harpo is still pissed off at the forum software(due to poor user design of forced subscriptions and may the stardockers that made this change get buried in thier subscriptions), but now puzzled

Switch to xenforo software. Problem solved.

It's verbal humour, like "why did the chicken cross the road?".

It's common to most cultures, though it is said that Germans don't have a sense of humour...

"Mein Hund hat keine Nase." "Wie riecht er?" "furchtbar" ...

We do have a sense of humour. It's just hard to find sometimes.

Also, there is no "one German culture". Germany consists of several different peoples, each with their own distinctive culture and dialect (and humour). The more you know...

That joke is ancient. Here is one I learned during English classes (twenty years ago  ):

A German goes into a restaurant in London and orders a steak. After an hour of waiting, it still hasn't arrived. So, the German decides to ask the waiter: "When will I become a steak?" Says the waiter: "I hope never!"

(Just to explain the joke: the German word "bekommen" means "to get". It's a classic case of "false friends".)

I work on a ferry that traffics Oslo, Norway/Kiel, Germany. I have been asked on a number of occasions: "who is the toilet" (to which I reply: Not me, today) and "where is the next toilet" (was there something wrong with the first one)

*Those sentences in German*

Wo ist die Toilette and wo ist die nächste Toilette

Note to self: remember to uncheck the frakkin auto-subscribe!

I don't like autosubscribe either 

*unchecks "subscribe to this post"*

Scrap IE11 piece of crap I cannot even sign in to the forums at all with IE11 STICK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW and no problems like Google or Palemoon  or whatever Browser you use not IE11!

regarding the chicken crossing the road, the fool that left the chicken loose deserves to have chicken pate after scraping the remains off the road.

have not met a german so have no opinion regarding the person, but as a person that has worked in retail or directlywith the public over several decades, I have found that there is NO safe time to laugh or PUN, and those that have tried to make humour with me have invariably CAUSED pain.

and WHEN isthis HORRIBLE forced subscribe to POST getting REMOVED, so that I can stop the planning of attaching the fools(that have forced this upon us) to POSTS permantly?

harpo the pissed off and puzzled

I take it English is not your first language.

Or second....

Or third...

harpo the irritated, and puzzled

I think it would be fantastic if there was a working option in the Account Settings or whatever that defaulted all new posts and threads to "no subscription" (you could still change it on a per post or per thread basis).  I personally think it would be better on a company level to have as little extra data storage as possible - I think the best possible system would be to have a working option that determines whether by default a thread is subscribed or not (ie. whether when you post a post or thread the "subscribe" option is on or off).  I would default new accounts to "off", to minimize the stuff you have to store.  Or if you wanted to you could let people know that you would be making a global change that would be done once, where all the "subscribe" options of all users would change to "off" (previously stored threads would remain in a user's list).  People who really want it can change it to default to "on".

And of course, the "email in response to replies" should always start as off for every post or thread regardless, as it is very rare to ever need that on.

That's the way I see it for maximum positive effect for least effort.  But if it is EXTREMELY hard to fix the bug in account settings that is meant to prevent a thread or post from being subscribed by default, then I would suggest you default the entire system to "subscribe to thread" starting unchecked all the time (default the entire system so you had to specifically choose every thread you wanted to keep on your list so you minimize data storage and keep most people happy).

This IS that. But it isn't working.

Yes, which is why I said "working option".

I don't know what all the fuss is about as I never use the 'subscriptions' tab when browsing the forums.  At any time I want to check on previous posts I simply go to my recent posts, etc.

However, just so's I can have a bitch [thus far I haven't had one this week] and support the cause, I don't like the auto-subscribe feature, either ...nor do I need it. And I hate seeing that fechen tab with fechen numbers on it... reminds me of what my g/f's father said when I told him we were playing doctors and nurses and I was taking her temperature.... "When you pull that thing out of there it'd better have numbers on it!"

I look at the tab and see 32+ subscriptions and think "WTF, I been to all those threads?  Geez I've been a busy boy."  Thing is, while I don't like it and would much prefer to see it gone [banished eternally to the woods where monsters and greebies lurk], the auto-subscribe feature/tab doesn't bother me enough to get my knickers in a knot. I mean, it hasn't hurt me as yet... nor has it caused me any illnesses.  However, I may just have been lucky thus far.

It hasn't given me a headache as yet, or a STD [Sexually Transmitted Dialogue], but if it does I'll be right back here bitchin' and cussin' like a trooper who's just got a dose of the clap from a virgin.