Alternatives for Yahoo Groups like Web Features
I am looking for some suggestions on how to provide some Yahoo Group like web features for some existing mailing lists. I run a variety of mailings lists related to building energy performance on the onebuilding.org web site using mailman and hosted by dreamhost. For some of the mailing lists, users would like to have access to some additional web capabilities similar to what Yahoo Groups provides. I am looking for suggestions for web based systems to provide some of these additional capabilities that are open-source. The kinds of additional features are:
a) a way for designated members to upload files that others can download
b) a way for designated members to add events to a shared calendar that anyone can see
c) a way to conduct simple polls to gauge interest in topics
d) a way for members to add links to a page to build up a library of good links
e) a way to create a FAQ page
f) perhaps a wiki-like way to create and edit pages in a freeform basis
What I am looking for are suggestions on what has worked well together with an existing mailing list. What have others used and found easy to administer and easy for list members to use.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Jason
-- Jason Glazer, P.E., GARD Analytics, 90.1 ECB chair Admin for onebuilding.org building performance mailing lists
On Aug 7, 2012, at 11:16 AM, Jason Glazer jglazer@gard.com wrote:
a) a way for designated members to upload files that others can download
A wiki could solve this problem.
b) a way for designated members to add events to a shared calendar that anyone can see
Hmm. No good shared group solutions in this space that I know of. Google lets you have a group calendar that can be shared read-only, but you want to carefully control who is allowed to make changes to it.
c) a way to conduct simple polls to gauge interest in topics
SurveyMonkey and PollDaddy are two solutions in this space. I know some of the SurveyMonkey folks in SF -- they're good people.
d) a way for members to add links to a page to build up a library of good links
e) a way to create a FAQ page
f) perhaps a wiki-like way to create and edit pages in a freeform basis
I think a wiki would be at least a good way to solve all these problems, if not the best way.
What I am looking for are suggestions on what has worked well together with an existing mailing list. What have others used and found easy to administer and easy for list members to use.
The problem is that you're not going to find a unified solution to all these problems. You can run separate services for different parts of the problem space, as we do for list.org -- the mailing lists are hosted at python.org (they came first), the main website is hosted on private servers that few people have access to and mirrored by the fine folks at gnu.org (among others), the wiki is hosted by Atlassian on behalf of list.org, and there are various bug tracking systems that have been tried out over the years.
But those are still multiple separate services, located at various different locations, and no one person that I know of (other than maybe Barry) has had a hand in setting each of them up or is continuing to be involved in their ongoing maintenance.
Any suggestions?
The biggest suggestion I'd make is to select tools based primarily on how useful they will be today and how easy they will be to administer on an ongoing basis once they are initially configured.
Don't waste time "overbuying" for future capacity and features that you may not ever need, especially since that may make it less likely that the system in question actually gets launched in the first place -- witness the various bug tracking systems that we've tried to use over the years.
-- Brad Knowles brad@shub-internet.org LinkedIn Profile: http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu
Brad Knowles writes:
The problem is that you're not going to find a unified solution to all these problems.
Not soon, but Mailman 3 will make it easier to integrate such with Mailman (within a few months, I guess). The actual work may take years unless substantial resources are contributed, though. N.B. Programs like GSoC would be possible sources of funding, especially if the request comes from a respected developer (not necessarily a Mailman developer!) capable of mentoring a student developer for the project. But it could also be done with Mailman mentoring talent -- the students' ideas and goals are an important influence on the projects we choose.
On Tue, Aug 07, 2012 at 11:16:22AM -0500, Jason Glazer wrote:
I am looking for some suggestions on how to provide some Yahoo Group like web features for some existing mailing lists. I run a variety of mailings lists related to building energy performance on the onebuilding.org web site using mailman and hosted by dreamhost.
I have no idea if you'll be able to do what you want with Dreamhost; I don't know, and CBA'd looking, at what their provisions are.
I'll assume that you can do what you like, though.
a) a way for designated members to upload files that others can download
b) a way for designated members to add events to a shared calendar that anyone can see
c) a way to conduct simple polls to gauge interest in topics
d) a way for members to add links to a page to build up a library of good links
e) a way to create a FAQ page
f) perhaps a wiki-like way to create and edit pages in a freeform basis
For all of those, in one product, a couple of CMSes spring to mind, particularly those with granular permission sets. I would look at Drupal and Pyro. Drupal, additionally, has some modules to interact with Mailman -- although you could use SQL, sync_members, and cron.
One thing to bear in mind with that sort of software is patching, and keeping things up to date, along with testing your modules will work across version migrations.
That might be overkill, in which case, if you can ignore/find an additional service for c), and if your users are comfortable with Wikis, a wiki may be a reasonable alternative. Some even have permissions models -- Twiki springs to mind.
-- "Tony Blair has made 'morale boosting' visits to the wives of servicemen serving in the Gulf." -- BBC News
Adam McGreggor writes:
That might be overkill, in which case, if you can ignore/find an additional service for c), and if your users are comfortable with Wikis, a wiki may be a reasonable alternative. Some even have permissions models -- Twiki springs to mind.
As does ZWiki, although "pounces" (with fangs and talons bared ;-) is a more appropriate way to express the fear and loathing that come to mind when the Zope permissions model is mentioned in my presence....
participants (4)
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Adam McGreggor -
Brad Knowles -
Jason Glazer -
Stephen J. Turnbull