Simple Machines Community Forum

SMF Development => Feature Requests => Applied or Declined Requests => Topic started by: assad on April 26, 2004, 04:33:24 PM

Title: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: assad on April 26, 2004, 04:33:24 PM
I have a yahoo group (groups.yahoo.com) and I was thinking to move all the member to my own forum.
The SMF has a lot of excellent features but But I see some gaps.

1. One of excellent feature Yahoo groups has is the email postings. Once registerd you get all the posting that are posted on the board in your email box (if activated in personal preferenece, you can choose 1.no emails, daily digest and email sent by administrators only). Also, the member can reply the mail and the email gets posted on the board.

Is there any thing like that in SMF?  If not, I think this is something I would love to see.

2. Is there any way I can add a mass number of members without filling add member form for 600 members of my group.


Regards,
Assad.
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: [Unknown] on April 26, 2004, 04:36:44 PM
As to emailing posts, I have looked at this many times and the biggest problem is I can see no way to prevent spoofing and/or spam.  Don't you get virus emails every now and again from people you know, when they didn't send it?  I'm not sure how one would prevent the emails like those from becoming posts.  It just seems like a security problem to me.

Currently, there is no way to add a "mass" number of members through an interface, but it could be done with a script if you have a comma separated list of their details ;).

-[Unknown]
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: assad on April 26, 2004, 04:53:05 PM
Yes you do get some emaisl that may contain a virus but it can be prevented if email postings have some restrictions. Its doesn't happen very often.

Here are few suggestions:

1. The feature only accepts emails from registered members
2. All members who need this feature activated need to be verified via email before it's enabled.
3. All messages that arrive via email are not allowed to contain any attachments; the attachments are removed.

As far as the Spam goes; If some registered member is posts the Spam, he/she can be banned. (i have to this activity on my yahoo group but its like once in couple of months and maybe one or two cases)

Regards
Assad.

Quote from: [Unknown] on April 26, 2004, 04:36:44 PM
As to emailing posts, I have looked at this many times and the biggest problem is I can see no way to prevent spoofing and/or spam.  Don't you get virus emails every now and again from people you know, when they didn't send it?  I'm not sure how one would prevent the emails like those from becoming posts.  It just seems like a security problem to me.

Currently, there is no way to add a "mass" number of members through an interface, but it could be done with a script if you have a comma separated list of their details ;).

-[Unknown]
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: [Unknown] on April 26, 2004, 04:57:49 PM
But sometimes emails are spoofed without the owner of the emails knowledge or consent - how do you prevent that spam?

Yes, I agree those options (the first two are already options, which would have to be enabled.) but I'm not sure about the attachments issue.  I know that there are some yahoo groups - even those such as my friends work in - that are centered around graphics, and very often have images as attachments.

But, one thing that could help is that this should be optional in people's profiles; they should be able to say, "I don't want to be able to email my posts in."  This would help prevent spam from those who wouldn't even use the feature.

-[Unknown]
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: assad on April 26, 2004, 05:35:00 PM
I would agree, the spoofed without the owner of the emails knowledge or consent issue. But I guess what we can do for that is:

The admin or moderators get additional button when viewing messages and instead of banning the member, the  account status is set as deactivated. On deactivation member get a notification that if the account will not be active unless they comeback to website and reactivate the account (again the activation email process).
If the the SMF get an email from a deactivated member account, it does not accept the mail and instead send a reply back that the account needs activation.

If the number of mails exceeds the limit of email messages received by smf from the deactivated user, The reply emails are no longer sent back to reduce the server load.

secondly, as far as the attachments go, users can still post them through web, also this could be part of admin setup to allow attachments or not.

So, shall I hope to see this enhancement in the comming releases  :)

Regards,
Assad

Title: Re: postings via emails
Post by: yaronkretchmer on May 18, 2004, 12:34:12 PM
if spam is not an issue ( tightly controlled environment where emails will not get though unless they're from a registered user), any ideas on how I can implement an email interface?

Thanks much
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Anguz on May 18, 2004, 10:50:50 PM
on the point [Unknown] mentions regarding spamming using a member's email address, I think that it could be handled with a verification string, like the human verification ones where you type what you see in a graphic

the profile could have an extra field where the member chooses his own verification string and when posting via email, the verification string should be at the beginning of the subject line or somewhere, so that SMF knows it's actually sent by the member
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: tovlakas on October 18, 2004, 12:38:55 PM
sorry to bring this topic back from the dead... but I am desperately in need of this ability, as I am switching my fraternity from a yahoo group to SMF, but they don't want to switch till they can get posts/post via email.  Is there any news on this feature?  is anyone creating it?
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: karldied on November 18, 2004, 05:53:27 AM
I, too, am desperately seeking a board with the features originally mentioned:

1. user option to receive all posts (subscribe to forum)
2. be able to submit posts by e-mail

Yes, peoples' machines can get infected, and send a spam e-mail to the board. My suggestion is: allow the admin to accept this if the trade-off is worth it.

It can be mitigated by a number of suggestions listed above:
1. Only allow e-mail posts from registered verified users
2. Strip attachments
3. Admin option to only allow e-mail with certain subj line codes
4. Admin option to only allow e-mail with subj line that is a reply

My suspicion is that those of us who need this feature are running smaller community boards where people don't visit the board every week to check for new posts.

And yes, it obviously requires some mail program set-up to redirect the e-mail to a module.

Thank-you for considering the addition of these features!

-Karl
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Neol on November 18, 2004, 07:18:53 AM
I think this is a great idea! This could be the first forum with mailing list features :)
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: jjmckay on November 19, 2004, 07:42:57 AM
The way I see it, spam or spoofed e-mail isn't as much of an issue as it might seem.  The spammer would have to know a valid originating e-mail address to succeed in the spam fowarding into the group.  This is a significant hurdle.

If a spammer mined a mailing list forum and found one, then yes he could use that to enter the list.  I don't think any e-mail mining bot is programmed to do this currently.   If one did, the forum administrator could then set the web interface for reading only by logged-in users so that a bot could not mine addresses from it.

On YahooGroups, my one popular group occationally had bots register the system and send a spam.  YahooGroups is really good because it letting me set new registrations to be 'approved' before they can post at all.  This is a door that a spammer can't unlock in YahooGroups, unless then know an address to spoof already.  Also, YahooGroups has a form for new list applications to fill out.  If the applicaiton is 'get your free drugs here' then *delete*.   I've not seen one yet, though.

Also, a reverse DNS MX (mail exchanger) entry on the originating SMTP connection attempt can be done to see if the originating domain name is valid.   If someone claiming hotmail.com as a originating e-mail address tries to send from their cable modem for example, a reverse MX entry on their DNS entry will show it's not valid.

One other idea is to implement some sort of basic key system into the forum to lock spam bots out.  A phrase with something like  **KEY**, anywhere in the e-mail, would be seen as a valid key and then forwarded to subscribers.   No bot will know the key and it would be best if the key was removed from the web based mirror of the list (in the forums) so that no anonymous person (or spam bot) would know it.   Any e-mail, even from a subscriber, without the key would be bounced back with a request for the key.

My $.02.

Cheers,
JJ
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on November 25, 2004, 11:45:42 AM
Hi all,

I'm psyched to see this new thread on email/mailing list/forum integration. I also am obsessed with this issue (and just posted another message on a very similar thread that went nowhere back in 2003!). To me, YahooGroups functionality is really important, largely because the people I'm working with are in Africa and need to be able to quickly use their webmail to share information and participate in discussions.

This discussion about spam and viruses is really an unnecessary distraction, in my view, and not a serious problem. There are many ways to configure systems so they can safely be used via email or the web. Mainly you'll want to have a mailing list processor in between (like Mailman, which we use) so people can participate both ways.

Some examples of work being done in this area:

1) FUD Forum: http://www.fudforum.org

2) m2f for phpbb: http://m2f.sourceforge.net

FUD Forum is actually already perfectly integrated with my mailman maiing list server, in my view, and m2f is very far along (beta 3 and actively being worked on).

While I'm amazed by what these OS developers been able to achieve, my problem with this work is that FUD and phpBB don't have the wealth of functionality that SMB offers, and are not as well integrated into Mambo, the CMS we have chosen for our system.

Here's a link to a topic at m2f with more on FUD and m2f:
http://m2f.sourceforge.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=4476

Cheers,

Tobias 
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Oldiesmann on November 26, 2004, 02:20:04 PM
That's a pretty advanced script they've got there. It doesn't require much modification to phpBB, but there is a lot of backend stuff. If you can convince them to convert that to SMF, then go for it.
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: gsbe on December 17, 2004, 06:56:20 AM
This is the perfect chance for SMF to become the dominant forum software by adding a mailing list backend. With the latest acceptance from the Mambo dev community (http://forum.mamboserver.com/showthread.php?p=125615) SMF is poised to take a leading role by helping make true bi-directional communities a reality. Give it some thought. We could really change the world. I would donate to specifically fund this type of development.
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: [Unknown] on December 17, 2004, 02:16:02 PM
There are so many problems, though, that people just ignore.

Yes, you want emails to make posts, and be sent out and all that.  Do you want to do all of the technical configuration in your control panel that is even a pain for people with expertise to do? (note that these configuration steps, which can easily be mis-done, cannot be done by any installer.)

How about deal with the many different SMTP servers and how they each handle little things differently? (they're different enough when sending, which uses a standard... this would be doing something that has no standard.)

Yahoo! controls their server.  Its theirs.  They have a specific server, and they can configure it... and, no worries.  What you don't want me to tell you, but what is also the truth, is that a large portion of hosts simply do not support this and cannot either.  It is literally impossible for a large number of SMF's users.

-[Unknown]
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on December 28, 2004, 09:37:00 AM
Hi all -

Happy holidays.

I'm happy to see this thread being picked up on again. I'd be glad if more people could speak up in support of this yahoogroups type functionality, which is essential for us. Let's see now - how can I address [unknown]'s concerns...

1. We're talking about an advanced feature, no doubt. Even if not all hosts can offer it, it's still a feature that is well worth the effort. Why not enable smf admins to replicate and improve on yahoo groups using their own servers? This is very much what Kabissa would like to do for the African nonprofits we serve.

2. Again, why limit admins because it is complicated? Most people are not going to need this functionality, but those that do will be glad to take the time to figure it out and configure their lists/forums to suit their needs. For some of us this functionality is incredibly important.

3. The 'problems' you describe are not insurmountable - as evidenced by fud and phpbb.

4. Fud's maillist integration is production ready and very stable (we've been using it on an active list for half a year now with no problems). Fud does alot of very exciting things very well (i.e. importing whole mbox files, adding users automatically, command line handling of lists for mailman or .qmail files etc, attachments support, non-english character set support, keeps topic threads, filters out list headers/footers/subject info, etc etc). The admin interface is not sophisticated and is relatively easy to figure out. Setting up outgoing mail is easy too, via various options. Incoming mail is handled via the maillist.php script and requires ssh access (or at least is pretty easy to do via ssh). Fudforum's developer is very responsive to setup questions and has added functionality at my request (the command line options in particular for mailman usage).

5.  m2f, the phpbb addon, is in beta and very messy as they lead up to version 1.0 - hopefully soon. It's very feature rich and has a correspondingly overwhelming and confusing admin interface. I'm not sure the developers "get it" as far as the way to most neatly handle the configuration of postings going both ways, but they are making tremendous progress. I've been asking them to add functionality to make it work with my mailman system, and they have been very responsive (i.e. command line options, adding users automatically). It does support handling incoming mail through a pop mailbox, which makes it possible to configure without ssh access. Does not yet support attachments.

Hope this helps. Please let me know if there are any other issues/questions - downloading and installing fud forum would be a good way to learn how mailllist/forum integration can work incredibly well.

Kabissa would also be willing to contribute to the development of this functionality for smf.

Cheers,

Tobias
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on December 28, 2004, 10:16:53 AM
BTW - just posted two threads to Fudforum and m2f forums alerting them about this thread:

http://m2f.sourceforge.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=4767
http://fudforum.org/forum/index.php?t=msg&goto=21911

-T
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on December 28, 2004, 11:46:58 AM
FUD Forum core developer not interested in helping us.

My assumption is m2f will say the same, until version 1.0 comes out and a smf developer decides to take it on and supports it.

FUD Forum is GPL, however - perhaps its maillist.php script could be adapted for use in smf.

Cheers,

Tobias
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: gsbe on January 14, 2005, 03:05:28 AM
There are thousands of PHP apps that can send mail, including SMF. Most provide a few choices for sending email selectable in the admin. This is such a popular feature that giving examples would be a waste of space.

A bigger issue would be keeping spam out of your forums when you open up email posting. Manually cleaning up spam until filtering agents were developed would be a good problem to have compared to not having this function at all. Of course spam and mailing lists (http://www.penguinsecurity.net/pensec/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=128) has been addressed before.

I don't understand why there is such reluctance to bi-directional communication features in forum software. The net grew up on email listservs and is not ready to give them up. Many strong communities dish out their dose of daily listservs in digest format - subscribers like reading and replying to the discussions in their email app. I don't consider them legacy users and wouldn't want to take this comfort away from them. Once users experiment with a forum-based system I think they would quickly warm up to it but this is only my opinion.

One of the greatest benefits of this feature would be a searchable archve of the listserv's posts. There is a wealth of knowledge stored in old listserv, mailman and majordomo digests. Having a tool to thread this data into a forum like SMF would effectively be opening the door into years of untapped knowledge. groups.google.com (http://groups.google.com/) has been more than effective in proving this with "Web's most comprehensive archive of Usenet postings (more than a billion messages)." Cheers again, Google.

This spirit is alive and well in the open-source community and here at SMF. This thread provides links to most of the existing open-source projects. Most are are in advanced beta development stages or first alpha releases. What can we as SMF users do to catalyze this development?
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on January 26, 2005, 10:32:21 PM
Hi gsbe -

I'm very happy to see your supportive message.

I join you in being very surprised there is not more support for bi-directional communication features in forum software, and agree completely regarding supporting "legacy" users. I also love the idea of bridging the communities and seeing what amazing things might happen, and see tremendous benefit myself in participating via e-mail but knowing there is a very useful archive online that I can access any time I like to browse/search past postings via keyword or topic thread.

What can we do to bring this functionality to SMF?

Best wishes,

Tobias
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: agridoc on February 21, 2005, 12:23:38 PM
As I am going to do a major change from a Yahoo! group active since 2001 to an SMF forum, I did a search in this forum before adding my request for the option of message posting through e-mail.

I was happy to see that other people have the same option request.
I do understand that this is not an easy thing. I have read that at PHBB are working towards this target. It is a nice option. As I have experience I can say that it is an excellent feature.

Talking about spamming and security I can say that yes we had some spam attacks but nothing serious. Altough I am new to SMF I see options that can make it vulnerable to spam messages. More freedom to the user' s option makes every message board system more vulnerable. Restrictions make it somewhat safer but the forum can have a bitter taste.

I am feeling that the programmers in SMF already are thinking if not working at it. It will take some time but it will be available.

There are already some limited posting options.

I think such a mod or major upgrade would be welcomed by many.

Regards

agridoc
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: [Unknown] on February 22, 2005, 02:19:44 AM
Well, I've been working on something in 1.1 that *MIGHT* make REPLIES to pms and posts possible, but I highly doubt it will be plausable for posting new topics, or even worse editing posts :P.

Happy peoples :P?

-[Unknown]
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Anguz on February 22, 2005, 02:47:04 AM
I don't think it's too much to ask of the members to visit the forum for those, or is it?

Now we'll need the importers from those services to SMF! lol ;D
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Winters on February 22, 2005, 03:22:43 PM
On my Yahoo groups, I cannot edit posts either (when you are used to forums, this is really bothersome), so I don't think the group based people would miss that feature...
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: scottnath on February 22, 2005, 06:05:47 PM
I have seen this feature in another board system (http://discusware.com. In the discus board (which runs on cgi and I have recently switched to SMF because of that), it sends an email to each user for boards that the user has selected in their profile. The user email has the most recent post at the top, with NO attachments, with the following message at the bottom:

Quote

------------------------------------------------------------
INSTRUCTIONS FOR POSTING A REPLY BY E-MAIL:

1) Use your mail program to compose a reply.  Be sure to quote the entire message when you reply.

2) Delete the placeholder below and enter your message between the lines.  Do not change or delete any of the other quoted text.

3) Send the message.

--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--\/--
[Delete this line and type your message here]
--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--/\--

Use this link to go directly to the discussion:
   http://tpsonline.org/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?3254/17241


------------------------------------------------------------
Please do not change or remove the following line: /3254/17241/20026/admin/coBdj8P6pZSDg
------------------------------------------------------------



Typing something in the 'Delete this line and type your message here' area and sending the email sends it to a pop3 box. The Discus software checks the box (by a normal pop3 signin) regularly (ours was set at 5 minutes) either through a cron job or by an include on a high traffic page, then put only what was between the '--\/--' area and ignores everything else. This system worked FANTASTIC and helped raise board use. I had the script on an include on an unrelated page so it was not a drag on the boards themselves. It's the section which reads:
QuotePlease do not change or remove the following line: /3254/17241/20026/klepto/coBdj8P6pZSDg
which I assume gives the security to the system. "klepto" is my username, which the line is using, so you need BOTH username and email to go with it as well as whatever the code is at the end. The system does not accept new posts, so ONLY replies are allowed, which I thought was fine.

-Scott
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: [Unknown] on February 22, 2005, 06:20:50 PM
That's exactly the ugly way of doing it I'd like to avoid :P.

In my opinion, SMF is better off not having the feature at all than doing it that way.

-[Unknown]
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: scottnath on February 22, 2005, 06:55:09 PM
Ok, but couldn't it be a package mod that is completely voluntary to add? My users really want it.

Or more basic at least...is there an easy way to quote the body of the lates post in notification emails?
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Anguz on February 22, 2005, 07:19:33 PM
Quote from: scottnath on February 22, 2005, 06:55:09 PM
Ok, but couldn't it be a package mod that is completely voluntary to add? My users really want it.

Or more basic at least...is there an easy way to quote the body of the lates post in notification emails?
Quote from: [Unknown] on February 22, 2005, 02:19:44 AM
Well, I've been working on something in 1.1 that *MIGHT* make REPLIES to pms and posts possible, but I highly doubt it will be plausable for posting new topics, or even worse editing posts :P.

Happy peoples :P?

-[Unknown]

:)
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: moleboy on March 17, 2005, 08:09:05 PM
Quote from: Tobias Eigen on January 26, 2005, 10:32:21 PM
I join you in being very surprised there is not more support for bi-directional communication features in forum software, and agree completely regarding supporting "legacy" users. I also love the idea of bridging the communities and seeing what amazing things might happen, and see tremendous benefit myself in participating via e-mail but knowing there is a very useful archive online that I can access any time I like to browse/search past postings via keyword or topic thread.

What can we do to bring this functionality to SMF?


Our group has members in countries where access to the Internet is slow and unreliable (e.g. Africa, Indonesia) and those guys would really appreciate being able to participate in the forum discussions via email, whilst our members in countries with better communications infrastructure would use the web-based interface.

We would require members to be able to post new topics by email & reply to existing messages, with or without attachments. Members using email would not need the ability to edit their previous posts.

I could probably scrape together some funds from our members to help develop this feature; are there any developers that would be interested in making this available, and what would be the target amount for the development fund?

Would any other posters in this thread consider donating some money to this development fund?
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: [Unknown] on March 18, 2005, 12:32:20 AM
Quote from: moleboy on March 17, 2005, 08:09:05 PM
Our group has members in countries where access to the Internet is slow and unreliable (e.g. Africa, Indonesia) and those guys would really appreciate being able to participate in the forum discussions via email, whilst our members in countries with better communications infrastructure would use the web-based interface.

Well, don't forget that there are other solutions to that problem:

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?wap2

(specifically designed for slow and unreliable internet.)

-[Unknown]
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: pulpitfire on March 20, 2005, 12:31:41 AM
i don't know how big your group is, but another thing to consider is a lot of hosts seem to have strict limits on how many e-mails you  can send from their syst
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on March 29, 2005, 10:29:04 PM
Hi all -

Just checking in after a few months away. I remain interested in this functionality. It's important to me, and it's not just about making forums accessible to low-bandwidth users but to bridging between those who prefer using their email client for reading/posting to discussion groups and those who want to use forum systems. 

An update on my explorations:

1) phpbb's mail2forum (http://www.mail2forum.org) is now in beta release. I haven't tested it but it's promising.

2) a lengthy discussion on this subject has taken place on the mailman-developers list - http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-developers/2005-February/017756.html

3) a number of people are interested in Mambo-integrated newsletter/discussion list spaces. Discussions are ongoing.

4) I learned recently about efforts to make dgroups.org open source: http://toronto.penguinday.ca/DGroups

Cheers,

Tobias

ps - any idea why I'm not being notified of updates to this thread? I've got "notify" on but have only now seen these posts now that I've come back here to look at the messages.
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on April 30, 2005, 02:51:03 PM
Hi all,

There is a new patch for mailman (http://www.list.org) that has been released to specify a "third party archiver" - it was developed with http://www.mail-archive.com in mind, but could potentially also work with a smf/maillist gateway. As I understand it, the patch effectively adds a hidden email address to the subscriber list and also changes the default link on the list homepage to the external archive.

Cheers,

Tobias
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Patrick Egan on May 18, 2005, 03:31:40 AM
I implemented a reply by email option to my current forums (UBB) that I'd really like to have for SMF. I only allow reply by email. New posts must be made from the site.  I really hacked it out before. It took forever for me to figure it out and I'd love some help doing it for SMF since it would take me way longer to figure out the SMF scripts than its worth. If anyone cares to do so I WILL PAY FOR THE WORK.

It's really pretty simple and it also solves that SPAM problem

1 - People have the option to subscribe to each post (like SMF 1.1)
2 - Email subject contains the topic number ie...  [General] This is the subject - 12334
3 - When they reply they must keep the subject intact (at least the number at the end)
4 - I use an email to cgi gateway to parse the incomming email to do the following
     
5 - Pgm makes post on behalf of email address to thread identified in subject.

Anyone?
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Quimbly on May 20, 2005, 08:03:55 PM
Can someone summarize this capability with the current version of SMF? 

I'm setting up a community site and was planning to use phpBB and M2F (Mail2Forum).   Do new versions of SMF have this capability?  If so, how extensive is it and what exactly can be done with it?

Thanks!

Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Grudge on May 21, 2005, 07:13:13 PM
Quimbly,

There is currently no functionality at all in the current version (1.0.3). In the upcoming version there is at the very least some possible hooks - but the actual capabilities haven't been developed sufficiently yet to actually do anything. I hope to look into this more in the future, but I'm currently very busy with many other things!

Grudge
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: agridoc on May 22, 2005, 01:59:22 AM
I just post to remind that there is interest in this feature.

Sooner or later functional programs will be made. It' s something not to be left off.

It' s sure a major feature and think it should be high in priority.
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Mastiff on June 05, 2005, 09:37:20 AM
A feature like this would be awesome!  My requirements are somewhat less, perhaps easier?  I current moderate a listserv mailing list that has an associated web site - which uses SMF.  I really want people to switch over to SMF since I like it better than getting 50 E-mails per day that may or may not be of interest, but I'm having a hard time getting people convinced who are set in their old ways.  Here's my idea:


This doesn't seem very hard for someone who knows the basics of sending/receieving E-mail within SMF, etc.

What'dya think?  I know most people might prefer it all to be contained in SMF, but there are free mailing list software programs out there; the SMF part could be generic and the forum wouldn't get bogged down sending hundreds of E-mails.

It'd be uber-cool if you guys got something like this going.  :P
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: alitahir on June 10, 2005, 03:31:24 AM
Hello to everybody

I agree totally  with Tobias that maillist integration is a must have feature for SMF.  FUD people seems to be well aware of it. If they would provide  mambo integration I would  adopt FUD without hesitation. SMF's    additional features are  interesting but maillist integration is  a far  more important feature for me.  In my forum a have non english speakers (Turkish) and usually  they are lost in log-in processes of freeware mail lists. SMF with its turkish translation suits most of them. But a simple notice of a new post is not   enough.  It implies additional steps  for users to wiev the post content and even if this is a few clicks away it means loss of audience for me. Considering that my forum is private and password protected it  necessitates an eleborate log in for most of them.  Cookies and other ways of easy logins wont work. Because some of them dont manage well the finesses of such  procedures. etc.  I would really really love to show the content of  latest post immediately in an e mail.

I would even accept some dirty hacks to solve my problem. I thought about creating a macro recorder script to check and send  SMF  main page link concerning latest 10 posts. There  we have a good presentation of last posts. Macro recorder would do some silly copying and pasting and  in a most primitive way would use outlook to distribute it to my members. As you see I  need desperately  such a fonctionality. Maintaining a separate outlook replica of mail adresses by hand is a small price to pay for me.


Or  I would love to find a way to hack notification post. We have there the link for tle last post.  Why not to have the content instead of a link.  Thinking that this could be done easily I fiddled in SMF, without apparent success.

Any idea about how to do this hack?

Any new information on maillist integration?

Thanks
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: alitahir on June 10, 2005, 03:45:09 AM
Hello again folks

I read your valuable discussion. But  just imagine that mail list  function is  limited. I mean  you have to post in forum but you can have also an e mail- digest of last posts to read on. In this scenario you can not reply to forum via e mail.

This approach suits the reality. Most  active users are present in forum and they would contribute in forum easily anyway. An unidirectional  Mail list can be a good option for passive users  who prefer to  read just  the content in an orderly way without navigating in forum  topics.  Since  the mails are not bi directional, you avoid spamming issues.

Thanks





Quote from: assad on April 26, 2004, 04:53:05 PM
Yes you do get some emaisl that may contain a virus but it can be prevented if email postings have some restrictions. Its doesn't happen very often.

Here are few suggestions:

1. The feature only accepts emails from registered members
2. All members who need this feature activated need to be verified via email before it's enabled.
3. All messages that arrive via email are not allowed to contain any attachments; the attachments are removed.

As far as the Spam goes; If some registered member is posts the Spam, he/she can be banned. (i have to this activity on my yahoo group but its like once in couple of months and maybe one or two cases)

Regards
Assad.

Quote from: [Unknown] on April 26, 2004, 04:36:44 PM
As to emailing posts, I have looked at this many times and the biggest problem is I can see no way to prevent spoofing and/or spam.  Don't you get virus emails every now and again from people you know, when they didn't send it?  I'm not sure how one would prevent the emails like those from becoming posts.  It just seems like a security problem to me.

Currently, there is no way to add a "mass" number of members through an interface, but it could be done with a script if you have a comma separated list of their details ;).

-[Unknown]
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: alitahir on June 10, 2005, 12:07:44 PM
I would suggest a very simple way of distributing posts by a e-mail list.  First you include post text in  post notification.  Direct one of the post notifications to a mail list that you own. (create just a single  dummy user with the adress of your mail list server and make sure that he is notified at every level).  There you can create digests or  partial  e-mails  and  distribute them as you wish in an automated way .

However the external  mail list users should be created or updated separetly. This wont be a problem for small forums who dont receive new members frequently. This is my case. My forum members  wont   change often. So  the syncronisation of the mail adresses  with the  mail server own adresses is not  a problem.

Note that this is  unidirectional. Your forum wont get posts  via  mail.  You can omit  to include post text in notifications and still have digests in this way.

The beauty of it is that  you dont fiddle with the code and users can  choose their separete notification settings  in addition  of receiving from mail list. They can of course opt out from mail list server if they want to .  Your mail list can be any thing and it can live outside of your provider. You will not overload your forum neither  your provider.

If members number are  quite stationary this is  practicable if not this could be difficult. But you can  tell them this  option and provide a suscribe link to mail list server in a sticky post.  This is not harder than  going through profile and  changing notification settings. I would even say that this is simpler.

In my forum most dont manage to open their profile and change their notification  settings, but  they tend to suscribe to mail list instinctively. Because  the sticky is well written and is visible at every level. :)

Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on June 20, 2005, 10:09:14 PM
Glad to see this discussion is still alive and well, and that interest persists. We at Kabissa are also still very keen. We recently migrated to Mambo (see URL below) and are eager to enable our members to log in and interact through the site as well as through mailing lists hosted on our server.

Really the functionality required for bidirectional forum/list integration has been perfected with FUD (http://www.fudforum.org) - we need no more and no less. If anyone has thoughts on how similar functionality might be achieved with SMF, please let us know.

Cheers,

Tobias

Kabissa - Space for Change in Africa
http://www.kabissa.org
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: rhizome on June 24, 2005, 05:09:29 AM
Great Thread!

The ability to post via email is a feature that once you have it, it's almost essential. It's one of those things that if you don't have you don't appear to miss it, but once you've got it, a whole set of possibilities suddenly become apparent, (e.g. compare it to if we didn't have mobile phone texting).

If SMF were to develop this feature, it would make it stand above any other forum software  :D

Why?

It's easy to live in a web discussion board bubble, and forget that most internet users do not use this kind of communications - for example:

Dominant Forms of Internal Communication (%):
Email: 79
Face-to-Face: 7
Other: 4
Telephone: 4
Web: 3
IM: 1
[source: Forrester Research, The Guardian 16/06/05]

While we may think that discussion boards can attract large numbers and some do, many don't partly because most people still use Email and will continue to do so
I find that some of my board users just can't get into the culture/mindset of frequently using discussion boards, as they just think in email terms (esp. those on dial-up, which is still the majority across the whole globe), and the majority of their internet comms is via email, as the data confirms

So, if SMF adopts this feature, it would certainly become a powerful, flexible means of internet communications.

C'mon SMF please develop it.
Many of us appreciate that such a feature isn't easy/simple to implement, but it would make SMF a killer forum s/w  :)

There's no way newbie me would question how SMF has been developed, can't fault it. But SMF lacking this feature will ultimately hold back how good (ie. even better) SMF could truly be. 


Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: rhizome on June 25, 2005, 07:11:41 AM
Just to add, the folks over at Digital Graal seem to have been busy with CM2F -  mail2forum s/w which integrates into phpbb and also a range of CMS http://www.digitalgraal.dynalias.net/index.php

It seems like the developers are planning in the future to make CM2F work with other forum s/w.
Though maybe some more knowledgeable SMF members or developers could contact them about SMF?
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: alitahir on June 26, 2005, 10:12:27 AM
Thanks rhizome!

The issue could not be stated more analytically... and with supporting data.
I am completely agreeing... 

Due to the importance of this fonctionality I indeed think to give a try with FUD.

Hey Tobias!

What about the integration of FUD with Mambo ? (I mean user log in and user synronisation aspects)?
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Dannii on June 26, 2005, 10:23:15 AM
I do not think this should be developed. If you want to reply by email, get a yahoo group, or something similar. Or use newsgroups (similar idea i believe). If you want a forum with high level security plus awesome features, use SMF. The only way to make this secure would be to get a session from the forum before replying by email each and every time (possibly could be done through a thunderbird plugin?), but if that is what it takes, why not just post on the forum.
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: alitahir on June 26, 2005, 10:43:14 AM
Personally I never asked  such a functionality. (ie Replying via e mail.) 

To reply to a post,  people can and should come to the forum!

But on the notifications domain it  is another story.  This is where we need an e-mail integration, possibility of creating dailiy or  weekly digests including text of posts,  different levels of  email notifications etc.

I can also state that when posting  remains limited to logged in forum members, there is no security issue.

Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: rhizome on June 26, 2005, 12:04:41 PM
Quote from: eldacar on June 26, 2005, 10:23:15 AM
I do not think this should be developed. If you want to reply by email, get a yahoo group, or something similar. Or use newsgroups (similar idea i believe). If you want a forum with high level security plus awesome features, use SMF. The only way to make this secure would be to get a session from the forum before replying by email each and every time (possibly could be done through a thunderbird plugin?), but if that is what it takes, why not just post on the forum.

At the end of the day, as we all know, the SMF developers will decide if this functionality is worth pursuing  :)

I understand the reasoning that extending this functionality is beyond what a traditional forum is supposed to do.
Though examples like FUD Forum have integrated this as a core feature; and if you hunt around, this feature is being requested on a number of forum software, and more or less being implemented on phpbb thru add-ons. 

Of course just because others are doing it, doesn't mean SMF should, esp if it compromises its own excellent functionality. But take the small example of spell check, most forum software don't have it and consider it not to be essential and an unecessary overhead (eg. Olympus). But SMF does and its great, and makes it stand out a little more from the crowd

This kind of email functionality has high development overheads, but once it's there, it would offer another, and still very unique, means of integrated communications that many users would take advantage of, more than we may care to think. I can only see this kind of development further enhancing the attractiveness and growing success of SMF.

SMF is on a real upward curve at the moment with many folks on other forums praising/recommending it. It seems to be doing most things right for many users. It would be interesting to see how it develops in the future in terms of adding new features

regards
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Mastiff on June 27, 2005, 09:09:57 AM
FWIW, I thought this capability was important enough to switch to phpBB in order to get it.   It doesn't seem that super complex relative to the other stuff SMF does.  You can get as fancy as you want trying to strip garbage out of incoming mails, but the basic functionality seems pretty, well, basic.

It's easy to blow off this feature request, but here's my situation and maybe others are the same.  I have a listserv mailing list that has been going for years and the users are committed.  I put up an SMF that looked great, but nobody every posted on it because they knew all the eyes were on the mailing list.  The integration feature allows me to migrate people slowly to forum without pissing off the old timers on the list.  People who prefer forum can use it without worrying about nobody seeing their posts. 

In a few years, maybe I can retire the mailing list... then switch back to SMF.  BTW, I really prefer SMF to phpBB having tried both now.  With YaBB I kind of felt like I was using second class stuff relative to the big boys, but that's certainly not the case anymore.  Well, I guess I can't speak for vBulletin, which seems to be the king of the hill right now (I saw no mail/forum integration option for that).
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Yonkey on June 28, 2005, 12:29:52 PM
I understand how this would be a really kewl feature for SMF to have, but the major issue with this kind of feature is security.  If people can forge e-mail headers (i.e. the From address, their IP address), they can post to your forum as whoever they want.  :-\

You could enforce security by forcing the user to put their username and password some place in the e-mail, but then that makes it less user friendly, and requires the same (if not more) amount of work as just logging into the forum itself and posting.  Also, if someone hacks into the forum's e-mail mailbox (where all the e-mail replies are sent to), they would get a clear unencrypted view of your password.  :o

The ability to see in full-text all new threads & new replies by e-mail is really kewl (it's also something you can already do right now if you set up your notification settings correctly).  The issue is with replying to threads via e-mail securely.
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Mastiff on June 28, 2005, 12:39:26 PM
Why would someone go to all the trouble to forge an E-mail just to make a phoney post on my forum?  I mean, I guess they could if they wanted, but it seems like a lot of work for nothing.  It all depends on your situation and how paranoid you want to be.  A few phoney posts isn't really that big of a deal to me, although it would ruin the feature if some jackass decided to start messing with the forum.
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Yonkey on June 28, 2005, 12:48:25 PM
It's actualy not that hard forge e-mail headers at all.  Especially if you know PHP and how the mail() function works.

But yes, I see your point that the majority of users will not try to hack your forum.  Still, you can't ignore security altogether, because the one guy you pissed off/banned from your forum could post as the Admin and/or start spamming all over the place.

If this mail2forum feature knows how to correctly identify the originating IP address of an e-mail, it should be able to authorize the user by IP address or IP range of that forum member.
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Ben_S on June 28, 2005, 01:09:10 PM
Quote from: Yonkey on June 28, 2005, 12:48:25 PM
If this mail2forum feature knows how to correctly identify the originating IP address of an e-mail, it should be able to authorize the user by IP address or IP range of that forum member.

Not everyone has a static IP, in fact the vast majority don't, so there could be hundreds of people in said range,
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Yonkey on June 28, 2005, 01:20:17 PM
Quote from: Ben_S on June 28, 2005, 01:09:10 PM
Not everyone has a static IP, in fact the vast majority don't, so there could be hundreds of people in said range,

I know, that's why it would have to authorize both by IP range and login/password.
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: [Unknown] on June 28, 2005, 01:25:12 PM
Quote from: Yonkey on June 28, 2005, 12:29:52 PM
You could enforce security by forcing the user to put their username and password some place in the e-mail

That's definately not more secure!

QuoteThe ability to see in full-text all new threads & new replies by e-mail is really kewl (it's also something you can already do right now if you set up your notification settings correctly).  The issue is with replying to threads via e-mail securely.

1.1 already has that.  Anyone trying to argue about that isn't going to make any headway :P.

Quote from: Mastiff on June 28, 2005, 12:39:26 PM
Why would someone go to all the trouble to forge an E-mail just to make a phoney post on my forum?  I mean, I guess they could if they wanted, but it seems like a lot of work for nothing.  It all depends on your situation and how paranoid you want to be.  A few phoney posts isn't really that big of a deal to me, although it would ruin the feature if some jackass decided to start messing with the forum.

To post as an administrator.  Why would someone go through the trouble of posting as someone else on the forum if the forum let them?  How about a blog, like LiveJournal?

Just imagine if "I" responded to some topic with text provided by a hacker or similar.  Or even this one.  What if someone who really wanted this feature did something?  What if some hacker got me to tell people to install some modification?

-[Unknown]
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Mastiff on June 28, 2005, 02:00:50 PM
Everyone has their own situation.  In my case, I run a forum that discusses airplanes, not coding or politics or anything where people seem to get pissed off and try to cause trouble.  (And the average age is not 15 either).  I'm the only admin and there are about 200 members.  I can't really imagine anything that someone could post that would really cause much trouble.  I'd probably spot it within a few days and erase it anyway.

Also, the way I'm using M2F on phpBB, the ONLY place that mail comes from that goes to the forum is from the listserv itself.  I'm not using the forum to do mass mailings; it's a single pipe from listserv to the forum and back.  So, if someone was so inclined, they could use that fact to create more security I bet.

How is it different with a listserv anyway?  Millions of people have a fine time participating in listserv mailing lists even though, in theory, irritating hackers and people could be sending bogus E-mails disguised as another user.
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: rhizome on June 28, 2005, 04:28:34 PM
Maybe worth checking out the developer over at CM2F, who worked on the earlier version of M2F, but forked it for something much more advanced.
Since I know nothing about the security implications apart from reading this thread, I wonder if he has overcome the difficulties being raised.

Also, since this feature hasn't been offically declined (yet?!!), does it mean it is something that may be considered in future?
I understand from a couple of posts the possibility exists at a basic level on 1.1 more or less already, but implementing it would pose the security risks being discussed?

Anyhow, I know it's asking a lot, but it would very helpful to know from the developers whether this kind of feature is either:

1. A total no-no, so put a lid on it
2. Needs much further investigation, so don't bother requesting right now, wait and see
3. Something which will (or least very likely to) be developed/implemented, but no time specified
4. Watch this space closely

Just pick a number please developers, and I promise to stop bugging you  ;D

I know it sounds really pathetic when a user says 'I really need this feature', but in this case I do for the type of forum/users I have. Just the lack of this one feature is likely to affect my choice of forum software. I have nightmares just at the thought of switching to the mess of phpbb >:(
I know, some of ya are thinking well bugger of then! But the worst thing is that I know I'll still be spending all my time hanging out here, watching SMF with envy :'(
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Grudge on June 28, 2005, 04:43:49 PM
I'm personally thinking of trying to make this a mod. As I think I've said before I've already got a script which will do this with 1.1 but without the security checks that I'd like to see. If I get the time and motivation I will try and make a simple mod to make it secure too. Don't expect to see it in 1.1 as a default feature.
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: rhizome on June 28, 2005, 04:48:24 PM
Hi Grudge

Make it a mod, make it mod  :D

You'll have another charter member for sure

regards
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: alitahir on June 28, 2005, 05:03:47 PM
Again agreeing with rhizome,,,we need it ::)

However let me make some observations... imagine that this feature is implemented.

1- If some one get mail from the forum he is already a member of the forum.
2- Therefore If he want to spam,he can do that already within the forum.
3- Spamming inside a forum is a lesser nuisance because it is distributed in a passive way. Each user should consult individually the spam. etc. Therefore spamming without  mail integration is a weaker way of communication for the spammer.
4- Hovever the 3th. argument implies that  it is also a weaker way of communication for the non-spammer!!!
5- Hence any wiev  pointing to the heightened danger of  spamming also points to the heightened power of communication. In this sense implicitely any warnings of spam danger, proves  the  utilty of this feature request.
6- Conclusion: security issues are similar in both cases,  but communication advantages are much greater in the second case... ie: a forum with mail integration.

Sorry for my bad english. I only hope that this argumentation is intelligible to everyone here.

Forum is best for content creation, mail digests are best for distributing it. I think we should definetly have both functionality. 

Best regards from Istanbul
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: [Unknown] on June 28, 2005, 05:08:38 PM
I'm afraid that's not the case.  The problem is that I can send an email to a close friend of yours, from this address:

[email protected]

I do not need to hack into your account or guess your password.  I can easily do it given a destination address.  This is a problem in the way the SMTP protocol was designed.

The way it is often detected is by checking if "hotmail.com" was the actual host that SENT the email.  For example, if "hacker.net" sent the email, but it SAYS it's from "hotmail.com", then you can guess it may be a fake.

In practice, it's not nearly so cut and dry.  Many companies have gotten rich (or gone bankrupt) trying to make solutions for this problem, and this is part of what spam filters are for!

This is why when you get viruses from people, it doesn't mean the SENDER of the email is infected; viruses commonly pick two people from the contact list of the infected computer, and send from one, to the other.  This means that your friend John might be infected, and send an email pretending to be from Beth to Jack.  This makes it very hard for John to even know he is infected.

Edit: and, even if your opinion is that this is "hard enough" or that "it doesn't really happen on mailing lists I've used" or "it won't happen for me", those are just arguments for why it should be a mod.  I am not going to put a feature into SMF, or let anyone else put a feature into the default distribution, if *I* can hack it.  If I am able to exploit the feature, then it is insecure.  Even if I'm not, it may be insecure - but if I KNOW how to and am CAPABLE of hacking a default install, however configured, than I would think SMF was insecure.

That's not going to happen.

-[Unknown]
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: rhizome on June 28, 2005, 05:17:33 PM
Ahh, I see this feature request has been declined. I understand the reasons.

But still a bit confused, does that mean there won't be a mod for it?  or is that something different because declined means it's won't be a default feature for smf.

EDIT: I've just read the edit on [Unknown]'s post.
Even more confused now.
So if was a mod, the admin would be acknowledging that it's won't be fully secure, but SMF would still release it as a mod?

thanks
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: [Unknown] on June 28, 2005, 05:21:02 PM
A mod is not a default feature; this is not going to be a default feature, but it looks like Grudge is willing to make a mod for it.

-[Unknown]
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: alitahir on June 28, 2005, 05:35:30 PM
Please tell me how you can know mail adresses of my close friends?

You know just my mail adress if I am a member of this forum. You can send me a mail from the  forum. This is just what I want.

Your counter argument presupposes that you hack my computer individually. This is not exactly a case that we should bother . Or I am misreading your point?
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: [Unknown] on June 28, 2005, 05:39:45 PM
You are.  I need no access to your computer at all.  I can use my computer to send an email that says it is from you.  This email is not from you, but other people may believe it when it says it is.

-[Unknown]
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Grudge on June 28, 2005, 05:44:38 PM
Well - the way I intend to make it as a mod *should* make it pretty secure. Basically, every email sent out from SMF will have a unique ID which is randomly generated and stored in the database. When someone replies to the email it sends the unique ID in the header, as well as obviously their email address. (Up to here this is kinda what 1.1 does by default - except the database stuff).

When the email is received the script will check the unique ID and the email address from the database to make sure it is valid - and if it is it will make the post and THEN delete the entry - this stops more than reply per message.

Note that the mod I intend to write will ONLY work on replies to notifications and the like. I don't intend to allow posting of new topics through the mailing list - as this can never be done in a secure way. The only way I can imagine allowing relatively secure new topic posting would be to either:

1) Allow a user to select a password specifically for email notifications (i.e not their usual account password) which they send in every topic reply. This would also need to do spam protection to stop people working out this password.
2) Allow replies to a weekly digest (or similar) which would start a new topic - but this idea sucks :)

So basically, if I mod it I only intend to half mod it - I won't create a mod which I know is unsecure.
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: alitahir on June 28, 2005, 05:49:35 PM
Ok!  You still dont have adresses of my closest friends. In fact you don't even need to know my adress.  You can just create an arbitrary mail adress and pretend that it exists.

You can do that with or without e mail integration. So what is the difference?

I just try do understand and  thank you anyway for your kind reply.
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: [Unknown] on June 28, 2005, 05:57:31 PM
Okay.  But, let's say I choose the address [email protected] as your "closest friend".  And, then I choose this topic - this one here - and "reply" to it.

The forum receives an email - an email from YOUR email address.  It realizes this is a post for the forum!  For this topic in fact!  Using this, I could post as if I were you.  To me, this is as bad as if I could log in as you and post using your account - because that is effectively what it allows me.

-[Unknown]
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: rhizome on June 28, 2005, 06:03:51 PM
Quote from: Grudge on June 28, 2005, 05:44:38 PM
...
Note that the mod I intend to write will ONLY work on replies to notifications and the like. I don't intend to allow posting of new topics through the mailing list - as this can never be done in a secure way. The only way I can imagine allowing relatively secure new topic posting would be to either:

1) Allow a user to select a password specifically for email notifications (i.e not their usual account password) which they send in every topic reply. This would also need to do spam protection to stop people working out this password.
2) Allow replies to a weekly digest (or similar) which would start a new topic - but this idea sucks :)

So basically, if I mod it I only intend to half mod it - I won't create a mod which I know is unsecure.

It  makes a lot of sense not allowing new topics to be started via email anyway, regardless of the security issue which of course is the most imp issue nevertheless.

Many thanks for thinking about working on this.
I know the poll ain't up to much but it's a mod I bet people will start using because it's there and will give added functionality to their forums. (Remember how mobile texting was just an after thought)
Title: Re: postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Yonkey on June 28, 2005, 07:31:18 PM
Quote from: [Unknown] on June 28, 2005, 01:25:12 PM
Quote from: Yonkey on June 28, 2005, 12:29:52 PM
You could enforce security by forcing the user to put their username and password some place in the e-mail

That's definately not more secure!
It's secure in the sense that only you know your own password, and spammers/virus senders do not.  ;) 

The only problem (and I agree this is a major problem) is that you're passing it as clear unencrypted text, which means it theoretically could be viewed by any administrator between your mail server and the forum's.

It would probably be best to use three layers of security: e-mail address (From address), IP range (check if originating IP address of e-mail is in any of the IP addresses that member uses) and PIN.  The PIN is separate from the user's password, but is a random encrypted number based on UNIXTIME dateRegistered, lastLogin and maybe the number of characters in the username.  This PIN is first dynamically generated and sent to the member when he/she requests mail2forum functionality in his/her profile, and is generated and sent again with every response sent to the forum via mail (in the form of a confirmation e-mail).

The odds of a hacker being able to guess this PIN is probably more or less the same as him guessing your password.

Anyway, this is probably far too complex to be a standard feature but it would make a pretty challenging mod.  :D
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Mastiff on June 28, 2005, 10:04:39 PM
I'd still like to hear someone explain why this is such a huge deal to a forum, yet mailing lists have gotten by just fine for ages.  What I mean is, people can impersonate whoever they want in E-mail and send it to a listserv or majordomo, yet the sky isn't falling as far as I'm aware.
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Yonkey on June 28, 2005, 10:21:09 PM
Once you subscribe to a mailing list, your e-mail address is placed in a white list of allowed addresses.  Usually spammers don't know the e-mail address of the mailing list, and of course they are never allowed in the white list, so that's why mailing lists rarely get spammed.  Some mailing lists even use a moderation/spam filter before relaying the messages to everyone.  If a message is detected as spam, it's not sent out.  Also, things like newsletter mailing lists are usually one-way and no one can use it to spam because replying to it would go to a [email protected] or similar.

With a forum, you can view people's e-mail addresses (if they allow it to be visible).  If you allow guest access, spiders can harvest these e-mail addresses.  All it takes is a spammer or malicious user to connect these dots, and your forum will get vandalized like there's no tomorrow. :P
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Mastiff on June 28, 2005, 11:06:07 PM
I'm not really understanding where the difference is.  With the forum, you can also only allow registered members to post via E-mail, so the security is the same.  It's true that spiders can harvest some E-mail addresses, but a normal spammer won't think to send from these addresses to the forum address.  A malicious user can subscribe in either case and then send phoney E-mails to the list or forum.
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: [Unknown] on June 28, 2005, 11:07:07 PM
I really don't care how insecure mailing lists may or may not be.  SMF will not be so insecure.

-[Unknown]
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Mastiff on June 28, 2005, 11:15:52 PM
Quote from: [Unknown] on June 28, 2005, 11:07:07 PM
I really don't care how insecure mailing lists may or may not be.  SMF will not be so insecure.

-[Unknown]

Fair enough.  I'll just put my 0.02 in that in the form of a mod, maybe we don't need to be as worried - since it's optional.  Without being able to post new messages via E-mail, much of the functionality is lost, IMO.  In my particular instance, all the utility is lost, since most of my members are on the mailing list at present.  Also, a forum is a great way to archive a mailing list.
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Dannii on June 29, 2005, 01:08:53 AM
This could be done as a mod, however to have any security at all anything posted should be posted as a guest. Prehaps even create a new type of guest -  an email response guest. Guest responses already aren't presumed to be secure, you can put any name you like. The same for email responses.

But to post as a user, you should have to get session information.
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Mastiff on June 29, 2005, 09:21:14 AM
Good idea.  M2F for phpBB allows guest E-mail posting if you enable it, but it does attempt to match E-mail addresses to users in the forum user list and use those if it can; that's the default mode.  An option would be to disable that feature and for posts originating from E-mail, always post as a guest with a flag of some kind to indicate E-mail. 
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on June 29, 2005, 09:37:47 AM
Hello,

Very glad this discussion is going on - unfortunately I'm in the middle of a move from Washington DC to Seattle, so can't contribute very actively. Has anyone here actually tried Fud forum and it's mailing list integration? It works flawlessly on my system and is completely secure. I'd be happy to set up a test forum and let people test it out.

I've covered this alot in this thread, but in summary, the things Fud and it's maillist.php script does well on my mailman system:
- MBOX importing (including creating users!)
- Replacing mailman's archiver to import messages to Fud (moderation possible)
- Send messages out to list address for distribution by mailman 

It's very simple, stays out of the list management functionality completely, and simply works! All this discussion about security is really pointless - with Fud-like functionality we can all set up our forums as secure as we want using mailman or some other list manager, on a list-by-list basis.

I also would be very curious to see if Mailman's maillist.php script can be adapted for use in SMF - it seems to work very well and alot of work has gone into it.

Cheers,

Tobias
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: rhizome on June 29, 2005, 10:59:09 AM
I doubt saying that it's been done on FUD is going to convince [Unknown] that it doesn't pose a security issue

But setting up a test forum would be good

I'm hoping that the MOD Grudge is thinking of developing will provide at least some of the functionality
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: alitahir on June 29, 2005, 11:15:40 AM
Unknown, thanks  for elaborating on the unsecurity of incoming mails. 

However  outgoing mails is not concerned with this weakness.  So we can just forget about posting by mail but we can still desire  to  have a mail list feature who concerns only outgoing mails. In this way we can distribute content, digests or weekly reports. Users  who want to post would need  to follow a link and log in to the forum.

SMF would be reserved to post creation, archiving  and  all the usual interactive stuff.

Mail list (only outgoing)  would provide to a larger public, a convenient way of being on touch. Most active members anyway would switch to the forum for reading also. But mail broadcasting would enlarge the base and provide a bridge to a greater number of people.

So what about this stripped off version of integration idea?
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: alitahir on June 29, 2005, 11:36:30 AM
In this present SMf forum my first weeks were passive. I used mainly  search function.  There are plenty topics and threads  and following each one of them is  out of question. If we could have a weekly digest of all postings, it would be really interesting  as an overall snapshot of what is going on. In this sense   (only outgoing) mail integration would help a lot.

Consider also that from our present thread I got  up to 15 notifications  per day. An outgoing  mail in digest form would also centralize all of them.

Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on June 29, 2005, 11:49:52 AM
Hi Rhizome -

At this stage I can accept that this is going to be a mod and not added to the core functionality for SMF but would hope that the mod is relatively simple and doesn't attempt to do too much. The phpbb efforts are really very overwhelmingly complicated and it seems they will never get the quirks ironed out. I can appreciate the security concerns, but have to admit I'm not as paranoid as [Unknown], and would hope that this mod would support the needs of the more advanced admins among us with ssh access and very solid list managers like mailman.

Sorry for continuing to harp on about Fud, but that seems the easiest way for me to explain what I feel is needed to you all. I'm happy to answer further questions, set up a test installation to demonstrate its capabilities to you all, and help with designing and beta testing this mod with Fud as a model.

On the other side, it's also been interesting trying to explain to our funders (we've written proposals to try to get this type of development funded) as well as my members in Africa and colleagues in my office that SMF is important, and can help us to empower "electronic networks" in Africa. These eNetworks are currently using email lists and Yahoo groups, and the main benefit of them is the day-to-day, immediate connection via e-mail. The problem is that they require pretty serious email management skills (filters, folders etc) which our members only build up gradually, and decent email clients, which many members don't have (they use webmail systems mostly). Even with archives stored in folders, it can be hard to find and follow discussions or look back to see what a particular person has posted, which are things SMF does very well. Yahoogroups is limited (i.e. file attachments are not saved and the ways to browse/search are clunky) and Mailman's mhonarc or pipermail alternatives are really sucky.

Conversely, it's been very hard for us to get people to understand to log into a website to post messages. Even in our functioning List/fud system, all interactions take place by email, and people only log into fud periodically to look up past discussions or to pick up files that we post there that we don't distribute. This type of interaction (like this thread) is really handy, but it would be more accessible to folks who don't spend their days developing forums if they could be contributed to by e-mail.

Cheers,

Tobias
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: rhizome on June 29, 2005, 12:10:39 PM
Hi Tobias

I totally understand your position and share it.

My argument has been all along that email functionality for SMF only can enhance communications, because the majority of internet users still use email. And if we step outside fo the 'developed world', it's even more. And existing mailing lists fall short in terms of easy to use archiving and following discussions, thus the power of web discussions forums like SMF.

I reckon long term, many of the forum software will integrate in various ways with email as things seem to be converging
What FUD offers seems very powerful, though it's a one person operation since it's 3 years of development, doesn't seem to have grown much. But please put up a test site so other smf users and developers can see it in action.

For now, maybe with the MOD being developed, it will open other possibilities for SMF in the future

regards
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: ynneb on June 30, 2005, 09:37:05 AM
Can I add my vote for the email feature.
Surely If the forum owner is prepared to take the risk then they can wear the benefit or loss of the decision.

I want to take the risk. :)
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: digitalgraal on July 01, 2005, 09:11:13 AM
Just popping,

you may want to now that i have started to port CM2F for SMF.

I need to test the metalayer that i have created for CM2F in order to allow it to link into other forums with minimum effort.

I was not thinking into doing this so soon, but i have taken a look at SMF feature and i like it, so i decided to play around like i am doing at this moment with Vbulletin, XOOPS newBB and XarBB.

At this moment my site is dead due to hackers and  I have not been able to recover the service, so no more information is not available, but i will try to come out in the next days with more information about the tests.

Regards,
D.

http://www.digitalgraal.dyndns.org
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Yonkey on July 01, 2005, 09:18:17 AM
Quote from: digitalgraal on July 01, 2005, 09:11:13 AM
At this moment my site is dead due to hackers and  I have not been able to recover the service
This is exactly why security should always be a priority, even with a feature like this.
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Grudge on July 01, 2005, 05:48:42 PM
Please look at this topic if you want to help me get something working:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=40595.0
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: rhizome on July 01, 2005, 05:57:04 PM
Quote from: Yonkey on July 01, 2005, 09:18:17 AM
Quote from: digitalgraal on July 01, 2005, 09:11:13 AM
At this moment my site is dead due to hackers and  I have not been able to recover the service
This is exactly why security should always be a priority, even with a feature like this.

Just because the site was hacked doesn't necessarily mean it was due to CM2F. Possibly, I suspect it was do with the phpbb/portal which attracts crackers like nobody's business these days, but it could be a number of other things. That's not say security isn't a priority for all of us.

I've done some digging around , and CM2F seems to be the the most advanced email<->forum app out there  :)

I'm sure digitalgraal can fill us in with further info about security. (He was originally involved in M2F)
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on July 01, 2005, 07:31:57 PM
Hi Rhizome & all,

I have created a demo fud/mailman installation at http://kb2.org/fud and http://lists.kb2.org/mailman/listinfo/fud - if you want to see the admin side, please PM me for the password.

Some quick pointers about how this works, and how to use the demo installation:

1) Registration to Fud is open (for this particular installation). Likewise for the Mailman list. If you want to participate in one or the other (or both) you have to sign up in the appropriate place, or be added by the forum moderator/list owner. [subscribe to the mailman list by writing to [email protected] with the command "subscribe" in the subject of your message or by going to http://lists.kb2.org/mailman/listinfo/fud]

2) Posts to the "TestForum" on Fud are sent to the [email protected] mailman distribution list from the poster's email address. Depending on the way the list is set up in mailman and if the poster's email address is subscribed to the list, it might be held for approval or distributed right away. Currently this is set to immediately distribute messages posted by list members.

3) Posts emailed to [email protected] (using an email client) are handled the same way by mailman. Once approved, they are distributed to subscribers and posted to the Fud forum (moderation can also be turned on for emailed posts in Fud). If the e-mail address of the poster is not already registered in Fud, the user will be added (this is an option I have turned on. Later they can have a new password emailed to them if they want to access Fud).

No guarantees for how long this will be up - let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Tobias
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: rhizome on July 05, 2005, 06:19:36 AM
For anyone interested, CM2F<>SMF is being developed at:

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=40848.0
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on July 12, 2005, 12:18:51 PM
In terms of making a case for this functionality, here's a link to an interesting article discussing the merits of various forums, including phpbb, for the purposes of e-democracy:

http://www.dowire.org/notes/index.php?p=21

I think they should also consider looking at SMF and will point them to this site... hopefully with the efforts digitalgraal and grudge are making, we will all soon be able to use SMF integrated with our mailing lists.

Cheers,

Tobias
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: skelem on October 15, 2005, 07:36:45 AM
how do we get this out of declined - seems to me to be the single most important feature - currently this thread has the highest views there MUST be interest in this
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on October 15, 2005, 11:17:18 AM
Hi Skelem -

Glad you also think this is important functionality. For me it is essential.

If you read through this thread you'll see that [unknown] and others have given very good reasons for making this an add-on, not a core feature. There are two add-ons - of these cm2f is most extensive and is making some good progress. See http://www.digitalgraal.dyndns.org for more info and if you want to get involved.

Cheers,

Tobias
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: skelem on October 15, 2005, 06:13:17 PM
Quote from: Tobias Eigen on October 15, 2005, 11:17:18 AM
Hi Skelem -

Glad you also think this is important functionality. For me it is essential.

If you read through this thread you'll see that [unknown] and others have given very good reasons for making this an add-on, not a core feature. There are two add-ons - of these cm2f is most extensive and is making some good progress. See http://www.digitalgraal.dyndns.org for more info and if you want to get involved.

Cheers,

Tobias


THat looks great - how do I get a ciopy to test - try out?
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: digitalgraal on October 18, 2005, 04:23:39 AM
Hello,

to test the current version of CM2F SMF you can go to the smf.digitalgraal.dyndns.org and send a message to [email protected].
The message should go directly to the forum. There is still a glitch as the username is being badly interpreted by the script, but i am going over this point.
To have access to the next version of the code, just send me an email to digitalgraal(at)digitalgraal.dyndns.org and I will include you in the beta test phase.

REgards,
D.
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: skelem on October 20, 2005, 10:59:12 AM
Thanks! on the way

Ske
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: skelem on October 28, 2005, 09:45:26 AM
Any chance I could get a copy? Should i resend email?
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: skelem on December 31, 2005, 03:46:45 PM
Doesn't seem to be any action on this. Do any other BBS's support this feature? I would re-do all to get it to work
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Eternity on February 06, 2006, 04:36:02 PM
Quote from: Tobias Eigen on October 15, 2005, 11:17:18 AM
Hi Skelem -

Glad you also think this is important functionality. For me it is essential.

If you read through this thread you'll see that [unknown] and others have given very good reasons for making this an add-on, not a core feature. There are two add-ons - of these cm2f is most extensive and is making some good progress. See http://www.digitalgraal.dyndns.org for more info and if you want to get involved.

Cheers,

Tobias

Tobias

Please are you still working on this?  Will it just be forum posts sent out in a daily digest type thing. Or will you be able to add a newsletter and if so will it allow html editing of more than one column.  I am trying to find another script in the meantime but I hate to keep changing it.
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on February 06, 2006, 04:45:22 PM
Hi Eternity -

This has nothing to do with what you're trying to do. It is a gateway tool between email mailing lists and SMF.

I am indeed still helping digitalgraal to test it, and eager for it to be functioning as soon as possible.

Cheers,

Tobias
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Anguz on February 06, 2006, 05:07:03 PM
Hi, Tobias. Do you have an estimate of how close to decently working this is already? I'm also interested in the functionality :).
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on February 06, 2006, 05:16:37 PM
Hi Anguz -

Sorry, but this is hard for me to say. Stay tuned, or contact digitalgraal to see if you can help with the beta testing. He can use all the help he can get.

Cheers,

Tobias
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Eternity on February 06, 2006, 05:29:01 PM
Quote from: Tobias Eigen on February 06, 2006, 04:45:22 PM
Hi Eternity -

This has nothing to do with what you're trying to do. It is a gateway tool between email mailing lists and SMF.

I am indeed still helping digitalgraal to test it, and eager for it to be functioning as soon as possible.

Cheers,

Tobias

Thanks Tobias sorry about that thanks for your patience, yes I see what you mean upon reflection.  I do like the idea of weekly digests though with the most popular threads on them.  I can identify with some of what you are saying, regarding the email posting and can see the advantages it could hold.  Could be very useful,  I find it easy to read emails from my phone but I don't think I would be able to browse a forum or post on it from my phone that would be a bit too much I think.  Reading digests in email format and texting though an email post would be possible though.  Good for people living in rural areas possibly if they have access to a WAP phone.  But good luck with it anyhow let me know how it goes cause I may still like to utilise it.   ;D ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: karldied on February 06, 2006, 09:35:10 PM
Tobias, and Digitalgrall,

I'm confused. Are you working on the original CM2F by digitalgraal, or the completed mod named emailpost.php that Grudge published which is currently in v1.02 for RC1 and RC2, or have these been merged?

-Karl

Quote from: Tobias Eigen on February 06, 2006, 04:45:22 PM
Hi Eternity -

This has nothing to do with what you're trying to do. It is a gateway tool between email mailing lists and SMF.

I am indeed still helping digitalgraal to test it, and eager for it to be functioning as soon as possible.

Cheers,

Tobias
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Eternity on February 07, 2006, 04:32:31 PM
Quote from: karldied on February 06, 2006, 09:35:10 PM
Tobias, and Digitalgrall,

I'm confused. Are you working on the original CM2F by digitalgraal, or the completed mod named emailpost.php that Grudge published which is currently in v1.02 for RC1 and RC2, or have these been merged?

-Karl


Thanks Karl let me check out that mod and see if it does what I am looking for. 
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: karldied on February 07, 2006, 06:02:49 PM
Although this functionality was declined as a feature, Grudge created it as a mod. I compiled a summary including four other related threads here:

www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=57890.msg479009#msg479009

I suggest making posts in the new topic. -Karl
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: samliew on November 20, 2006, 11:38:50 PM
My suggestions to prevent/minimize the security issue:


QuoteWarning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic.
Sorry, I didn't want to start another topic.
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Tobias Eigen on November 20, 2006, 11:43:45 PM
Hey -

Yahoogroup like functionality remains a topic of interest for me, though I think it seems unlikely that this will come to pass in the SMF community at this stage. Pity.

For what it's worth, I am not as anxious about security as other SFMers - all of this seems like overkill for the very open online community I am interested in supporting with yahoogroup like functionality.

I actually am currently trying out yahoogroups again, and am intrigued by how very basic the functionlaity is that it offers compared to SMF. Yet they offer tried and true plain vanilla listserv functionality and are massively successful. Go figure.

Cheers,

Tobias
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: MissyKatt on January 16, 2007, 06:19:56 PM
Hi Tobias, and everyone,

I'm so glad to see this topic being discussed b/c I'd love to see email-SMF bridged as well.

I currently have a large list on yahoo w/ 50% on email.

I'm not looking for bi-directionality b/c people don't trim their posts prior to replying, so I installed php + m2f, then tinkered around w/ it to disallow incoming email.  I'd rather use SMF, hence my being here.  It's far superior but the mod Grudge and Unknown worked on isn't going to work for me as I want all msgs posted to the forum to be delivered to email subscribers.

BTW, for anyone interested, m2f is fantastic.  A subscriber can choose which forum/fora msgs come from thereby customizing, and cutting down on what they consider "noise".  Also php has a super digest mod that I installed. 

However, I ran into a huge problem w/ my server b/c # of outgoing emails is capped at 500/hr.  I'd hit that # very quickly, so I'm now backtracking and looking for a way to still be able to provide forum + digest + individual email option.

I haven't found a digest mod for SMF.  Did I miss it?  Anyway, I love SMF and before moving my list over to php would rather exhaust all possibilities w/ SMF.

If anyone has any ideas as to how to deal w/ the msg delivery problem, I'd love to hear your thoughts.  Thank you so much for reading:)
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: agridoc on January 17, 2007, 07:00:18 AM
SMF has now the possibilities of sending the message content with notifications, if so selected in Profile.

See also Post from Email http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=168

I haven't checked this mod.

Attachments are not sent with notifications.

I had a Yahoo! group for 5 years. They have made improvements but SMF in whole is far superior and of course hasn't advertisements.  ;)
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: crafty1 on September 28, 2007, 10:25:48 AM
would the above mod work with the current version of 1.1.4 ?
as this would be very useful.
thanks...Lou
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Voyeurette on October 24, 2007, 04:32:13 PM
 I was told the "post from Email" that Grudge had for earlier versions did not work with 1.1.4 (which is what I have also)

The yahoo group I'm trying to move over to SMF is resisting the change pretty drastically and since it is a private group, if I cannot get them to change, the board will "die".    (   Emotional accusations have been flying about wanting the yahoo group to "die"...  sheesh...  some people just do NOT want to even try to see how much better the forum would work for them  )

If anyone finds a solution, please let us who need one know !!

Thanks
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: agridoc on October 24, 2007, 05:47:29 PM
Voyeurette, I had a switch from a Yahoo! group two and a half years ago.

My old Yahoo! group had about 198 members and 1560 messages in 5 years. Two and a half  after switching my SMF forum has 1.440 members,  34.517 messages and more than 2000 messages each month (I would be much more satisfied with less and better quality  ;D ). Also my site is in the Top 100 Aviation sites now, something I had never imagined off.

What is more important I believe that SMF is most valuable to achieve my site's targets.

My site is not just SMF but the heart and most active part is the forum. The results were achieved with hard work and SMF proved to be one of the most valuable tools.

I had exhausted the possibilities of my Yahoo! group before switching. It's a good service, free, doesn't need much to operate but has quite a few limitations. I really liked the email and calendar possibilities.

SMF alone is not enough. It needs a good preparation and presentation. I believe your members must see a well organized for your needs SMF forum to be convinced.

This is my personal experience, you must judge the possibilities.

In the new SMF versions a member has the choice to receive notifications, including the message's contents, by email, unformatted and without attachments. However he/she will not have the possibility to post via email.
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Consle 4 talk on May 10, 2008, 07:39:49 AM
is most be cool :)
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: newartco on June 16, 2008, 02:58:33 PM
Hi,
I have the same problem having 700 customers who'd like to contribute to my forum, but haven't got the time to login and do all this writing. Email post in SMF would be great (cause they can just ad me to thier distribution list). I looked at solutions at Wordpress and Drupal wich both have excellent mods. However, Drupal has problems with attachments and Wordpress is struggling with the body text of a message leaving only subject line and attachments.

Gues this is a waiting game untilo someone comes up with a script that actually works......

Good luck
KLaus (www.newartco.net)
Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: drroot on October 10, 2009, 12:15:35 AM
Similar case here.

Well, it can be simpler.

People here are costumed to use mailing list, so to transfer them to a forum, we need a transition period.

If we could forward every post, from a normal subscriber of a mailing list, to a board of SMF would be great, since then people won't need to receive unwanted emails everyday.

And we don't need to tell users the email address we use for the subscription of the mailing list, so there's no spam-issue here.

Title: Re: [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!)
Post by: Arantor on October 10, 2009, 06:45:39 AM
Note that this is in the 'declined' feature list. It won't be added to SMF at this time, nor likely in the future.