Where are notification fields in database?

[davo88]

Anyone know where the fields that store settings for a member's notification preferences are located?
These four in particular?
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[Arantor]

I have to ask the obvious why.

Changing those almost inevitably turns into "how do I make it so everyone gets notifications for everything" which is almost certainly a breach of various anti-spam and privacy laws...

[davo88]

Who sang that song "Suspicious mind"? Was it Elvis? Anyway, I am trying to understand member behaviour better - posting patterns, days of the week, which forums they post in, forums/topics they follow, frequency of posts, etc. It's hard to improve your site if you don't understand your members areas of interest, or when and why they visit.

[Kindred]

So add Google tracking/analytics to your site and see what posts and content are being interacted with?

How do notifications help understand site traffic?

(you need to understand -- we are suspicious due to decades of people trying to get around restrictions and do things that they really should not be doing)

[Arantor]

Understanding notification patterns doesn't tell you anything without understanding the posting patterns because the notifications are more or less directly tied to posting in the first place.

[shawnb61]

Correct, it won't offer insights into posting patterns.  However, some quick analyses might help understand how email is being used, e.g., how many folks have opted in for email delivery & which delivery preferences are used (digests?).

I haven't run 2.0 in a very long time...  In 2.0, IIRC, most of those are on the members record (& start with "notify_").  At least one is in the themes table (& variable names end with "_notify"). 

In 2.1 they are better organized in the user_alerts_prefs table.

[davo88]

@shawnb61 - Thank you.  Never would have thought to look in themes. Will check it out.
@suspicious_minds - Google Analytics is one perspective. A very broad one, and from the outside looking in.
But it is the members who create the content which the search engines pick up. Understanding their behaviour is essential for insights into forum content creation.
When I looked at the notification settings for half a dozen fairly active members, they were all set to the default settings.
So this left me wondering about the other 1580 members:
- How many members have actually changed their notification settings from the defaults?
- Do members know these settings exist?
- Do they understand them?
- Might notification settings explain why some members don't reply when their questions are answered in their own topics?
- Is there a difference between the settings of active members and less active members?
- Do notifications make any difference to forum behaviour?
- Do members need help pages explaining notifications?
- Should the welcome email draw their attention to the notification settings?
Bear in mind the forum has an older demographic. Technical knowhow and sharp memory are generally not their strong points.

[Steve]

@davo88 - Do your questions still need resolving?

[davo88]

Thanks Steve... questions have been resolved by shawnb61.