Change default setting for "Subscription mode" for forums

Change default setting for "Subscription mode" for forums

by Bernd Albers -
Number of replies: 3
By default forum subscription mode is set to "optional" when a new forum is created.

In my experience trainers often create a forum without changing this mode to "auto subscription " or "forced subscription". They then write a post and expect this to be sent by e-mail to all course participants, which does not happen as subscription is still set to"optional".
So as an Admin I would like to be able to set the default for forum subscription to "auto subscription " or "forced subscription".

You might also want the default setting to be "subscription disabled".


I have just created the following Tracker-Issue:

https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-47907

You can vote for this.
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In reply to Bernd Albers

Re: Change default setting for "Subscription mode" for forums

by Derek Chirnside -

Voted.

But as I say in the tracker, I am in two minds on this.

-Derek

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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: Change default setting for "Subscription mode" for forums

by Bernd Albers -

Thank you for voting and commenting on this.
Andrew ( in the tracker) is probably right, that there should not be an option to set it to "forced subscription" by default.
But in my experience "auto subscription" is often the better default setting, because it makes sure course participants get an initial mail. They can then still decide to unsubscribe individually.

There are several discussions on how to set the default to "no subscription" too.
https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=238241
https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=268308

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In reply to Bernd Albers

Re: Change default setting for "Subscription mode" for forums

by Scot Hacker -

I found the `forcesubscribe` field in the `mdl_forum` table. The default value of that field is 0. According to the values in the subscription dropdown shown when creating a new forum, 1 should mean "Forced." But if I change the default value of `forcesubscribe` to  1 and then create a new forum, it still defaults to Optional. 

Since that doesn't work, it's not clear where Moodle is deriving the default value for this. 

Any ideas?


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