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New members of groups always wonder how they will find out what's new, or whether someone replied to something they posted.
Here's the scoop.
First the easiest, no-brainer way: On the upper right of your top of every page in the Gaia Community is your nickname. That is a link. If you “hover” your mouse over it, just put the cursor there and leave it for a second or two, you will see a drop-down menu that says Messages, Profile, Settings.
Click on Settings. On the lower left of that page is a section called Subscriptions and Notifications. Click on the Group Discussions.
The first item is separated at the top, labeled Post on Thread I've Posted to. That one you absolutely want, because it will give you right away all your own posts plus any replies to your posts. Use the dropdown menus to select which email address you want the notices to go to. We recommend Daily Digest, which is sent to you right after midnight your time. “Individually” notifications soon clutter your regular email inbox !!
Also be sure Full Content is checked, so you don't have to go to the Group to see the content. Each notification will give you a link to View/Reply, so you can reply in one click if you choose.
Then look down through all the Groups you belong to, and make your choices. These notifications will give you not only all your own posts, and replies to your posts, but also all the new posts to that Group that day, whether they are on threads you have posted to, or not. These are the same posts you would see if you went to the Group's Discussion page and clicked on Recent Posts in the Discussions sub-menu, and looked at that one day.
None of this entering will do you any good unless you scroll down to the bottom of the page and click SAVE !!!!!! :)
These Group Notifications are indeed somewhat redundant to the Post on Thread I've Posted to, but if you belong to more than 3 Groups you will soon come to appreciate the Notification that puts all YOUR stuff from ALL your Groups in the same email, not scattered across the notifications from 3 or 25 Groups !!!!!!
Detail: The Notification you receive is the FIRST version of the post. If the author edited it later, you don't receive the edited version. So, if you are going to give a serious reply to a post, it's best to read the posted version in the Group itself; that will be the current version.
Here are several other ways to keep up, but they are NOT no-brainer, and they don't gather stuff so nicely.
Second: on the Group Discussions Notifications page you are making your choices, you can also or instead of emailed Notifications, subscribe to an RSS Feed of the Group's posts. Then - if you are “doing” RSS Feeds, these will appear among them whenever you decide to check your feeds. But your stuff and the Groups will be harder to separate out, and you gotta remember to check.
Third: another way to keep up is to frequently go to your own My Groups (under the Groups tab) or Groups (in your menu bar along with blog, photos, etc.) display - or just check the display of your Groups on the lower right side of your Profile - and look for the red-orange New little sign by the Group Name. This is a link that will take you to the Group where you can look at Recent Posts. But this method requires a lot of initiative on your part, and you'll be kept hopping by every individual new post which creates the little red-orange sign!!!!
Detail: If you only read posts from a Group via Notifications, and don't actually visit the Group for a few days, the little red-orange sign will stay up til you visit, because it doesn't know you have read your Notifications !!!
I'm not sure what else a new Gaian might want to know about this matter, but feel free to ask here or in the How Tos and FAQs Group where the above info is also posted in several posts across many months. Get all the details by doing a “search this group” for such phrases as reply to post, or replies to post, or new posts, or notifications, or group discussions.
Remember to include Gaia Networking Group so you can keep up with all the great posts in THIS Group !!!!!
This topic is discussed in a couple of other places in the Gaia Networking Group: http://pods.gaia.com/z_network/discussions/view/214331#214331 and http://pods.gaia.com/z_network/discussions/view/210871 This also says you can subscribe to a notification or feed right from any Group's homepage !! and http://pods.gaia.com/z_network/discussions/view/211395
I have cross-posted this post to the How Tos and FAQs pod, in an appropriate thread: http://pods.gaia.com/how_tos_and_faqs/discussions/view/48025
Blessings, OM Bastet
[Mod note-some items have been bold-faced and “New” image added - Meenakshi] [And this edit will NOT show up in Notifications or New]
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