New user registrations are being set to have no notifications

[kitenetter]

I've just registered two user accounts for testing purposes, one account via the iRecord butterflies app and one via the main iRecord website. In both cases the user account was created with all notifications switched off.

I'm fairly sure that we always used to have notifications switched on by default.

Has this been changed deliberately? If not, can we re-enable notifications? Otherwise new users may never realise that their records are being verified or queried etc.

[BirenRathod]

@kitenetter I have no recollection of switching off on iRecord website. My understanding is that these notifications settings managed directly from warehouse, so could be a problem some where in the code.

[kitenetter]

As far as I can tell all new users are being defaulted to not receive any notifications. I think this is a high priority to fix to facilitate communication between verifiers and recorders.

[kitenetter]

Have just tested this again, and new user accounts are still being set to receive no notifications. This remains a high priority to fix.

In addition, although I chose a CC0 photo licence when I registered the new account, this did not get saved and the new account page tells me that I need to set a licence.

[johnvanbreda]

The photo licence is no longer requested during sign up, since the setting can't be saved until your account exists which only happens when you use the registration email link. That was changed before Christmas.

I've implemented all the code required for a new tab on the Website editing in the warehouse, that allows you to set the default notification settings for new users. Will be deployed with the imminent new release.

[johnvanbreda]

This is now deployed and configured for users signing up on iRecord. @kitenetter - the settings are on the warehouse edit page for the website on the warehouse, on the notification email defaults tab. Do we need to apply these settings for any other websites, e.g. any of the BC ones?

[kitenetter]

@johnvanbreda my view would be that any website that shares for verification ought to enable at least the verification and query notifications by default, but if we need explicit agreement from each website this is going to be a lot of work to implement.

For NMRS online the privacy notice says user email addresses will be used to "facilitate notification of your record(s)’s verification status from iRecord according to your ‘email digest’ options selected on registration". However, I'm not aware that the user is given any choice about notifications during registration?

So it's beginning to look like we have to do some work on the registration process to make it clear to users what is happening. I do see it as vital that users are strongly encouraged to receive notifications, otherwise the verification process breaks down. Ideally we should make it clear that the default is that at least some notifications will be sent, while at the same time allowing users to opt out if they really want to. As things stand new users may never realise that receiving notifications is an option.

BC very much do want recorders to receive notifications, but I don't know if we should implement this without addressing the mismatch between registration and the Privacy Notice.

As far as I can see we don't say anything about notifications in the iRecord Privacy Notice.

Let me know if you have any further views on this. I may need to consult with the UKCEH data protection people.

[johnvanbreda]

@kitenetter my view is that even if we only turn this on for some sites, it is still worth doing. So where the sites have terms and conditions that make it clear that emails will be sent out, it can be turned on. It could also be applied to any users of those sites who already exist but have never actually saved their notification settings.

For other sites where the T&Cs don't make this clear we should not turn it on, but we can always ask the site admins if they would be happy to update the T&Cs. It might be a lot of work to get every site done, but we can tackle the most used sites first.

I agree that the iRecord & NMRS T&Cs may need checking. We don't ask for notification settings at the point of registration because the warehouse account is not created at that time, it's only created after the registration email is validated. So we'd need to do a bit of extra work to store the user's chosen notification settings in a temporary field in the Drupal user account, then copy the settings to the warehouse when the account is registered.

[kitenetter]

Needs to be tackled as part of a wider update to the Privacy/T&Cs. Deferring for now but will be picked up later in the year.