Why I (and others) don't reply via email

Occasionally, people will post to the forums and ask that whoever responds to their question reply via email to such and such an email address.

Only replying to an email address, however, ignores the point of having the bulletin board - so everyone can share and learn. I personally only answer on the boards, and I suspect most other people do the same.

I am guessing most people would like to be informed when their question is answered instead of having to check the forums once in a while to see if there have been any responses. However, there is already a system in place to do that:

If you are a registered member, you can "subscribe" to particular threads or forums. At your discretion, this can automatically send you a notification when someone has replied to your question, or even send you a note letting you know what the new posts are in a particular forum.

For example, if you are posting a message, you can select "instant notification by email", "daily updates by email", "weekly updates by email" to receive emails that automatically inform you of any responses to your post. If there are no new posts, there are no emails. You can choose this from the "Thread Subscription" drop-down menu (click on the down-arrow on the right hand side of the box - default is "No Subscription").

Another example: say you are registered and want to be informed once a day of all new posts in the "Plant Identification" forum. You can go to the main page of that forum and under the "post new thread" button at the bottom of the page, there is a link "Subscribe to This Forum". Click on it and select "Daily Updates by Email" from the drop down menu.