The "A new topic was posted" e-mails sent from Get Satisfaction should include the subject of the topic.

Just to put my IMO in, I prefer that they all have the same subject line. #1 on your list is the reason I like it. Having gmail group them as one conversation lets me go through them much quicker when I'm in work mode, and when I'm not those emails don't clutter up my entire inbox.

Good point :)

The feature you're asking for hasn't been implemented, but we did implement what Brian was asking for.

As for your request, I'll add a Threading ID header; which should help.

Just out of curiousity, how many mail messages are you seeing per day?

I believe we've added the threading ID to the email notifications, and it will go live after tonight's deploy. So we'll take it out for a test drive tomorrow. We know it works in Apple Mail but are not sure about how well it's supported by Gmail.

Specifically, I'm looking to include custom Message-ID headers on the email notification send out for each Topic message, and then setting the In-Reply-To header on each of the replies.

I'll also talk with people tomorrow about matching subjects up on our notification mail, so reply notifications are "RE:" the topic message.

I think that will get us to gmail threading support.

It's also interesting to note, given your screenshot, improved threading support probably won't help your situation much, IMO. Each of those emails were from different threads.

It will probably let you keep your messages together more easily, but the real solution, in my opinion, is digest email support.

-Scott

Eric will probably have a more poignant response than me, given he is on the frontlines of *tons* of companies in the site, but i'll tell you how I tend to handle it.

I don't get email notifications for replies, only for new topics. In my opinion, getting into a conversation quickly is the best thing; a little bit of lag time during a conversation usually goes unnoticed, unless you leave a topic alone for an extended amount of time without responding. In my experience, problems that turn into extended conversations either don't need my attention (their philosophical, exploratory, or congratulatory, rather than someone needing an issue addressed) or are niggling problems that involve a lot of back and forth.

On the flip side, the majority of the new issues we see are very simply addressed, or have been addressed in the past. By front loading those on my todo list, I can provide quick responses to the low cost items.

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The reality, for me, is that if I jumped on every reply in an instant, I would never get any work done. Already, I spend far to much time helping my coworkers rather than concentrating on my own tasks; ask anyone in the office, I bounce around from place to place all day. I wouldn't be able to help myself if I had emails coming in all day, so I set aside 2 blocks of 30 minutes (roughly) each day to deal with ongoing topics where I'm needed.

It means I do spend a lot of time responding on GSFN, but I can tell you I am much better off for it. I don't ever consider it as stolen time. I've got smart people keeping me honest, smacking me down, and teaching me how I can make the service better for them, and every now and then a little love is shown too.

Hope that helps,
Scott

I try to set aside specific time each day to monitor or respond to ongoing topics, and outside of that set time I concentrate on other things. I'm lucky in that I have co-workers who also pay attention to the site, so they man the watch posts when I am not.

It's also important to note that Get Satisfaction won't replace the need for having a dedicated support person (or, as Thomas Knoll from Seesmic likes to say, an Apostle), it will only delay it. We're working hard at delaying the need for a dedicated support person even further, but the truth is that sometimes you need someone who can claim ownership of being the public face of your customer service. You might even look into recruiting some of your best users to help with the load. I'd be happy to run some numbers for you to see who your most active user's are. I bet you that you can find at least one person who can be convinced to help.

Additionally, you could ask the community for volunteers, and explain to them that the load is getting too high and is distracting you from further improving the tool that your users are passionate about, and you want to help facilitate some self-help. Give these volunteers something, say a spot in a "Hall of fame" style page on your own site.

Rael from IWantSandy has recruited community members to help with his load, perhaps you should give him a buzz about how well it worked for him. He could probably give you a good rundown of what worked, what didn't, and perhaps how you could make it work for you.

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As far as keeping track of the ongoing topics that need your attention, I use my dashboard. It's low enough activity that I only need to scroll back a page or two to get to the last place I was and work my way forward. Eric uses an RSS reader, and subscribes to topics he wants to keep track of.

The next iteration of the dashboard should also greatly improve this workflow.

I don't see how I can have a more poignant response than Scott. He's said it very well. (And, he's much better at setting aside time for things than I am.)

I'm a fan of RSS and Google Alerts -- anything that can set you up to be notified. For example, if you have a customer who you like, who bothers the heck out of you, contributes a ton, etc., RSS their dashboard so you can keep up with them. Keep a folder of RSS feeds for that. Your most-active users are probably going to be following the best and worst conversations in your section, and you can quickly scan with an RSS reader if you don't have time to read every conversation. Likewise, if you don't already have Google Alerts for your company/products (I suspect you do), it's essential.

I definitely don't advise you to try and follow everything. There was a time when I would attempt to monitor the entire Get Satisfaction activity stream. No more. I had to come up with more efficient ways of tracking activity, or I'd spend all day on just monitoring. It was hard to let go of that, but I'm glad I did. I'm much more productive. I'm still pretty responsive, and it turns out that my community does a great job of alerting me to trouble spots I would have caught by scanning all activity.