Re: off-list idea about archive

on 7/19/04 2:20 PM, Robert Walker <robertwalker@...> wrote:

> Hi Kurt,
>
> Yes, perhaps with some work we could figure out some way to enable replies to
> e-mails, which is secure. However, since the archive isn't made dynamically,
> we are still faced with the problem of how to integrate the replies into the
> archive.

Yes, I see, or I'm beginning to. Maybe there is somewhat I can take what
you have done and convert it to something of a slightly more dynamic nature.
I have some experience with generating html dynamically, but I'm not a
database guru, and would probably end up using a flat-file approach, which
might not perform well enough. Or maybe it would be ok?

> Unfortunately, because of the way the archive is made, even if it is just
> necessary to add a few extra posts to it then many (not all) of the pages need
> to be regeneraed and uploaded each time. You are certainly talking about MBs
> to be uploaded every time for a list as big as Tuning. So that's not
> practical, and I can't see any way around it with the archive that I've made.

Well maybe we can discuss this in some detail off-list, so I can understand
it better, and can make sensible suggestions.

> However, there are attractive commercial solutions that can be used which may
> well be better than Yahoo groups for our purposes.
>
> This is an example of a commercial discussion board - you can use it for free,
> but it is probably best to buy it as you then get more useful features. For
> instance, users can join themselves if you get the pro. version, also they can
> delete their own posts if they want to.
>
> It doesn't cost much to get - just a one off fee
> of $150:
>
> Here it is:
> http://www.robertinventor.com/fts_discuss/index.html

It looks good, a pretty high-quality interface, though I didn't look
carefully at features.

> If you buy the commercial version of it then you can
> backup the messages, and restore them to another site
> if you want to move it. That could deal with the
> question people have about whether it should
> be on a private web space.

Yes, right, that's a big deal. And I think you said something like this,
but now I can't find it, so I'll say it: One of the keys here might be to
prototype something that demonstrates something *really* good, to make
people aware of how much better things can be, and therefore to inform and
inspire those (e.g. Monz) who might be creating a tuning list solution at
some point.

> It is the forum software used by my software
> reseller RegNow and they have clearly used
> it for years with no problems, so I'm
> confident it is well made. They will
> also have met security issues and
> dealt with them.

Yes, the only problem I see is that it looks very-well-formed already and I
don't know from what I saw how customizable it would be if people didn't
like the overall "shape" of it. Well for example we would want to be able
to import messages from your archive into it. Do you see a way to be able
to do that?

-Kurt