Instant communication isn't always on the top of my list! I'm just getting caught up in this thread and it's the end of my day today, so I'll reply to this message as it's the last one I read :)
-----Original Message----- From: Kostas Jakeliunas Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 1:27 AM > Totally out of the blue, but if there were a forum which also had a simple > way of subscribing to threads and sub-forums so that one could receive > emails and *respond* by replying to the special email address used for > relaying them the message, would that be something worth considering? > (Perhaps it's too late and so on, simply wondering.) I don't know what software (or custom software) is in use on a regional forum called WaccoBB (http://www.waccobb.net - SSL cert but mixed content) They have the option to subscribe to posts according to sub-forum. It doesn't work QUITE the ideal way you describe; a reply to emailed messages replies directly by private email to the person who posted the message/comment. The footer of each message has three orange buttons/highlighted links "Website/Reply", "Unsubscribe", and "Gratitude". The first takes you to the appropriate form on the website itself, and the other two go to the website for their each mentioned purposes (Gratitude is like a "like"/"+1" button). At one time the WaccoBB forum as a Yahoo email list (and some few people in the community still use the old Yahoo email list, I think unwittingly instead, dividing the community). The new site runs lots of local ads, which is most likely the motivation to the compromise email option which still requires opening a web page for any public replies. Though their emails all come with an ad too. ..... just checked the footer of the forum pages and although the forum software in use is not named -- just a web design firm -- the FAQ page specifies "vBulletin CMS". The site is very friendly as forums go, with every page having sidebars with texts of selected posts and the posts with the most "gratitude". The needs of that site are different, as the participants generally are very public about their identities, very often including their own portraits, and the site is commercial in nature. I just checked and vBulletin is proprietary (using PHP/MySQL). One controversy as of 2010 is its license involves the present owner/developer of the vBulletin software brand sharing in Google AdSense revenue in the future if users sign up to run AdSense ads on their forum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VBulletin Maybe helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_forum_software A forum I used previously, Simple Machines Forum ("SMF") has a BSD license and has recent releases. I set it up pretty easily for a medium-size site with a small audience and liked it. All the traditional forum features and has/had a polished look/feel. New to the scene, one called Discourse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_%28software%29 and http://www.discourse.org/) is GPL, in "open Beta", and behaves more like a modern social networking site. Non-privacy features, like linking your account login to Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Github, or Persona are built-in (although you can still create an unlinked account). This would certainly need some careful consideration and/or removal of such features.... Designed for use from modern smart phones as well as traditional computers. It has a "comprehensive API" and the front end relies heavily on Javascript; Ruby backend. With sufficient effort, if the infrastructure of the thing was useful, a different interface might be able to be developed more easily and robustly than going it alone. I just grabbed Discourse as an example as it is a new one and non-traditional---aiming to be next-gen and accessible to the masses. It has email subscription features mentioned on its homepage but not ones mentioned that would cause the email interface to behave like a traditional mailing list. ... > > AFAIK, there's no such solution at present, at least for something which > would effectively implement a mailing list allowing for active > participation and even moderation from the email side of things. But it > sounds doable, and might turn out to be a great benefit to the broader > world of open source and so on. A project idea? :) It does sound doable... and if the website were especially accessible and familiar to modern audiences, all the better -- but that could complicate the project unless there is something similar enough to patch onto already. Asa _______________________________________________ tor-talk mailing list [email protected] https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
