[Mailman-Developers] Users, persistent storage, caches, etc.

[David Lee]

On Thu, 6 Jul 2006, emf wrote:

> Barry et. al.:
>
> Barry, I've read about your SQLAlchemy work and look forward to seeing
> that checkin ;)
>
> Here's my situation:
>
> 1.) I have to have a concept of user to really improve the user
> interface. Many things become easier, but there are things I can do with
> a user-concept I can't do without it:
>
> a.) Different emails for different lists, same user.
> b.) Providing moderator/admin privileges to a user rather than a shared
> secret.
>
> 2.) I need to store preference information somewheres. This includes:
> site-wide UI configuration; list-wide UI configuration; user UI
> preferences/state.
>
> 3.) I need to store caches somewhere; for some things it would be best
> to keep them around, and maybe even in a more queryable format than files.
>
> All of this leads me to- where should I stick things?


+1 please!

I locally need (and am actively working on) a sender-based authorisation
scheme.  This is like "Approve:", but whose password is associated with
the (claimed) sender, rather than the list.  This, too needs a persistent
storage scheme for site-wide users and their passwords.

I've had to devise my own (very simple!) scheme for creating and managing
a user database of email-address and password.  (In our context, at
present, this could just about be managed by Mailman admin staff, using a
command-line utility, but expansion to user-based self-maintenance, and
via the WWW interface would be desirable.)

So it sounds as if at least two of us (Ethan and me) are actively looking
at implementing similar functionality (albeit initially for different
'local' reasons).

So a clear steer from the Mailman seers and soothsayers would be most
welcome so that Ethan's work and my work can aim in the same direction as
anticipated Mailman 'futures'.

Indeed, if the Mailman folk happen already to have a sketch of a
user-database scheme, that could be most useful to us...  (Or Ethan: I'd
be interested in tracking any work you do in this area!)



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