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Back several months I wrote via e-mail, basically the same as presented below. Just figured I would post the idea again.
Before licensing WSN Forum, I like most probably, had tried various scripts. There is a void in forums that also provide mail list functionality. AFAIK the only one (single source & integrated) that is still webboard, a windows product. Some of the popular linux forum scripts offer gateway options to stand-along list managers but that really isn't optimal IMO.
The one and only product I found for linux is Mailgust, an abandoned script. Although it works the fact that it's out of developement is a big detrement. Some users of the script, also with PHP skills, use it and are quite content with their custom versions. Mailgust combines web forum, mailing list and newsletter into one.
It really would be nice to have a web forum + mail list fused together. Or possibly a web forum and NNTP capabilities. I suspect the former would be more feasable and popular though. In my experiences there are two camps, those that favor web based forums and those that favor mail lists -- sometimes to the point that refusal to use one or the other, as a contributing user. Clearly the fusion of the two in such a case can help draw the maximum user base for a forum..
The major contender in this sort of community being yahoogroups.
Anyhow, in my research many months ago I found countless people willing to PAY for someone to modify/install/get working/de-bug/etc Mailgust, all mostly to no avail. I presume PHP authors just don't want to reverse the PHP and take the project on for whatever reasons.
Anyhow, it would be awesome if someday I were able to find such a product, I favor mail lists. Logic is that since I already use/have a good message client for e-mail, this is the best place to store/archive and utilize electronic messages.
As demonstrated with the loss of the dedicated WSN Forum, the ability to maintain my own archive of the messages is a fragile relationship with the web server. Additionally, making available the old forum is a precarious task for the webmaster, if there is one (case of a forum just going away, site closing). Sometimes this means a wealth of information is lost forever, with web based forums.. |
