CLOUD Customer

Hi,

I recently had a problem with two members of our team who unsubscribed to notifications via the 'Unsubscribe' link in their email. They did not realise - frankly, neither did I - that this is an irreversible process. They used it as a quick fix to receiving too many notifications. But there is no option to resubscribe to email notifications and neither can I re-enable this for them. Fortunately, Invision resolved this for me and without any fuss.

However, I have a sizeable number of members showing up in the Email Undeliverable list, and for most of them I cannot reverse this (I have not previously removed them from the list). Presumably, most/all of them used the email unsubscribe option which removes the option for me to remove them from the email undeliverable list. But how many of them did this not realising the consequences is more of an unknown. I suspect many of them.

But is it worse than this. When a member unsubscribes via the email link, they also PERMANENTLY unsubscribe from receiving newsletters and all notifications. Worse still - and more critically - they can no longer use the Forgot Password function.

A few questions:

1. Is this expected behaviour?

2. Is this optimal behaviour?

3. Is this somewhat forced upon Invision because of the shared email server environment?

4. Is this because it is simpler to apply? (I am not suggesting that 'for the sake of simplicity' is never justifiable.)

Unless there are overriding reasons for this behaviour of which I am not fully aware, I think this action should be reversible by at least the member (if not forum admins). And I am particularly concerned about the member being unable to request a password reset email.

I can think of an edge case which might be the reason for including password resets in email unsubscribe: if someone else attempts to login to the account, they could trigger a password reset email. That would be legitimate reason, and could be exploited to cause problems for Invision. In which case I suggest that if a member who has unsubscribed (via the email link) wishes to request a password reset, they are instead prompted to email the site owner or an admin from the email address associated with their account to request a password reset. Some method would need to be developed to then enable this.

So, unless I am missing something, I'd like to see two things:

1. The ability of members to reverse blanket unsubscribe via their user account. It should include a warning and the action logged (for Invision''s benefit).

2. A method developed to ensure that the block on password reset email might be circumvented by the member so that they are not permanently locked out of their account.

It is not obvious that unsubscribing via the email link disables the ability to request a password reset.

Not sure what this topic has to do with the subject line? I think you already posted this in:

@Randy Calvert

Oops. Yeah, posted this in error. I had several things on the go, was tired, being constantly interrupted, and I am a bit of a doofus. 🙃

I'll have to go through my posts to see what I did. ☹️

Edited May 5May 5 by Como

When a user clicks unsubscribe, it does exactly that. It stops sending email. When they do so, it

• Tells them what they have just done and the concequences of having done so

• Tells the, if they have done so by accident, to click to re-subscribe

As a cloud provider, it is important we look after the integrity of our email services for our customers. As such, if someone unsubscribes from a mail service, we have to respect that wish

15 hours ago, Como said:

However, I have a sizeable number of members showing up in the Email Undeliverable list, and for most of them I cannot reverse this (I have not previously removed them from the list). Presumably, most/all of them used the email unsubscribe option which removes the option for me to remove them from the email undeliverable list. But how many of them did this not realising the consequences is more of an unknown. I suspect many of them.

This is actually one of the reasons you cant do it yourself there. We would not want you to mass re-subscribe a bulk of people who have unsubscribed based on an assumption. That action can end up with emails being rejected by email providers, and actually cause less emails to be received, rather than more.

15 hours ago, Como said:

But is it worse than this. When a member unsubscribes via the email link, they also PERMANENTLY unsubscribe from receiving newsletters and all notifications. Worse still - and more critically - they can no longer use the Forgot Password function.

This is incorrect. Users cannot unsubscribe from transactional emails. They can only unsubscribe to broadcast emails. So if the user does something which needs to actively send them an email to confirm, it will be sent (password reset, registering etc). However if you send a bulk mail, or mail is sent out for followed items to all users who follow something etc, then they will not get those, as they have unsubscribed from broadcasted emails from the site.

That's not to say that asking for the user to be able to re-subscribe isn't a valid feedback item. I just wanted to correct some assumptions there.

EDIT: I've renamed this topic and hidden the other for you

Hi @Marc. Thank you for the reply. If you would lock the duplicate thread and re-title this to 'Unsubscribing to Bulk Email (and Notifications) via Email 'Unsubscribe' Link', it would be appreciated.

5 minutes ago, Marc said:

When a user clicks unsubscribe, it does exactly that. It stops sending email. When they do so, it

• Tells them what they have just done and the concequences of having done so

• Tells the, if they have done so by accident, to click to re-subscribe

That's message is shown at the time of unsubscribing - yes? So, it is a one time offer? Or can they resubscribe to email later? It does not inform them of the full consequences of unsubscribing or that it is irreversible if they do not resubscribe at the particular time, or that they will not be able to rest their password.

5 minutes ago, Marc said:

5 minutes ago, Marc said:

As a cloud provider, it is important we look after the integrity of our email services for our customers. As such, if someone unsubscribes from a mail service, we have to respect that wish

This is actually one of the reasons you cant do it yourself there. We would not want you to mass re-subscribe a bulk of people who have unsubscribed based on an assumption. That action can end up with emails being rejected by email providers, and actually cause less emails to be received, rather than more.

That's as I expected. It is understandable and reasonable. Invision must protect the mail server from these types of eventualities.

5 minutes ago, Marc said:

This is incorrect. Users cannot unsubscribe from transactional emails. They can only unsubscribe to broadcast emails. So if the user does something which needs to actively send them an email to confirm, it will be sent (password reset, registering etc). However if you send a bulk mail, or mail is sent out for followed items to all users who follow something etc, then they will not get those, as they have unsubscribed from broadcasted emails from the site.

I did test this. The blocked moderator did not receive email when she attempted to reset her password. I'll test this further, but from you have written there, it seems the cause for her not receiving the password reset email has other causes.

5 minutes ago, Marc said:

That's not to say that asking for the user to be able to re-subscribe isn't a valid feedback item. I just wanted to correct some assumptions there.

So, resubscribing (after the initial offer to resubscribe immediately after clicking unsubscribe) is not possible. I think a way for members to resubscribe would be good to have (even if password reset email are unaffected by this - I will test this for myself).

Thanks, @Marc.

6 minutes ago, Marc said:

EDIT: I've renamed this topic and hidden the other for you

Beat me to it. Thanks again, @Marc

9 hours ago, Randy Calvert said:

Not sure what this topic has to do with the subject line? I think you already posted this in:

Seems that I have lost my post which should have gone under the original title of this thread. Urgh.