Other Software > Developer's Corner

Mailing lists or Message boards for offering software support?

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app103:
If it's going to be something small, you could go with this style of message board:  http://draconislabs.net:8080/forums/

No database needed...and if you want the source, just leave a message on that board and Krish will probably give you the source for it. He loves to share his code.  ;)

Tell him I sent you.

Eóin:
I think a forum software review would also be a great idea.

Regarding the security concerns, I have to admit I made the choice for phpbb mainly because of aesthetic reasons, i.e. I saw a nice style available for phpbb which I knew I could easily adapt to fit it in with my site. Probably not the ideal reason to base a decision on.

On the mailing list v forums discussion, one great thing about mailings lists is that you can sign up for a number of low volume list and have them come to you rather than you being forced to check a larger number of sites everyday to see if there have been any updates. Thank fully though RSS support and even subscriptions mean that forums also offer this feature just in a less obvious way.

Also on a personal note I think forums are more welcoming to new users. In the past where I've needed support and it was only available through mailing lists I was very conscious that any post I make would be ending up in the inbox of a large number of people, with a forum I don't feel like I'm imposing as much when I ask a question.

vegas:
As far as mailing list vs. forum, I personally much prefer forums. It used to be that forums weren't as full-featured as your email client in terms of formatting, spell-checking, unread post tracking, etc. but modern systems like SMF and vB take care of most of those things very well. So the arguments for using a mailing list are diminishing. There are still some who simply like to download everything and read it "offline" at their leisure. It's just what works for their particular work approach I suppose.

- Oshyan
-JavaJones (August 06, 2006, 01:57 AM)
--- End quote ---

Actually both Invision & vB have made this very easy to do with the newer option to download a full thread in your choice of formats.  I am on like 6 forums that use Invision and about 16 that use vBulletin.  On a good server, I much prefer vBulletin, but thats just me.  I too would love to see a review of forum softwares, if not even just a list of all the options out there, with what each one can do & can't do and let the user decide from there.

JavaJones:
Sure, you can download threads in whatever format, but doing it automatically for every thread, or just certain fora, many times a day, and then notifying you of updates, is beyond current capability. Maybe one day we'll have the perfect balance between mailing list and forum, but I haven't found it yet.

- Oshyan

Eóin:
I must say the security concerns over phpbb were niggling at me a bit over the past few days when I happened across PunBB. It’s a lovely lightweight bulletin board software, none of the fancy frills like PMs, polls, etc. which I don’t want anyway and the clincher for me was that someone had ported the very style I was working with from phpbb.

Now I don’t know how it stacks up against either phpbb, smf or the rest when it come to security but I gather that its developer(s) take(s) this matter very seriously. I’m hoping that security through obscurity will work in my favour, i.e. a small unknown site running a relatively little known bb software hopefully won’t attract the wrong type of attention.

Just thought I’d share this little gem with you all.

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