No we don’t do this currently as an option. I guess this is mainly because most users want their members to come visit their site – they want the traffic.
It can be fairly easily achieved with a small edit to the core code if you feel able to do that. And I have also raised a ticket so we can discuss it for inclusion in the future.

I just learned about SimpleForum and on the surface I'm excited.

Allowing the full content in email would be extremely valuable. Facebook used to send a link so people would visit the site but due to user outrage they started adding content in the email, which has been successful for them (i.e. “make software work how people want to use it and many more of them will use it” is the philosophy.) I personally hate websites that send me links but not the content and will avoid using them if possible.

And while I'm not surprised that SimpleForum doesn't do it I'm surprise the answer was to edit core instead of to program a hook something like sf_email_notice, or similar.  Are there not hooks built into this area, and if not would it not be possible to add them?

-Mike

yes there are program hooks built in…  see our wiki (link in footer) for the api and program hook info…

we have a some what limited set of hooks at the moment (just a two man coding team!) and there are things you can do when a post is saved via hooks…  you can certainly trigger an email from there as you query, but it wont affect the original email, so you would get two (I believe)…  with a detailed knowledge of WP (which you have), you could play with removing/adding other wp filters/problem-with-post-edit-buttonooks and possibly obtain this…

As soon as we get this 4.3 compatibility release for WP 3.0 out the door (the WP delay is killing us!), we will begin work on a 5.0 version that will include a templating system and a greatly expanded plugin api including many, many more hooks and filters…