ability to post by email into forum

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Discussion of general topics related to the new release and its place in the world. Don't discuss new features, report bugs, ask for support, et cetera. Don't use this to spam for other boards or attack those boards!
zevs
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:37 am

ability to post by email into forum

Post by zevs »

Hi. I am looking to migrate my 10,000 member Yahoo group to a BB, and trying to figure out which is best.
The feature I need most which no one seems to have is the abilitity to post to a board by email. From my initial searches, the only program I have found that that offers this is Phorum (via added module).
Do you know of any others? Does PHPBB offer it somewhere?
This is really urgent for me. Thanks in advance for your reply.

juul
Registered User
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Feb 27, 2005 1:51 pm

Re: ability to post by email into forum

Post by juul »

zevs wrote: Hi. I am looking to migrate my 10,000 member Yahoo group to a BB, and trying to figure out which is best.
The feature I need most which no one seems to have is the abilitity to post to a board by email. From my initial searches, the only program I have found that that offers this is Phorum (via added module).
Do you know of any others? Does PHPBB offer it somewhere?
This is really urgent for me. Thanks in advance for your reply.

Mayebe you can ask it to a modder at phpbb.com?

Waleed
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Location: Pakistan
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Re: ability to post by email into forum

Post by Waleed »

Why is it necessary to have this feature? If you're group members are using email, they can also log on to a forum and post...

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Eelke
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Re: ability to post by email into forum

Post by Eelke »

In the past I have thought how this would be supposed to work, but especially keeping threads consistent would be not trivial. Also, unless you have several mail addresses, the decision of the forum to put the message in is a problem.

zevs
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:37 am

Re: ability to post by email into forum

Post by zevs »

Eelke wrote: In the past I have thought how this would be supposed to work, but especially keeping threads consistent would be not trivial.


Yeah, I thought of that. Phurum seems to have found a way to put all Re:s with the same subject into one thread, but I see where that could get hairy down the road. They also allow moderators to manually move messages around from one place to another, so that could solve the problem if we have the time and manpower.
Eelke wrote: Also, unless you have several mail addresses, the decision of the forum to put the message in is a problem.


What I was thinking in Phorum was to send all emails to one forum called "Today's posts", and then rearrange them all each night. Again, more work, but it would solve the problem and maybe be a good thing.
Zev

zevs
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:37 am

Re: ability to post by email into forum

Post by zevs »

Eelke wrote: In the past I have thought how this would be supposed to work, but especially keeping threads consistent would be not trivial. Also, unless you have several mail addresses, the decision of the forum to put the message in is a problem.


The group has gotten used to a certain way of doing things, and I fear that getting rid of the email aspect would throw it totally out of whack.

SamG
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Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2001 6:35 pm

Re: ability to post by email into forum

Post by SamG »

I understand your point, but I think Eelke is just noting that there's a reason e-mail-to-post is a scarce feature in the forum product world. I'd personally hate to moderate a 10,000 member forum that nobody ever visits. :)

I've never thought this through, but would a multi-author blog/CMS package with the ability to submit posts by e-mail work?
"I hate trolls!" - Willow Ufgood

zevs
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:37 am

Re: ability to post by email into forum

Post by zevs »

SamG wrote: I've never thought this through, but would a multi-author blog/CMS package with the ability to submit posts by e-mail work?


I hear your logic, but that doesn't really make sense. And Tons of people look at the site.

BTW, re the first response, I did also post this to the Mod forum.
Z

SamG
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Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2001 6:35 pm

Re: ability to post by email into forum

Post by SamG »

Well, I'm not sure what part doesn't make sense. Just trying to help 8) .
"I hate trolls!" - Willow Ufgood

code reader
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Re: ability to post by email into forum

Post by code reader »

i believe that there is at least one MOD for phpbb 2 that does that (mail-client that programatically converts incoming messages to forum posts).
used in the way described, ie. with conjunction with a mailing list, in effect converts your forum (or part of it) to the archiver of the mailing list.

personally, i can see a problem with this way of use: while every message to the mailing list will be archived, the forum may contain some additional posts that were posted directly on the board. this way, the forum is almost, but not quite, the archive of the mailing list, which can be somewhat confusing.

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