PageNotification

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PageNotification is a system by which users can subscribe to a page so that, when that page changes, they are notified via email.

You have some options here. You can send a separate email for each page, complete with the diff. You can only send one message per page per day. You can send a message for each and every change to that page. You can journal all the changes for one day, one week, one month.

On wikis where RecentChanges is merely a page in the database, subscribing to RecentChanges would be a good way to know what pages have changed when.

[CategoryWikiTechnology]

I've been asked to implement this, so here are some implementation notes.

On the bottom of the browse page, have a little text field for the e-mail address and then "Add/Remove from PageNotification". The default text would be the existing cookie name

: [sunir@sunir.org] Add/Remove from PageNotification

and then you can put whatever e-mail address you want in there. Since the PageNotification feature is useful mainly for private wikis, the security is not an issue. However, being able to add people other than yourself is useful, and required.

The list of subscribed names should be available somehow, either on the browse, edit, or its own page generation. Also, quoting CliffordAdams,

: A relatively easy way to implement it would be to have a list of email addresses (separated by spaces) in a cache section of the individual pages (like the diffs are stored now). You'd also need to get the global lock when (un)subscribing, so that you don't clobber a real edit.

-- SunirShah

Is page notification useful mainly for private Wikis? I would have thought it would be useful mainly for Wikis one doesn't visit very often, or which are slow moving.

: The problem with using simple email-notification code publically is that one can use it for third-party attacks. Simply add the addresses of other people, and repeatedly update the subscribed page(s). One can work around the problem with a rate-limited signup step (send a code to the email address to verify the signup), but that's more work than I care to do anytime soon. --CliffordAdams

I would have thought rate-limiting would be necessary in a practical system anyway. It might take half a dozen edits before I am happy with what is nominally 1 change. I wouldn't want that to generate more than 1 email.

In general, a maximum of 1 email per day per Wiki would be fine, which could be implemented by polling - by running some process once a day - rather than by having edits trigger events. But maybe I am thinking of a different kind of page notification service. -- DaveHarris

To my mind, it is my responsibility to do it, not to have the wiki do it for me. I have a page spy that checks for diffs once an hour. I just look at RecentChanges, but I could point it at another with just a config-file change. There's also SpyOnIt? [1], which does it for you.

Between RecentChanges or SubscribedChanges and PageNotification, I'd choose the former two if the only CommunicationChannel were the wiki itself. However, in an office setting, the wiki is often a sideband to the main CommunicationChannels (face-to-face, e-mail, phone). Consequently, many aspects of WikiCulture that are germane to online communities don't apply. That is, the wiki is not the central place for discussion. Consequently, the need to tie the wiki into the mainstream communications channels is essential to make it usable. On the other hand, a wiki is not LotusNotes... -- SunirShah

Just wanted to know if there was anymore interest on PageNotification? I understand the pros and cons of the setup as described above, but the Option is what I'd like to see enabled. I'm thinking of this as particularly useful for Wiki based education environments. thanks--DennisDaniels

I believe the last word was the terms of service of the host of MeatballWiki prevented sending e-mail from their server due to problems with spammers. -- SunirShah

PageNotification

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