Confusion...

This is what it looks like to me:

A

If I am on the 'discussions page' but I have not chosen a specific discussion and I click 'Receive email notifications,' will I receive emails for 'all' of the topics under that discussion group?

Yes.

B

If I only want emails from a specific topic, should I click on the dicussion topic and then click 'Receive email notificatins?'

Yes. But if you've done A, there'll be no change, because you'll be getting every thread by email. If you only want to subscribe to specific threads, you'll have to toggle A off again on the Discussions page.

C

Secomd, under 'Your stuff, Preferences, Email notification preferences,' it gives an option to 'always subscribe via email to threads I create' and always subscribe to threads that I reply to.' If both options are checked 'Yes' then why do I still have to check 'Start email notifications' under each topic?

You shouldn't have to. The software isn't smart enough to check your preferences before deciding whether to show the 'Start...' or 'Stop...' option. With both the preferences selected, you'll get emails from every thread you participate in.

What is the difference between 'always subscribe to emails I create' and 'start email notifications?'

ITYM 'threads I create...' The software is dumb, and clicking 'Start...' won't have any effect in a thread you're already subscribed to. I don't know, but I suspect that if you do so none the less, then later clicking 'Stop...' won't have any effect either - as some people have found out. Your preference takes precedence over any local change you might make. But you might want to subscribe to a thread in another forum even though you've not taken part in it. To do so, click 'Start...'.

I find it's much the simplest just to subscribe to the forums I'm interested in, which is about seven at the moment. It's probably 100-200 messages a day, but I'm a dab hand at deleting messages I'm not interested in. I do keep all messages in the product forums, though, salted away in an archive folder. My local desktop search is a lot easier to use and a million times faster at finding stuff than the search in the forum. Messages are all sorted into forum folders by message rules when they arrive, and then every couple of weeks I do a bit of housekeeping - moving product forum stuff to the archive and deleting the drivel from this forum. When Jochem gets the mail headers sorted out, I'll be quite happy with the system, which will be almost as good as NNTP. Unless his airy solution proves

to be even better.

Noel

If I am on the 'discussions page' but I have not chosen a specific discussion and I click 'Receive email notifications,' will I receive emails for 'all' of the topics under that discussion group? If I only want emails from a specific topic, should I click on the dicussion topic and then click 'Receive email notificatins?'

Yes. If you are on the discussions page and you select to "Receive email notifications" you will receive email notifications for all messages posted to that duscussion group in the future. I think you will even get mesaages for threads that were started in that particular group and then moved to another one by a moderator. In the more active discussion groups that can easily result in 100+ email messages per day.

Yes, if you want to receive email notifications just for a topic you should first get into that topic and then click to receive email notifications.

Secomd, under 'Your stuff, Preferences, Email notification preferences,' it gives an option to 'always subscribe via email to threads I create' and always subscribe to threads that I reply to.' If both options are checked 'Yes' then why do I still have to check 'Start email notifications' under each topic?

If you have both of them selected you should be automatically subscribed to any topic you participate in and you should be receiving all responses from other people to that topic (you never get a copy of your own messages. Are you saying that that doesn't work for you?

Waiting with baited breath if someone can shed some light on the mysteries of email notifications in this forum...