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Why email integration? Why not? [message #10293] Tue, 27 May 2003 17:08 Go to next message
stevie is currently offline  stevie   United States
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I'm a little curious about the history of fudforum. Was the email integration an early design goal, or was it added later just as a response to someone's need?

I've been really looking into the worlds of mailing lists and web forums, and it seems like this is a type of integration that just isn't done very often.

Many email lists have web archives that are more or less useful, but the web archives aren't really intended as a browsing/posting mechanism, they're there more for researching past discussions.

Many web forums support some level of outgoing mail to notify members of new topics, posts, etc, but there is very little support for posting a message via email.

And then there's fudforum that seems to be close to unique in offering something that is pretty tightly integrated. It seems like an obvious great idea to me, and I guess it must have seemed like a great idea to those who spent a lot of time implementing it. Why has it not really appealed to other software producers?

I'm beginning to chalk it up to pure psychology - some people like email, and hate web forums, and some are just the opposite. Maybe it's just rare to find people who see merit in both and would like to have an integrated solution? Or are there more practical reasons why these two types of e-communities usually just don't mix?

-Steve
Re: Why email integration? Why not? [message #10296 is a reply to message #10293] Tue, 27 May 2003 17:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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The mailing list integration was done in respone to a number of requests from various people and eventual sponsorship of the development. The newgroup support was added for 'completness' sakes.

Implementing forum mailing list/nntp is not an easy task and users will never use the feature. Which probably explain why other bulletin board packages do not offer it.


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Re: Why email integration? Why not? [message #10298 is a reply to message #10296] Tue, 27 May 2003 17:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
stevie is currently offline  stevie   United States
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prottoss wrote on Tue, 27 May 2003 13:21


Implementing forum mailing list/nntp is not an easy task and users will never use the feature. Which probably explain why other bulletin board packages do not offer it.


I guess I'm not at all surprised by the difficulty in implementing it, since I have run across tons of requests for this kind of feature in various web forum support boards.

But now you have implemented it - does it really feel like your users simply don't use the feature?

Is it just lack of imagination on the part of users, or is there really few applications that make sense for a combined mailinglist/webforum? Or is there some practical details that just make it not as smooth an integration in real life as one might hope for? (Of course, this is a little circular, a feature that isn't used much inevitably won't be as smooth and high-performing as a broadly used feature.)

-Steve

Re: Why email integration? Why not? [message #10300 is a reply to message #10298] Tue, 27 May 2003 17:46 Go to previous message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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There are a number of forums that use it and are quite happy with it. But, most people simply do not need it, they want a web discussion forum not a mailing list archive or a mix of both. Ultimately people use the tools they need, FUDforum goal is to make sure that these features are avaliable for those who need it and are fast.

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