[Actionchix] Website wishlist

[jennyw]

Hi, Kathryn,

Kathryn Hogg wrote:
> Well, I for one, vote vehemently against putting a bulletin board style
> system on linuxchix.  The email lists are wonderful and I don't see
> anything that a bulletin board will to to enhance things.  

The forums wouldn't replace the mailing lists, just provide an
alternative means of accessing them.  Think of it as an upgrade to the
archives that we already have in place. The interface would be
significantly better, we'd have a search function, plus there'd be the
ability to post (for registered users only).  I'd prefer if the forums
were generally accessible, but we could also make them accessible only
to registered users (like it is now with the archives).

> Its pretty easy
> to have spamassassin do its thing on the linuxchix server (and on my MTA).
>  Do bulletin boards allow postings to be checked for spamminess?
>   

We'd make registration necessary on the forums. It's a bit harder to
automate registering then posting on a web forum (particularly if we
choose one that's not as widely deployed) than it is to spam via SMTP.
I'm not saying it's not possible, but none of the web forums I've used
-- and many of them have significantly higher traffic than LinuxChix --
have had spam problems.

> And then there is the annoying polling aspect of having to see if there
> are new postings.
>   

Not sure what you mean here.  Are you referring to the gateway needing
to poll a POP or IMAP server?  I was thinking that e-mails would
processed via a pipe, so things would appear as they come in.  This is
similar to the way archives work currently.

> And has been pointed by somone else, grrls-only isn't suitable for a
> message board so that means instead of one cohesive system in place we
> would have to deal with two.
>   

I was the one that brought that up. I think it's an issue that we should
address, but I don't think it's a problem. Having a forum (aka better
archives) might even encourage new people to sign up for the lists.

Jen