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scyrius
Starting Member
USA
7 Posts |
 Posted - 19 April 2006 : 14:15:13
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| So one of the things (one of the only things) that I liked about Yahoo! Groups was the ability to reply to threads by e-mail. I think that would be a fairly useful add on. That way if you subscribe to receive announcements about new thread posts you can reply to the e-mail announcement and it will be automatically placed in the thread... is this feasible?< |
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Podge
Support Moderator
Ireland
3775 Posts |
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AnonJr
Moderator
United States
5768 Posts |
Posted - 19 April 2006 : 14:27:52
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Have you read this thread yet?
http://forum.snitz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=61331
While it is possible, I think the real question is do you really want to do that?
I can see where it would fit well in a corporate environment since you don't need to worry about driving traffic to your site. But on a regular website where you need to get traffic to grow and expand (and maybe even earn a little money) it may not be a good idea to encourage people to not come back to your site. That's why in the thread referenced above I mentioned that I could see it in certain circumstances.
(Sites like Yahoo! and Google are exceptions to this since they derive the majority of their traffic from other sources.)
If you really want it, I wish you the best of luck. I certainly lack the skills for something of that level at this point in time. 
<edit>Didn't even think of spam...</edit>< |
Edited by - AnonJr on 19 April 2006 14:28:53 |
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Nertz
Junior Member
Canada
341 Posts |
Posted - 19 April 2006 : 15:50:28
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Spam is a concern but shouldn't be too difficult to deal with in a closed intranet. The forum db has on file the email addy of each registered user, chuck all others. Addys can be spoofed though, and that's why I'd keep it in a closed intranet only.
I've put a bit of thought in this concept for a corp intranet app (already well protected behind a spam firewall). ForumID and TopicID make up the email addys for the replies. I'd want it for reply only, original post should be posted the normal way. Biggest challenge is whether to use a POP3 client polling a mail server or an SMTP Listener. Either with bits and pieces from post.asp and post-info.asp should work.
cheers,
Nat< |
Sadly, most Family Court Judges wrongfully reward opportunistic gold diggers
that use our children unjustly as "instruments" of power.
www.fathers-4-justice-canada.ca |
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scyrius
Starting Member
USA
7 Posts |
Posted - 20 April 2006 : 12:26:42
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| As a matter of fact, this would be for a corporate forum. We've set up a forum with a few mods to be used as a beta testing forum but one of our developers will not use the forums if he cannot reply to posts via e-mail< |
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Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
Posted - 20 April 2006 : 12:35:13
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Well, the solution there, then is to just ignore him until he comes to his senses - it's a ludicrous amount of work just to get around one persons stubborness and defeats the whole purpose of a forum.
< |
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“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.” |
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scyrius
Starting Member
USA
7 Posts |
Posted - 25 April 2006 : 12:12:55
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| Unfortunately the reason the forum is being set up is for his (among a few other's) benefit. So if he decides that the inability to reply by e-mail is a show stopper, then I have to scrap everything I did to implement Snitz on our network. Unfortunately, I have minimal programming experience so I'm unable to make a mod of my own. But I suppose I'll leave off bothering everyone with this since it's clear that no one really wants this feature except for my coworker< |
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ruirib
Snitz Forums Admin
Portugal
26364 Posts |
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scyrius
Starting Member
USA
7 Posts |
Posted - 26 April 2006 : 15:21:20
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| Well, that too. I did take a look at the other thread on this issue and it's clear that this isn't a mod that anyone would be able to just slap together. Nor for that matter would I expect anyone to because as I've said, it's clear that very few people are actually interested in this sort of thing. It seems it would only be useful in a closed intranet behind a firewall. Which is exactly the setup we have here...< |
Edited by - scyrius on 26 April 2006 15:23:57 |
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AnonJr
Moderator
United States
5768 Posts |
Posted - 26 April 2006 : 15:39:11
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| It sounds more like he wants a mailing list instead of a forum. It may be that a mailing list better suits the needs. Did he explain why being able to reply to a thread via e-mail was such a big deal? If its a matter of preference/laziness I wouldn't worry about it.< |
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scyrius
Starting Member
USA
7 Posts |
Posted - 02 May 2006 : 17:01:04
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| See the problem with not worrying about it is it means I have to scrap the project. I'm an intern with the company so I can't just go to this man and say, "tough, deal with it." And I'm fairly certain that a mailing list wouldn't work. He doesn't want a mailing list. He wants forums. We have a mailing list set up already...< |
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AnonJr
Moderator
United States
5768 Posts |
Posted - 02 May 2006 : 17:56:34
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Without the why's and what-for's I'm having a tough time trying to justify the amount of work this would take. (Outside of 'well, they're paying for it, so I'll give it')
Why is it that it must be a forum with the e-mail feature as opposed to a mailing list? Have you seen any other forums that use this feature?< |
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ILLHILL
Junior Member
Netherlands
341 Posts |
Posted - 03 May 2006 : 12:55:40
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Here's some non programming advice:
Some people/companies prefer to keep interns in the dark about their motives.
There's some psychology behind it that if you keep people in the dark enough they
will work their behinds off to please their superior.
A lot of interns (or people in general) find it intimidating to ask for clear information.
However, if this person wants a forum with email replies, while there are NO known forums
that support this feature then either he's pulling it out of thin air OR he's looking for
something completely different.
And you DO NOT want to spend a whole lot of time on this only to find out that it is NOT what
this person is looking for.
Best thing to do is to ask him for examples of forums that do this and his motivations.
I know, this might not be the info you are looking for and you probably would rather have me
post a link to a downloadable solution, but in the end this might be much more valuable than
the actual mod.
Because if this person is only complaining to complain then he will not use the feature for long
and the project will be doomed regardless.
Ask him for more info and he will be forced to question his own demands as well as provide you
with more accurate info on what he is really, really, really, really looking for.
Sorry, hope I don't come off as a prick but to me it smells like a situation you can not win regardless unless you know the motivation behind it and I seriously doubt that will you be able
to put together a forum with an email function that this will make your project into a success.
Good luck with this.
Dominic
< |
CLPPR.com - All The News Only Seconds Away |
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scyrius
Starting Member
USA
7 Posts |
Posted - 08 May 2006 : 09:48:42
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| Apparently the Yahoo forums use this feature. It truly is simply a case of not wanting to have to type in the web address which is sheer laziness but being the intern, I'm afraid I don't have any say in this. As you have pointed out, I haven't been able to find a single forum solution with the e-mail reply function. Basically what I've done is simply left our Snitz forum live so that when the developers get done sniffing around for other solutions (and realize that there aren't any) then I can say, well... we still have this forum set up. And it has every single function you're looking for except the lazy one. So feel free to use it< |
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HuwR
Forum Admin
United Kingdom
20584 Posts |
Posted - 08 May 2006 : 10:18:23
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| the difference is that yahoo forums are not forums, they are a web front end to yahoo newsgroups the two are very different animals< |
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Podge
Support Moderator
Ireland
3775 Posts |
Posted - 08 May 2006 : 13:07:41
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quote:
It truly is simply a case of not wanting to have to type in the web address which is sheer laziness but being the intern
The intern only needs to click a link to be taken directly to the topic where they can enter their response immediately (if quick reply is on).
I've thought a bit about allowing email replies and (for me at least) it comes down to the following problem;
Theres no way to ensure that the person sending the email is in fact the actual owner of the forum account unless you authenticate them some way. If you use only their email address to authenticate then anyone could impersonate another user just by setting up their email client differently. The other option would be to have their username and password entered somewhere in the body of the email but thats not a road I would go down for security & privacy reasons. At the end of the day it would be easier for the user to click the link rather than type their password in the body of the email anyway.< |
Podge.
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Edited by - Podge on 08 May 2006 13:08:35 |
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Mod idea: Reply to thread by e-mail
