[LINK] Fwd: RFI: Suitable Tools for an Electronic Forum

Karl Auer kauer at biplane.com.au
Fri Jun 25 16:35:41 AEST 2021


On Fri, 2021-06-25 at 13:12 +1000, Roger Clarke wrote:
> Karl Auer wrote on Fri, 25 Jun 2021 09:47:07 +1000: ...
> 
> Below are initial mumbles (a discourse?) on Discourse as a solution.

I cannot emphasise enough that Discourse has no usable mailing list
capability. It looks like it does, it says it does, it has mailing list
configuration settings. If you give it a quick spin it may even appear
to work. Some users will even tell you that it's working for them. Such
users either do not see or have not needed real mailing list
capabilities.

It DOES NOT work as a mailing list.

Specifically (and this is just the highlights):
- it strips signatures
- it strips original senders
- it breaks quoting
- forum users must elect to quote - which they usually don't, because
of course they can see the thread already
- it randomly forgets configuration settings e.g. digest
- it partially ignores some configuration settings
- it forces the use of the forum for some operations such as direct
reply
- the vendor has shown zero interest in fixing any of this.

Use it as a forum by all means (taken with the grains of salt re
threads, searching etc), but do not expect to use it as a mailing list.
It is completely broken in that department.

> But by signing up a pseudo-member to receive everything by email, it
> should auto-dump everything into .eml in that mailbox.

Utterly unfounded optimism. Given my initial (I thought very clear)
statements about Discourse, why would you expect that to work? Well -
who knows. Maybe it does now. Just make sure you REALLY test it before
you get too invested.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer

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