Wikimedia Bugzilla is closed!

To better serve the unique needs of different user groups, we propose separate default settings for new and current users of Echo. 

For Echo's first release in April 2013, our primary target user will be new editors, who will get both web and email notifications, enabled by default. Current users will also have most web notifications enabled, but most emails turned off by default.

See this proposed feature requirement: 

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo_(Notifications)/Feature_requirements#Defaults_by_User_Group