Tip Unsubscribing (e-mail notifications, etc)

We occasionally get requests/comments from users that wish to stop getting emails, or they want to unsubscribe, or want us to delete their account.

This thread is a guide to helping you to manage your preferences for email notifications, and will be linked into all Bulk Mailers that are sent out.

You have the power!

You have nearly total control of what emails you will receive and which ones you will not. There is generally no need for us to intervene, unless you cannot access your account.

So let's start right there - accessing your account.

At this point, everyone who was a user on the forum prior to the conversion on 4/25/2015 who had not reset their password as of mid-September 2016 should not be getting any emails whatsoever (those accounts were placed into an "Inactive User" state).

If for some reason you cannot access your account, please see the thread Accessing your GIRS Account

Every step you need to take in order to gain access to your account, and every method of contacting us for help if you need it is contained in that thread. We are here to help, but 99.9% of the time, you can do it too!

Once you gain access to your account, the settings that control what emails you receive are all located under your Account Settings, in the locations as follows:

Contact Details

There are 3 check boxes here:

The first one is for Site Mailings: we highly recommend that you keep this checked - this setting only controls whether or not you will get messages from GIRS Administration about things like Regional Events, Fests, and Special Announcements (Bulk Mailers). This check box does not control whether or not you get emails for replies to threads you are watching, conversation messages, etc - those are separate selections!!

The last 2 in the pic above are what controls whether or not you will get an email when someone sends you a Conversation Message (PM) or Mentions you (mentions your username using the @ symbol - this used to be called "tagging") in a thread/post. Note that certain usergroups can also be Mentioned, like a region - this controls that email alert as well.

Privacy

This is exactly the same check box as in Contact Details - it's just repeated here. Unchecking one will uncheck the other. As mentioned above, we highly recommend that you keep this checked - this setting only controls whether or not you will get messages from GIRS Administration about things like Regional Events, Fests, and Special Announcements (Bulk Mailers).

Preferences

This is the setting that controls the bulk of emails you will receive - it sets what will happen when you post in various places.

Please note that it is typical of all forums and social media that when you post something, you will get notifications of some type when someone else replies. Therefore, by default (when you sign up) the first 2 boxes are automatically checked (automatically watch thread, and receive an email)

With Xenforo, you have multi-level control: you can choose whether or not to automatically "watch" a thread (or album, media, category, etc), and you can also choose whether or not to ALSO get an email when someone replies.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Updating these settings only applies to anything you do from that point forward - unchecking these does not automatically remove you from all "watched" threads.

Understanding Watched Threads and Watched Forums

These two links are in your Account Settings, but also at the top of most pages (sub-nav bar)

Watching is something that some people call "Subscribing". In Xenforo, watching allows you to receive various alerts and/or emails. You can actually be Watching something and receive no alerts or emails when something happens - meaning, you can just monitor your Watched Threads list, and keep current on things all on your own. But you cannot receive alerts or emails for a thread/content unless you are Watching it.

Note: Alerts are what pops up in the upper right corner of the page in the little red bubble counter, or pop-up messages in the lower left corner of the screen (when someone does something while you are on the site). Alerts do not generate emails. These are two completely different things. Alerts have an entire page of settings - Alert Preferences - none of which will ever cause a single email to get sent to you.

Watched Threads will show you all unread watched threads. Clicking the link "there may be more to view" in the sentence below the page title shows you All Watched Threads

You can check individual threads and choose to just enable/disable email notification, or you can choose to stop watching the thread completely (which also disables alerts and email notification for the selected threads)

Or you can do either of these en mass at the top right of the page

Similarly, you can watch a whole Forum or Sub-Forum, and choose your preferences in a similar fashion

Joinable User Groups: Get All Emails Group

Lastly, there is one setting that people sometimes check on signup without reading everything, and then they start banging their head on the wall when they can't seem to stop emails from coming. That's the Get All Emails Group. Joining this groups overrides all of the above "watch" settings and forces you to watch all forums. Even if the system shows you that you are not watching any forums at all, if you have joined this group, you are. This is why there is an all-caps NOTE in the description of this group. So if you are reading this and you have that whole head-wall-bang thing going on, LEAVE THAT GROUP.

The other groups in this list have no watch/subscription connected with them. They are used when Regional Mailers are sent out (so you will want to join these for your region) and also are used when a Group is Mentioned - like when someone in a region needs help and the @ mention system is used, everyone in that group gets an email and/or alert (according to your preferences, as explained above)