<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 7/26/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller</b> <<a href="mailto:hns@computer.org">hns@computer.org</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Am 26.07.2007 um 08:06 schrieb <<a href="mailto:marcus.3.fletcher@bt.com">marcus.3.fletcher@bt.com</a>>:<br><br>> "<br>> ...<br>> So when an official forum is blessed by someone, please make sure<br>> it is
<br>> a forum that has a *bidirectional* email gateway. Anything else is<br>> simply sub-standard for my usage patterns.<br>> ...<br>> "<br>> -- Rod Whitby<br>> -- MokoMakefile author<br>><br>> Mail2Forum sounds like it could help:
<br>> <a href="http://mail2forum.com/forums/index.php">http://mail2forum.com/forums/index.php</a><br>><br>> "Mail2Forum (or M2F) is an add-on software to the phpBB forum system.<br>> M2F combines the functionality of a mailing list system and a phpBB
<br>> forum in order to add bi-directional 'email to forum' and 'forum to<br>> email' communication."<br><br>I can hardly imagine how this really works?<br><br>Firstly, please take a look at <a href="http://www.oesf.org/forums/">
http://www.oesf.org/forums/</a> and count<br>the subforums there.<br><br>In a forum system you have main forums and subforums, i.e. tons of<br>different boards where each one runs one or more threads (topics).<br>Ususally you can subscribe to e-mail notifications for each subforum.
<br>This is the main benefit of a forum over a single e-mail list where<br>everything is thrown in (compare between a large hall where everybody<br>cries what he wants to say vs. a set of small rooms with special<br>topics discussions).
<br><br>Now, should all new messages of all subfora be mapped to a single e-<br>mail transmission? Or should each subforum have its own mailing list?<br>For an unidrectional mode (forum -> list) this could work (even if
<br>new subfora are created).<br><br>But how to respond? How do you want to specify to respond to e.g.<br>"Developer", "Hardware", "Smalltalk", "First Aid", "Sell&Buy" etc.
<br>through E-Mail? Or even worse: how to create a new thread which<br>should just go to a specific subforum. On the single mailing list you<br>would simply drop it in between completely unrelated messages.<br><br>My conclusions is that by this requirement "Anything else is simply
<br>sub-standard for my usage patterns. " some of the special usage<br>patterns of a forum system have to be given up (i.e. the hierarchical<br>grouping of different topics/rooms/subfora or however you will call it).
<br><br>For me, a single mailing list carrying all topics of everybody is<br>"substandard"...<br><br>And, another issue is IMHO substandard with mailing lists: it is the<br>citation style - everybody has a different way of citing previous e-
<br>mails. This is a lot of waste of eye-movements to find the relevant<br>references. A forum system forces to use a single citation style.<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>OpenMoko community mailing list
<br><a href="mailto:community@lists.openmoko.org">community@lists.openmoko.org</a><br><a href="http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community">http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community</a><br></blockquote>
</div><br>i imagine this mail2forum provides some sort of "[Subforum]"-tag before
each e-mail. To answer to a thread, simply answer the last mail of that
thread. To start a new topic, just write "[Subforum]New Topic Name" as
Subject of the mail. At least i would implement it this way. And if it
isn't so, we could simply write ourselves something like that. I mean:
we have plenty of developers in here.
<br>This not only allow to have mailing list AND forum, but also to let everybody choose how they want to interact.<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>My corner of the web: <a href="http://ramsesoriginal.wordpress.com">http://ramsesoriginal.wordpress.com
</a><br>My dream, my world: <a href="http://abenu.wordpress.com">http://abenu.wordpress.com</a>