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

[Roger Clarke]

On 25/6/21 4:35 pm, Karl Auer wrote:
> ... Utterly unfounded optimism. ... Just make sure you REALLY test it
before you get too invested.

Thanks, wilco!  (Maybe I *am* being to Pollyannaish - or at least
applying my aunty's dictum - 'believe well of people until you have
grounds for believing otherwise' - in inappropriate circumstances).


After my first half-hour earlier this afternoon, my notes say:
> I can’t say I’m really making sense of this as I should be.
> The navigation is opaque.
> The meaning/purpose/use of Categories, Tags, Groups and a few other
important-sounding concepts that go fizzing by on various pages, badly
need an accessible Glossary / Tutorial.

(I didn't get to force any emails to be sent to myself.  I'll have to
establish a second persona to achieve that).

__________________

On 25/6/21 4:35 pm, Karl Auer wrote:
> 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.
> 


-- 
Roger Clarke                            mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University