Hi Michael,
Michael Brehler wrote
we want to use Nabble as an addition to our current mailing list.
It depends on what you mean by "addition". Nabble is perfect as a read-only archive in order to allow new subscribers to see old messages and so not ask FAQs again and again.
Is there a way to better cope with the quoted text (when someone answers an email the original text is quoted below the response)
That only happens if users top-post their replies, of course - and that is where we enter the realm of the different conventions that apply in mail lists and forums which some would say are mutually incompatible.
I haven't found any settings for this. '[show rest of quote]' is displayed for some posts but this only seems to work in specific cases based on the used quoting style.
I have not examined the NAML code for this, but I suspect that the '[show rest of quote]' only appears should the quoted text be longer than 500 characters (or some such figure).
One of the great benefits of Nabble is the the code that generates the pages of the forum/mail list archive is almost all editable by the forum administrator. I suspect it would be a simple matter to get set the trigger for showing the quote message to 0 characters, so it would always display and only new text be shown by default.
Is there a way to automatically add an email to an according subforum (e.g. by a tag in the subject line)?
I assume this question should read:
Is there a way to move a post to a sub-forum automatically, (e.g. on detection of a tag in the subject line)?
Not without significant NAML coding. You would either need to do it yourself or pay for Premium Support.
Bear in mind that a mail list is, in principle, a single-level medium you don't have sub-mail-lists. You just change the subject line to create a new topic. A Nabble archive works in much the same way.
I recall reading in the documentation for Nabble that when a post to the forum is submitted via email then a change in the subject line will generate a new topic. However, my experience suggests that the code for this is not bullet proof. Some posts with changed subject lines do appear remain within the current topic. I have never needed to investigate what the circumstances are that trigger this.
I suspect that this issue is related to whether the subject change is done when posting via the forum/archive versus when changed via an email post. As I result I always warn that should you do allow posting to the forum/archive then that's where the differing forum and mail list cultures begin to clash.
In a forum one rarely includes a quote as posts are often short and you can see the text of the original message immediately above the reply. In a busy mail list that can leave mail readers at a loss to know what the message refers to. For the forum reader you have the reverse problem, with the interminable quotes problem of which you are already aware.
Then are people like me, who click the forum's quote button and then break up their posts by adding further opening and closing "quote" tags in order to separate out different questions and answers. and that can annoy both forum users and those used to top-posted mail replies.
Volunteer Helper - but recommending that users move off the platform!
Once the admin for GregHelp now deleted.
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