[Foundation-l] Better user experience and retention through e-mail notifications

[Sage Ross]

On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 3:08 AM, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> We have a range of ideas about how e-mail could be used for
> retention/engagement

Here's one more for the idea pile...

If the operations reasons for not mass-enabling email notifications
can't be overcome (or even if they can be), something finer grained
could still make a big difference.

That is, when you leave a message on someone's talk page, there should
be the option to send them an email notification automatically at the
same time, through the equivalent of Special:Emailuser.

This is what Kaldari's WikiLove gadget does when you leave barnstars
and such, and it's great... especially for newcomers.  I hacked
together a version of the script that has a "Just a message" option so
you can leave a plain message but still send an automatic email at the
same time, which is quite handy for the ambassador program where we
work with students who don't log in regularly.

-Sage