I think it would be really helpful if an admin could specify what the checkbox states do when the RSVP is submitted. In our case, we’ve updated our custom templates so that we just remove “signing up through RSVP-ing,” — because the potential confusion of a visitor unsubscribing themselves isn’t worth it.

I don’t mean to pile on additional requests to this, but interestingly, a client has also asked if we can tag a person with an additional tag if they subscribe/sign up for email updates through an RSVP…. in addition to the RSVP form being able to tag them.

Are there any updates on solutions to this problem?

Danae makes a great suggestion of having the check-box be an option chosen by the administrator when building the page. Alternately, it could be presented only to people who are not already signed in, thus, causing less confusion for people who already receive updates.

I agree with Naomi below, it is really important we encourage as many people as possible to be on our email list and stay on our email list! I would rather see the tick box about being on our email list as an option where we as administrators choose whether to show it at all, because I would rather not display it on my website. When people provide their email address, they know they are going to be emailed – and as an organiser, I don’t want to give them the option to opt-out (if they really want to unsubscribe, they can easily do that through their profile or at bottom of emails). It would be great to see more control for administrators around this sort of stuff.

This is an important point. The current tick box does a disservice to our supporters because it doesn’t clearly spell out the implications of unchecking the box (ie unsubscribing from all emails). The choice is all emails from the site or no emails – not even about this event.

Josh – I have a few different thought processes going regarding this checkbox, so forgive me if my thoughts are disjoint.

Global Email List – It seems that this, and other similar checkboxes throughout NationBuilder are used as an all-or-nothing flag giving (or taking away) the ability to contact somebody through email. There does not seem to be a concept of mailing lists natively built into NationBuilder. Is this correct?
Sure, we could maintain lists using tags, but then we would need to build in our own functionality of allowing people to subscribe to and unsubscribe from particular lists.

Event Specific Email Correspondence – It seemed to me (and your answer seems to suggest the same) that the email updates checkbox on the Event RSVP page would grant or deny us the ability to email people regarding the event they for which the were submitting the RSVP. However, there is no built in way to communicate with those that have RSVPed unless we choose to tag them.

Regarding good and bad policies – consider the person, a non-supporter, submitting and RSVP to attend an event and leaving the email updates checkbox checked because they would like to know if there are any updates regarding the event. Subsequently they begin receiving non-event related emails from our nation that they did not explicitly subscribe to – not knowingly, at least. Could that not be considered bad policy that might even result in a loss of trust between that potential supporter and our nation?

Final thoughts – it seems as though there is no workaround to this issue other than the one you suggested, except I contend that the text you suggested is misleading.
For new supporters the text would have to be worded such that they knew that checking the box meant we might send them emails unrelated to the event, but unchecking the box meant they would not get an email update if there were any event changes.
For existing supporters the text would have to be worded such that they knew that checking the box would not have the effect of them receiving duplicate emails from us, and that unchecking the box would unsubscribe them from all mailings.

Since the text next to that checkbox seems like it might be quite wordy, is there any way in NationBuilder to send an email to people when they unsubscribe – a final farewell, if you will, and perhaps an easy way back in for those that have unsubscribed unintentionally.

Hey Nathaniel – This is not possible with NationBuilder, and is actually very bad policy. It might even get you in trouble with Email Service Providers. The very best thing to do is to write in a line in bold that says something like “Make sure you’re subscribed to updates by checking the box below or you will NOT be notified of changes or cancelations of events.”