Separate mailing list as a subforum - possible? good/bad idea?

[greenTara]

I manage several related Mailman mailing lists. We have successfully integrated one of them with a Nabble forum, keeping our Mailman list intact. Now I would like to bring our other mailing lists up as well.

I have experimented a little with subforums (e.g. managed to create one), but I'm not sure if it is possible or even a good idea to use a subforum for a separate mailing list. Subject-matter-wise, it would make sense because these other mailing lists are more specialized, but in the same area as the current forum.

Note: we would be bringing the old archives in as an mbox file, and primarily using the Nabble forum as a searchable archive, due to the crappiness of Mailman archives.

I would be interested in the experience of others with like problems, and suggestions of alternates ways of doing this.

Thanks, Tara

[GregChapman]

Hi,

greenTara wrote

I manage several related Mailman mailing lists. We have successfully integrated one of them with a Nabble forum, keeping our Mailman list intact. Now I would like to bring our other mailing lists up as well.

To my mind, the only significant issue for those used to traditional mail lists and mail programs is how you handle the users that are used to forums and begin to use the Nabble archive as their primary means of interacting with the list.

A forum user rarely quotes original text as for them the post responded to is displayed to the panel above on the forum page. For forum users posts made by mail can be near impossible to read as it can be difficult to distinguish response from quoted text. The problem becomes more pronounced if your contributors are a mix of top posters and those who insert responses.

For mail program users a forum user's post can be rendered meaningless because of a lack of quote to put a reply in context.

If you can't cope with such problems then it could well be best to keep your Nabble archive as "Read Only" and only allow posting via email.

If preventing posting via the archive is acceptable or your experience is that you can cope with the potential problems caused by mixing forum and mail user approaches to posting then there is no harm in moving every mail list you have to Nabble.

Having an archive of old posts readily available can prevent having to make those monthly posts of FAQs, that help keep new subscribers up to speed. Important posts can be pinned to make them easy to find and subsequent copies of monthly FAQ postings can be deleted from the archive.

I have experimented a little with subforums (e.g. managed to create one), but I'm not sure if it is possible or even a good idea to use a subforum for a separate mailing list.

That depends entirely on the purpose of the Nabble archive and the nature of the mail lists.

• Is it to provide an alternative method for posting to the list?
• Is it a way to view historic posts?
• Is it an alternative way to view new posts as they are made?
• Will it matter if the contents of several lists are merged?
-- -- That is fundamental if you are to allow posting via the Nabble archive, because then the question really becomes "Are you planning to merge all your lists"?

If you are to allow posting via the Nabble archive AND you intend to retain separate lists then it is ESSENTIAL to place separate mail lists in separate forums.

Subject-matter-wise, it would make sense because these other mailing lists are more specialized, but in the same area as the current forum.

You don't mention whether any or all of these archives are to be viewable by the public or if they have overlapping or entirely separate audiences that must never see each other's posts. If there is overlap then it would be best to set up a parent forum that will hold a sub-forum for each list archive. That way a subscriber who may be eligible to access several archives only need a single username, and password, to access the Main archive site and his group memberships will control which individual archives he can access within it. ("Members" is a standard group provided by default, but you can rename that one and add another for each of the mail lists if that is what is needed.)

Note: we would be bringing the old archives in as an mbox file, and primarily using the Nabble forum as a searchable archive, due to the crappiness of Mailman archives.

That suggests that posting via Nabble will be disallowed, rending much of this post redundant!

[greenTara]

GregChapman - What a great answer!

I had not thought carefully about the problems that might arise from posting through the forum instead of the mailing list. The list that we have with Nabble now is an announcement list, so there is no problem regarding quoting a previous post. The other lists are mostly discussion lists. All are public.

Based on your reply, it looks like we should have the discussion lists Read Only, unless we decide to go "Nabble Only".
And if the lists are Read Only, then it looks like there are several options.

Thanks for giving me a lot to think about!

Tara