Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Libreplanet using Discourse for mailing lists and web-based forums?

[A.S.]

discourse <https://www.discourse.org/features> gives its users both
"Mailing list mode" and "Activity summary" by email. AFAIK, it even
bridges email replies as comments on the actual platform. Plus, the
license <https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/LICENSE.txt>
is GPL v2.


On 22/06/17 00:02, Connor Doherty wrote:
> Those two did not propose anything, but having both email and web interfaces 
> was indeed my proposal from the start, as per the initial email.
>
> ________________________________
> From: libreplanet-discuss 
> <libreplanet-discuss-bounces+cnnr_dhrty=live.com@libreplanet.org> on behalf 
> of willi uebelherr <willi.uebelherr@riseup.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2017 9:30:13 PM
> To: libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> Subject: Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Libreplanet using Discourse for mailing 
> lists and web-based forums?
>
> Dear friends,
>
> like Mike Gerwitz i agree very much with the proposals from J.B.
> Nicholson. We have to combine and not to separate. Normally with his own
> access to the common data. Without copy.
>
> many greetings, willi
>
>
> Am 20/6/2017 um 21:44 schrieb J.B. Nicholson:
>> Connor Doherty wrote:
>>> *   Mailman, the software usually used for mailing lists, shows its age,
>>> with an unnecessarily clunky, under-designed web interface.
>> Two big good things about Mailman 2's web interface: it's optional (one
>> can do mailing list management via email) and it doesn't require
>> Javascript (it's entirely form driven). I don't know about Mailman 3's
>> interface.
>>
>> Not using Javascript (JS) is a good thing to me because it means I don't
>> have to review code to make sure the webpage isn't trying to do
>> something beyond letting me supply an email address to manage my own
>> list details. Free software JS doesn't address this concern at all (thus
>> this concern is out of scope for LibreJS): This concern has nothing to
>> do with whether I can run, copy, modify, or share the JS. I come across
>> too many pages where JS is added on because some web developer thinks
>> it's a good idea to implement a feature in that way, and along the way
>> (most of the time) the web developer has clients loading in JS from
>> various other places and the client's security now depends on JS from
>> multiple sources. All of this (and the commensurate slowdown due to
>> executing JS) so I can have features I probably don't want in the first
>> place (and don't have to deal with at all in a mailing list).
>>
>> I see "Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled" on
>> https://community.cartalk.com/login even though there's nothing about
>> logging into anything that genuinely requires JS to do that job.
>>
>> But as you say with Discourse, I don't see this as an either-or
>> situation: the Trisquel GNU/Linux forum is an example of a
>> Mailman-managed mailing list and a web forum where posts to either are
>> copied between the two. I never use the web forum, and I'm sure there
>> are people who never use the mailing list but we discuss things all the
>> same. Whatever software they're using seems to work out well enough
>> (perhaps better for the mailing list users as I understand the web forum
>> admins can "lock out" a thread but this doesn't seem to carry over to
>> the mailing list, thus I can post to any thread or start a new thread at
>> any time).
>>
>>> *   More importantly, the mailing list concept has proven bad for
>>> scaling. With tiny projects, the notion of "automatically subscribe me
>>> to every new post to every new thread" for a topic or a slew of topics
>>> might make sense or at least be harmless. But when a community booms,
>>> many find it unrealistic to manage all of the emails in the mailing
>>> list.
>> I don't see this as a problem. I see this as a feature: I have no
>> problem filing the list emails into a folder and reading them when I
>> have time. I subscribe to multiple lists and I do this quite
>> successfully across them all using an interface I know, scales well to
>> service many people, and doesn't require that I learn a new interface to
>> do what I come to a list to do -- read and participate in discussions.
>> These days it's easy to get an email account with lots of space.
>>
>>> *   The best mailman can do is roll up messages into a "digest". This
>>> makes it harder to reply quickly, and while it might solve growing pains
>>> at the couple-of posts a day scale, it's still useless above that or for
>>> people who don't want another daily email.
>> I've never found mailing list digests to be handy or wise because they
>> break threads and people don't take the time to edit their posts to only
>> what's relevant for that post. Posters typically leave a lot of other
>> digested posts in their followup. But this doesn't seem like an issue
>> on-topic here. Perhaps it's worth turning off digesting for a list in
>> Mailman 3.
>>
>>> My suggestion in this regard is a piece of libre software called
>>> Discourse<http://www.discourse.org/>. I apologize if this has already
>>> been suggested elsewhere.
>> I looked at the instance on https://community.cartalk.com/ and saw some
>> top-level threads there. All the discussions seem to take place in one
>> thread per discussion. I couldn't easily figure out who was replying to
>> whom in any discussion. I hope this is configurable so proper discussion
>> threading can be done.
>>
>>> What's relevant here, especially for those afraid of change, is that
>>> while Discourse may be a "fancy web forum", it can [now] be completely
>>> interacted with via email, putting it near feature parity with mailing
>>> list software.
>> Where can one find an example of this mailing list interface?
>>
>> I'd like to see where I can find archives of a Discourse-managed mailing
>> list and download those archives in mbox format (with no JS required) so
>> I can add those archived posts to my email clients and browse the threads.
>>
>> I'm not going to address the issues you raised with the wiki here
>> because those seem to me to be an entirely separate issue from setting
>> up software that copies posts between a web forum and a corresponding
>> mailing list.
>>
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>>
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