Observations On Vocal Notifications

Introduction

I was not sure whether to put this together but think it is fine to do this now. Notifications of any type can sometimes be useful and sometimes be annoying. I find Facebook particularly awful, I will mark them as all read and then a few hours later they will all reappear in my feed.

Two other Vocal additions which seem to have hit tumbleweed time at least are pledges and the apps. I don't know anyone who uses the apps, I certainly have no need for them as I can get all the data I need using my phone browser, but I do not create on Vocal on the phone, so maybe that is a reason for having the app. Although I have seen nothing positive about apps, I have seen nothing negative either so either lots of people have them installed and are happy with what they get from them, or no one I know is using them.

The pledges, I just tend to tip new users who I believe need a little encouragement, and sometimes the odd piece that impresses me so much that a heart and a comment is just not enough.

I will link the Vocal articles relating to the improvements and the end of this article so you and flesh out the little that I have said in this piece.

I love Vocal Subscriptions because it gives you a commentary of who has posted either by user name or the story that they have posted (and this is something that I will mention in the Cons section of this article), I use this and my "Touch Of A Button" to keep track of the stories that will interest me and the stories by the creators that admire a lot, the Creationati as I have christened them.

So here are my pros and cons of the new Vocal Notifications feature.

Pros Of The Vocal Notifications Feature

1. You know when someone has commented, liked or left insights on your stories, and the comments you are informed who made it.
2. You are informed when you get a new subscriber and who it is
3. I think it would be a great addition if we could choose which notifications that we receive

Cons Of The Vocal Notifications Feature

1. With the short form poems my feed was getting flooded with creators' new stories. One actually flooded my whole feed so I had to unsubscribe to clear it up. The thing is your subscriptions give you this informations so why does it have to appear in the notifications as well?
2. Notifications Only show you new notifications, so you cannot go back through your notifications history. When you say load more it just loads the initial notifications before going back further until the new ones run out.

Conclusion and Links To Features

I've included The Feeling's "I Love It When You Call" because most of Vocal's notifications are calls that we love, although I don't need the notifications of newly published stories because they are already in my Subscriptions feed.

I hope this has been informative for you and I hope that you leave comments with your own observations on Vocal features.

While I was researching these I realised that the Vocal Spotight seems to have been dropped or stopped. This was a great way to feature the real writers on Vocal (unlike numpties like me) but you can look into it here.

And finally my idea that Vocal liked, then deleted their comment from, but a few people have taken this up, and I still think it is an excellent idea (though that's me blowing my own horn, so to speak). It was a Top Story in December 2022.