Notifications
Notifications are how the board finds you: replies to your topics, mentions of your name, messages, follows, achievements popping. This guide is about receiving exactly the amount you want.
Where they arrive
The bell in the header collects everything, live; it updates in real time while you're on the board. Beyond the bell, notifications can reach your email, and on boards with push enabled, your device itself, even with the board closed. Each channel is your choice.
Tuning them
Your notification settings let you decide per kind of event what you want to hear about and where. The usual comfortable setup: everything in the bell, only the personal ones (mentions, messages) allowed to interrupt you elsewhere.
Watching what you care about
You automatically follow the conversations you take part in, and you can watch topics and forums you care about without posting, which turns the bell into your personal front page of the board.
If the board ever feels noisy, fix it in settings instead of leaving; that's what they're for. Two minutes of tuning beats months of muted annoyance.