[SLL] joined web forum and mailing list(s)

[John Locke]

-------- Original Message  --------
Subject: Re: [SLL] joined web forum and mailing list(s)
From: Ana <christiana at hipointcoffee.com>
To: Jeremy C. Reed <reed at reedmedia.net>
Cc: linux-list at lists.linuxjournal.com
Date: Tue Jan 06 2009 12:34:08 GMT-0800 (PST)
> On Tue, Jan 06, 2009 at 08:51:06AM -0600, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
>   
>> I am looking for a web forum software that is well integrated with mailing 
>> list(s). So I can use the forum entirely via email and others can use the 
>> forum entirely using the webpage interface. I guess this would be like 
>> Yahoo Groups. (I was also told that Google Groups also allows posting to 
>> mailing lists. And I also see the gmane.org web interface for reading and 
>> posting to lists. So maybe something like that.)
>>
>> I am not talking about the feature where you click a checkbox on webpage 
>> or enter an email address on the webpage to get emails sent.
>>
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>> I see vBulletin has a newsgroup add-on that also supports fetching mail 
>> and sending email (in addition to NNTP).
>>
>> By the way, I'd prefer not using a SQL backend or PHP. But okay.
>>
>>   Jeremy C. Reed
>>     
>
>
> Someone contacted me off-list saying: "There is one called php-list.
> It's quite good :)".  I googled "php-list" and found:
>
> http://www.phplist.com/
>
> which calls itself an "open-source newsletter manager".  That's not what
> I would call what I've tried to find in the past.  However, it looks
> like it might do what's needed (listserve-forum combo).  If you try it,
> please let me/us know how well it works.  Thanks.  :)
>
> - Ana
>   
Hi,

We've used PHPList, Mailman, PHPBB, and a number of others.
Fundamentally, listservs and forums are two different beasts. The
trickier part of this is the email side.

PHPList is a newsletter manager, not a discussion list or forum
software. It's good for sending out newsletters, setting up different
groups to receive different versions, etc. It does not work for
discussion--you have to go to its web interface as an administrator to
send a message.

Mailman, or another list-serv, is where to start. Mailman is quite
excellent, though its web archive functionality is pretty limited. You
can hook it up to other archives though, and to get the kind of
integration you're looking for, take a look at GMane. I haven't done
this myself, but I think all it takes is adding a GMane address to the
Mailman list, and then you can have the two-way functionality--Gmane
offers the web forum view, creating different threads and browsable
views, and you can also treat it as a forum. If it's configured right on
both ends, posts people make on Gmane get posted out to the list in email.

Mailman is written in Python. GMane is a hosted, free service. Not sure
if there's other open source software that acts like GMane to provide
two-way forums, haven't found that. VBulletin maybe?

Cheers,

-- 
John Locke
"Open Source Solutions for Small Business Problems"
published by Charles River Media, June 2004
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/freelock
http://www.freelock.com