Author: rd232
Description:
Currently, email notification works something like this (I'm thinking of user talk notification, I presume the same is true for watchlist notifications):
- User talk post made: email notification sent
- a) User logs in: go back to 1.
- b) User doesn't log in: no further notifications.
The problem is with 2b. It's there as a hack to prevent many emails being sent (one per user talk post) - but a far better solution would be to provide some form of digest or summary. For example, a daily or weekly digest would be one email saying "X messages posted in the last day/week - log in to see them". Frequency of digest (and whether the user gets one at all) should be a preference option.
This approach would help users stay in touch with a wiki, especially those users who don't log in very frequently. From the Wikimedia perspective specifically, it could be a significant boost for long-term editor retention, and if done for watchlist notifications it would be of particular benefit to smaller, lower-activity wikis.
Version: unspecified
Severity: normal