[consulting] the Ultimate forum based Malinglist Manager

[Gerhard Killesreiter]

[Note: I am moving this discussion to the developmen list where it belongs.]

Allie Micka wrote:

> So that's easy! you save yourself a ton of headaches when you stop  
> trying to shoehorn Drupal into being a mailing list manager, using a  
> real MLM to do your heavy lifting.


Why would you want to use a MLM at all? All it does (cum grano salis) is 
to tell you which addresses belong to which list.

> Subscribers can use the list the  way they always have and you don't 
> have to do much coding at all.


I think that the traditional way of using listservs (trough email 
commands) will die out sooner or later. Since we already use a web based 
service (Drupal) why bother with another interface? Recreating the few 
options that listservs offer isn't that hard if you use an establshed CMF.

>
> But the problem isn't solved yet:  It would be nice to manage  
> subscription status from within Drupal.


Not only nice, it is a requirement.


>   Necessary too, since Drupal  will post to the list on behalf of a 
> user, and it would be nice if  that user is subscribed.  ezmlm-idx 
> uses a MySQL/PostgreSQL database  for managing subscriptions, 
> moderator addresses, allowed and denied  users.  It is absolutely 
> trivial to access these tables for the  purposes of subscriber 
> management.
>

Yes, that sort of thing is nice, I did the same for Sympa. Unfortunately 
neither Sympa nor ezmlm-idx are the morst favoured MLMs. People usually 
want mailman which interface to its user data is hideous. Of coure, 
Mailman 3 will do all we ever will need. The question is when. :p

> And a great nice-to-have if you can create lists on-the-fly.  Since I  
> know ezmlm, I know how to do this by setting up a script that  
> responds to a catchall email address.  If the list referenced is  
> valid but does not exist, it is created.


That is the sort of thing we will be doing too. Not sure we will use a 
catch-all address.

>
> So, these are the functions we would build as MLM-specific in a  
> pluggable way:
>   - subscribe/unsubscribe functions
>   - post to the archive from the list server
>   - auto-create lists
>
> And these would be on the Drupal side:
>   - database/forum structure
>   - display and access control
>   - subscribe/unsubscribe interfaces
>

This short list already has too much duplication for my taste.

I'd like to discuss possible shortfalls on my idea to replace the MLM 
with a script that directly accesses Drupal's database to get 
subscribers and mail content to feed it to the MTA (and also does the 
reverse for incomign mail).

Cheers,
    Gerhard