Personalized Races and Pictures

I have an idea for what might be a simpler implementation and easier for the end user (you):

When someone on your friends list  enters a new race report, or adds something to their albums, you get sent a PM with a link to the report/album.   This way you don't have to watch the Race Report forum or the Albums, and you still get to see the most recent additions to both.

How's that sound? 

that sounds cool to me!

Yet another feature I had no idea I needed</i> 

number of PM's in your inbox is something that would have to be taken into consideration, but I don't see what purpose would be served by keeping messages of this type in one's inbox. Once the notification is viewed, there wouldn't be any information worth keeping around.

I would agree that the notifications wouldn't need to be kept indefinitely, but I would want them to hang around until I actually read the race report in question.

I would imagine that for people who keep their Inbox clean to begin with, this would not be an issue.  I have a stack of PM's that I hold onto for various reasons (phone numbers or directions in them, for example) which I know I could copy and paste somewhere else but, quite frankly, I'm too lazy too.    So - for me - I always seem to hover on the brink of the dreaded red Excessive Number Of Items message and the notication PM's would probably send me over the edge pretty quickly.

What about an email like the thread updates generate instead of a PM?  Or the option to choose one or the other?

Ummm...not quite as clean as I was thinking, but I may be able to help twist this one into shape...

In essence, what's being proposed is using the inbox as a 'to-do' list...and for me, record retention would be a problem.  For instance, prolly 20 friends raced this weekend.  It's gonna take me days to get through all the RR's and comment, and 20 in the Inbox prolly maxes me out. 

So, with that as background, I wouldn't be able to send new messages until I've whittled down your inbox, or read them, write them down, and delete them - defeating the purpose of a system.  So it's an OK solution, but for me, would be a different brand of hassle.  Almost easier to keep them out of my inbox and read the authors on the last 4 pages of the Albums / RR's by hand.

Unless, of course, the system-generated eMails don't count against your inbox size bogey, but instead auto-delete themselves after like 7 days.  Then we may be talkin'. 

I don't like email notifications, and block the ones from most sites.  I don't get the thread update emails.  A different solution would be better for me, but I don't have a better suggestion so if thats the easiest for you then go for it. I'll just take my chances of scrolling through the pages of RR's and albums.

So a choice of email vs. PM seems like it would be the way to go with this.

Yeah, in order of preference, I'd guess, would be 1) a selectable view, 2) non-size-limiting PM, 3) PM, and 4) eMail.  I wouldn't use 3 or 4, and I'd be back to scrolling.  Man, do comet and I have the same online habits?!

Whoa...that's post 1111.  Some coins just came out of my monitor.

I guess so Rick. Scary.

Ok, I hear you. You're looking for a simple way to view the most recent Race and Album information in one place for everyone on your Friends list. Not just notifications, but a summary page of recent updates.

The main thing I'm trying to stay away from is customizing the forum. It's one of the few parts of the site that wasn't developed specifically for BT, so anytime there's an upgrade we'd be getting into compatibility testing, maintenence etc. which all involve expense and therefor fewer resources for new features (and less fuel for the BT Gulfstream IV).

There's an efficient and usable way to track/list these without affecting the forum, it's just a matter of finding it.

How about a "My Friends" page that lists their last n race reports, and albums under their name? Maybe a "New!" graphic for any that you haven't viewed?

Yeah, let's stay vanilla.  I live that dream, too.

That sounds outstanding.  I'd use that, for sure.  It's kinda like an expanded view of your friends list on the left of your training log.  I'm all about that, Mike.

I like that idea.

As a side point, is there anyway to pull up which BTers have you (me) listed as their "Friends"? I'm occasionally surprised to see my name listed when I check out various logs. Of course, the site doesn't differentiate among "Friends," "Enemies," and "People You Just Need Want to Keep an Eye On."

We don't currently, but it's crossed my mind too. Not sure where we'd put it. 

Great. This just gave me an idea for a Friends Map. Kind of a BT "Six degrees of Triathlon Training" thing.

My to-do list now officially exceeds my life expectancy.  

Mwhosourdaddy, I think that is an outstanding idea as well. Rick and I agree so implementaion can begin.

I like Bear's idea as well. I am suprised sometimes as well. Maybe a little button at the bottom of our friends list?