the idea of favorite threads was a step into the right direction, but just not far enough.
for a forum with threading capabilities it's just not appropriate.
it's more flexible in one way, but many users want to monitor single postings, too (mostly their own)

we have something like 5000 users, plus a tendency to "monster-threads", we have many threads with over 300 replies, the biggest has 1221.
I had people swearing at me because their mailbox was flooded.

also, some users are egoistic enough to be only interested in replies to their messages *only*. Especially in threaded mode and especially with big threads.
I understand that, because we a lot of ****talking going on, I would freak out if I had to read 50 emails from my "favorite thread" and I still couldn't see clearly if anyone was referring to me or not.

therefore I suggest:
merge favorite threads and subscriptions to forums
enable users to subscribe to single postings, threads and whole boards
place two checkboxes underneath every new posting: 1. favorite thread 2. favorite posting
maybe add a new option to the preferences: automatically subscribe own postings

put it all together in a nice list to remove or add individual subscriptions, just like here

flint

flint
flint@poisonfree.com