Ask Slashdot: Best Solution For an Email Discussion Forum?

John3 writes "For the past 15+ years I've maintained The Hardlines Digest (URL omitted to reduce the /. effect), an email discussion list for members of the retail hardware and lumber business. Since the beginning I've run the list on a Windows box running Lyris Listmanager, and it's worked admirably over the years. However, the list now has over 2,600 members and Listmanager doesn't have a nice web interface for users that like to read via their browser. Listmanager also doesn't handle attachments and HTML formatting well for the daily 'digest' version of the discussions. Finally, I'd really like to move hosting off-site so I don't need to maintain the server. The list members are hardware store owners and many are technically challenged, so I need to keep change to a minimum and make it easy for them to migrate. I've considered Google Groups and that seems to have most of the features I need. Are there any other low cost solutions for hosting a large discussion list?"

Comments

I used yahoogroups

[cpu6502]

(Formerly egroups.com and onelist.com.) Members can continue receiving emails if they prefer that method of delivery, as I do, or they can read directly on the web. It also allows for the storage of files and photos in the group

Re:I used yahoogroups

[ibennetch]

I ran a couple of groups on Yahoogroups a few years ago and it was nothing but a hassle. Sure, the feature list sounds great, but in implementation things needed constant attention. End users would report not receiving any mail for days or weeks at a time (no, it wasn't even in their spam folders; they just disappeared) and logging in/creating accounts was sometimes problematic. At least at the time, there were three ways to add a user: I could add their email address, they could send an email to group+subscribe@yahoogroups.com, or they could create a yahoo account and join through the web interface. Choosing either of the first two options left their account in some sort of half-created limbo where they got the group email but weren't able to sign in to the web interface (to change settings, view photos, etc). There were other minor issues, but those were the two I constantly fought against.

All that being said, it wasn't the worst service I've ever used and it was free, but I was always waiting for the next breakage or issue that would require my manual intervention. They could have greatly improved the service since then; it's been about two years since I migrated away, but I wouldn't personally recommend it. We miss some of the features (the two you mention, file storage and photo sharing), but I'm glad to be rid of the administrative workload.

Re:Try Dlang's forum

[Bill Dimm]

The actual forum software is apparently here, and is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License.

Mailman is likely the best available

[Arrogant-Bastard]

Mailman is not without its faults (which is why 3.X is under development and shows considerable promise) but 2.X is stable, scalable, portable, easy to use from both the web-based GUI and the command line (my preference), complies with relevant standards (such as RFCs 2142, 2369 and 2919), behaves sensibly under duress, integrates well with multiple MTAs, and makes it easy to handle migrations such as yours (by doing a mass invite followed by confirmed opt-in). This is why it's largely supplanted its competitors, particularly majordomo, which was the tool of choice for many years for a LOT of mailing lists. I suspect that it will further eat into the mindshare of similar packages once 3.X is out.

Yahoogroups is a poor choice: it's notoriously unstable, completely insecure, and relies on Yahoo's horribly-maintained email infrastructure, which has been completely overrun by abusers for a decade. Googlegroups is marginally better, although it is also a massive source of spam (best practice on Usenet is to drop all Google-originated articles), it does not comply with standards, and attempts to contact a competent, responsive postmaster yield nothing.

Your best course of action is likely to lease the cheapest (reputable) host that you can find and install Mailman on it. This not only keeps control firmly in yours hands (thus insulating you from the vagaries of third parties) but it also keeps your options open for the future.

Re:Mailman is likely the best available

[subreality]

+1 Mailman, but with reservations. I run a large Mailman list and everything you said is true: it can handle large lists gracefully. That doesn't just mean performance. That means handling bounces properly, regex filters to catch things that need to go to the moderation queue, and all the other advanced stuff required for a large list.

However, it's very much a traditional mailing list setup, and that's not what the OP was asking for. It has web-based archives, but they're read-only - you can't do things like click "reply to this" on the web and follow up like you do in a web forum. My userbase is technical, but even still I have a minority that hates having to use an email client, and they do have some good points: in a mail client, you can only see what's in your inbox, not the whole thread. This results in excessive quoting, which just makes things ugly. So you either have to switch back and forth to the archives, or leave stuff in your inbox that you don't intend to reply to, or sort it into folders (automated filtering is really beyond most people). That's extra load for them, and they just want to go to the thread on their web browser. That's where Google and Yahoo excel. Unfortunately they come with all the downsides you mention.

"NO" to Google Groups

[jtara]

Don't foist Google Groups on your users.

Unfortuantely, it seems to be the default choice for tech-support forums. And it seems particularly poorly-suited for that task.

The bigget problem is not that it is way behind other forum software (it is) but the "cowboy" mentality of whoever pushes out a new version seemingly daily. It works one day, then it doesn't the next. Fortunately, with the daily release schedule, then it works again a few days later, but then it's different, and you have to figure out how to use it again.

Re:Try Dlang's forum

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweet Jesus Fuck that is fast.

Re:Try Dlang's forum

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought you were just being a jerk, but hot damn that's incredible, even opening the forum with 16,000+ topics and a topic with 60 replies is lightning fast.

Re:Try Dlang's forum

[Twinbee]

Vladimir Panteleev (aka CyberShadow) has mentioned some of the reasons why it's so fast at ycombinator:

* Optimized and deflated static resources
* Deflated HTML output
* SQLite prepared statements
* Integrated HTTP server (although it's currently in front of an Apache proxy)
* An optimized string builder (https://github.com/CyberShadow/DAppenderResearch)
* RAM cache of frequent DB queries

A Reddit story exists too where he speaks more about it:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ppre5/the_new_d_online_forum_software_written_in_d/#c3rhk2i

Re:A big wave.

[Wootery]

Don't know why this was downvoted -- this is a legitimate suggestion.

Google Wave (now Apache Wave) is now open-source, so you can deploy your own. In my experience it works nicely, though there are certainly some things to be wary of, like the ability to unaccountably edit other people's submissions.