp. if it is a question that I have asked.

NB

I use the autosubscribe and go to my UserCP