Обсуждение: Forums at postgresql.com.au
Hi, I was told this was the most appropriate mailing list to ask - previously discussed on pgsql-general. http://forums.postgresql.com.au Recently I registered the domain name postgresql.com.au in the hope of starting up the first and only dedicated postgresqlforums. After much back and forth it was decided that a forum would only work if it were integrally tied with themailing list. So that's what I've done. I have written scripts that allow the seamless integration between the mailing lists and forums, with the following features; 1. All mailing list posts are converted from email form to a forums post real time retaining the timestamps, email poster,etc. 2. Users are automatically created on the forum as they appear on the mailing list. 3. Any topic created or post made on the forum sends an email back to the mailing list after conversion, bbcode removal etc.Emails have spoofed message-id and in-reply-to IDs to allow thread grouping like real emails from the mailing list. 4. Any archived mbox can be loaded in and is fully back dated so that a user shows as signing up from their first visiblepost as well as all their subsequent posts. 5. Conversion between the forums and mailing lists retain the quotations ("Bob Smith said ...", etc) In simple terms this means "A thread can be started on the mailing list or forum. A thread can then be replied on from eitherthe mailing list, forum or mixture of both. The mailing list people never need to log into the forum and visa versathrough seamless integration of the two mediums." The concept and completed model works very well but with one concern. As the mailing list will only accept mail coming froma subscribed address it is not possible to use a persons forum sign up email as who the email is being sent from (themailing list would reject this obviously.) As no one knows of an API than can be used to register a persons address withoutconfirming that address by email the only solution is to use a subscribed generic email with the persons name; For example as I'm posting to the mailing list now, my From shows as: Elliot Chance <elliotchance@gmail.com> However if I had signed up to the forum (and not the mailing list) my From would have to be subscribed for the mailing listto accept it like: Elliot Chance <forums@postgresql.com.au> John Smith <forums@postgresql.com.au> ... etc. OK, so after a brief background I'd like to organise a solution. Without any other feasible option would this generic addresssystem be allowed? I should also point out that the conversions scripts take the persons name but hide their email behind the forum. I havemade sure nothing is publicly available that is not already indexed by Google - nobody has objected so far but I canunderstand how this issue is sensitive to some people. - Elliot
On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 1:19 PM, Elliot Chance <elliotchance@gmail.com> wrote: > However if I had signed up to the forum (and not the mailing list) my From would have to be subscribed for the mailinglist to accept it like: > Elliot Chance <forums@postgresql.com.au> > John Smith <forums@postgresql.com.au> > ... etc. > > OK, so after a brief background I'd like to organise a solution. Without any other feasible option would this generic addresssystem be allowed? I wouldn't be happy with that as it prevents private replies to the author and would make it easy to send what was intended as a private reply to the public forums by mistake. -- Dave Page Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com Twitter: @pgsnake EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
Excerpts from Dave Page's message of vie nov 19 11:43:34 -0300 2010: > On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 1:19 PM, Elliot Chance <elliotchance@gmail.com> wrote: > > However if I had signed up to the forum (and not the mailing list) my From would have to be subscribed for the mailinglist to accept it like: > > Elliot Chance <forums@postgresql.com.au> > > John Smith <forums@postgresql.com.au> > > ... etc. > > > > OK, so after a brief background I'd like to organise a solution. Without any other feasible option would this genericaddress system be allowed? > > I wouldn't be happy with that as it prevents private replies to the > author and would make it easy to send what was intended as a private > reply to the public forums by mistake. Isn't that a secondary use case, though? It would be easy to solve this by providing a URL to the post in the forum that you can click; assuming the forum interface gives you the option to reply privately. I wonder if the mailing list would alow posting from an address like forums+1357@postgresql.com.au if only forums@postgresql.com.au is subscribed. The number or string after the + would presumably be the user ID in the forum or some unique identifier. (Extra points if the mailing software at that domain forwards email to the user when sent to that address (or maybe a PM in the forum system) -- this would solve Dave's concern.) -- Álvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc. PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support
On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> wrote: > Excerpts from Dave Page's message of vie nov 19 11:43:34 -0300 2010: >> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 1:19 PM, Elliot Chance <elliotchance@gmail.com> wrote: >> > However if I had signed up to the forum (and not the mailing list) my From would have to be subscribed for the mailinglist to accept it like: >> > Elliot Chance <forums@postgresql.com.au> >> > John Smith <forums@postgresql.com.au> >> > ... etc. >> > >> > OK, so after a brief background I'd like to organise a solution. Without any other feasible option would this genericaddress system be allowed? >> >> I wouldn't be happy with that as it prevents private replies to the >> author and would make it easy to send what was intended as a private >> reply to the public forums by mistake. > > Isn't that a secondary use case, though? It would be easy to solve this > by providing a URL to the post in the forum that you can click; assuming > the forum interface gives you the option to reply privately. But I don't want to use the forums - I want to carry on using the mailing lists as I do now, without having to examine a recipients address to figure out if its private or not, in the odd case that I feel a private response is required. > I wonder if the mailing list would alow posting from an address like > forums+1357@postgresql.com.au if only forums@postgresql.com.au is > subscribed. The number or string after the + would presumably be the > user ID in the forum or some unique identifier. (Extra points if the > mailing software at that domain forwards email to the user when sent to > that address (or maybe a PM in the forum system) -- this would solve > Dave's concern.) That would solve it, yes. I don't think mj2 will allow that though - we've been looking for something similar for sysadmin use. Note also that having messages come from a single user will also limit our ability to search the archives effectively. -- Dave Page Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com Twitter: @pgsnake EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 1:19 PM, Elliot Chance <elliotchance@gmail.com> wrote: > 2. Users are automatically created on the forum as they appear on the mailing list. I'm not entirely happy with the idea that you're signing me up as a user on some forum site I've never visited. You might actually have data commissioner issues with that, though I wouldn't know what the laws are in AU. > However if I had signed up to the forum (and not the mailing list) my From would have to be subscribed for the mailinglist to accept it like: > Elliot Chance <forums@postgresql.com.au> > John Smith <forums@postgresql.com.au> This is going to do stupid things in people's contact databases too. Either your email will be associated with all their contacts or they'll get a single contact with all the names of all the forum users in it. Either way is pretty bad. -- greg
On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 14:19, Elliot Chance <elliotchance@gmail.com> wrote: > The concept and completed model works very well but with one concern. As the mailing list will only accept mail comingfrom a subscribed address it is not possible to use a persons forum sign up email as who the email is being sent from(the mailing list would reject this obviously.) As no one knows of an API than can be used to register a persons addresswithout confirming that address by email the only solution is to use a subscribed generic email with the persons name; That is not exactly what I said. I said there is no official API. I also pointed you to example code that did almost exactly that, and that's running in production on the postgresql.org infrastructure. The only difference being the NOMAIL part, and I doubt that's not doable the same way. -- Magnus Hagander Me: http://www.hagander.net/ Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/
On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 16:14, Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> wrote: > Excerpts from Dave Page's message of vie nov 19 11:43:34 -0300 2010: >> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 1:19 PM, Elliot Chance <elliotchance@gmail.com> wrote: >> > However if I had signed up to the forum (and not the mailing list) my From would have to be subscribed for the mailinglist to accept it like: >> > Elliot Chance <forums@postgresql.com.au> >> > John Smith <forums@postgresql.com.au> >> > ... etc. >> > >> > OK, so after a brief background I'd like to organise a solution. Without any other feasible option would this genericaddress system be allowed? >> >> I wouldn't be happy with that as it prevents private replies to the >> author and would make it easy to send what was intended as a private >> reply to the public forums by mistake. > > Isn't that a secondary use case, though? It would be easy to solve this > by providing a URL to the post in the forum that you can click; assuming > the forum interface gives you the option to reply privately. That would pretty much make it impossible to use offline. That would be annoying, but I guess survivable. But how would that work for a user that hasn't signed up for the forum? How does it verify the sender? -- Magnus Hagander Me: http://www.hagander.net/ Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/
Excerpts from Dave Page's message of vie nov 19 12:22:09 -0300 2010: > On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Alvaro Herrera > <alvherre@commandprompt.com> wrote: > > I wonder if the mailing list would alow posting from an address like > > forums+1357@postgresql.com.au if only forums@postgresql.com.au is > > subscribed. The number or string after the + would presumably be the > > user ID in the forum or some unique identifier. (Extra points if the > > mailing software at that domain forwards email to the user when sent to > > that address (or maybe a PM in the forum system) -- this would solve > > Dave's concern.) > > That would solve it, yes. I don't think mj2 will allow that though - > we've been looking for something similar for sysadmin use. So let's patch Mj2. -- Álvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc. PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support