On Wednesday, January 15, 2003, JP Hindin wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Jeffrey Sharp wrote:
> > Right away, I see several benefits:
> > - Members can participate from any computer with a web browser. Even
> > lynx.
>
> And right now members can use any eMail client, even elm or
> mutt... They're just as common, right?
IMHO, no. The trouble with MUAs is getting some way of either (a) serving
mail folders to remote locations or (b) serving the login session to remote
locations. Both of those are doable (IMAP, SSH) but can be a pain to set up
for some users. Then there's the problem of ensuring you have the right
software at the remote location (IMAP-capable email client, SSH client). In
some cases (e.g. student lab, internet cafe on vacation), you can't count on
that. In nearly every case, you *can* count on some form of web browser.
> > - Anonymity and privacy can be more well-respected. The 'sender' of a
> > post is your username, not your email address. A system can be
>
> It surely can't be hard to have the mailing list archival software munge
> eMail addresses...
Not at all. But messages delivered to subscribers aren't address munged. You
can look at the headers of this message and get my email address. I don't
think it's a big deal, but someone else might. I think more people would
join if they knew their email address would not be disclosed.
I know this aspect is fairly debatable. It wasn't the reason I cooked up the
web app idea. It was merely a "hrm, we could throw this in too" thought.
> You can't attach eMails to the list can you?
Yes. If a message is accepted for deliver, it is delivered with only the
standard Mailman header modifications. No other filtering takes place. Of
course, we could do this now by piping messages through a filter before they
hit the Mailman posting script. Easy.
> > - Features you want can be added in code, quickly. The current setup is
> > great for turn-key mailing lists and such, but it is tough to extend.
>
> What kind of extra features?
Distributed, score-based moderation, for one. My original post on the thread
describes it. That pretty much requires that Mailman be ditched. Jay and I
also have talked about doing some sort of a marketplace thing, too. Right
now, that would require a separate (from Mailman) username/password pair. I
would also like to create a data archive and give some people write access
to it via a web interface. That could be done with SSH but would require yet
another username/password pair. I am not impressed with the current state of
archivers, and would like to provide my own. It would be nice if all this
was integrated.
> This is just my two cents;
I sincerely appreciate it.
--
Jeffrey Sharp
Received on Wed Jan 15 2003 - 23:16:41 GMT