Discussion: Forum participation by email

[JamesUS]

I've decided to try and construct this hack but would like some input first if possible

From other threads and my own ideas, here is how I think it should work:

User subscribes to the forum(s) that he/she would like to participate in via email. They then receive emails on every new thread and post in that forum.
To reply, they simply hit reply in the email client. The userid and encrypted password would be stored in the subject line of the email (hence would still be there after reply). These would then be matched to the user's email address when the mail reaches vB.

To start a new thread I am not sure of yet, we either have:
-there is a link in all mails "start a new thread in this forum"
-an initial email when joining contains links to start threads in all of the forums
-send mail to "generalchat@vbulletin.com" for example.

On the vB side, mail would go to a POP mailbox on the server. This would be checked every x minutes through a cron job - if anyone has any better ideas as to how to do that please let me know - I'd rather avoid cron if possible but can't see any other way.

I'm not sure I understand. So, a member would actually be able to post to the Forums via an e-mail? If this is the case, this is a very cool idea!!!

Yes that is true - there have been a couple of discussions on this in the past.

Many users prefer the newsgroup style stuff (ie email) rather than web-based forum access so I have decided to give this hack a go.

Sounds good to me. I'd definitely be interested in this hack as it would definitely prove beneficial to those people that are still (in this day and age) afraid of "the web" but not too afraid to use an e-mail client.

It is not that people are afraid. TO many, email is easier to use than a web-based solution.

I know this would be EXTREMELY popular on our board as long as they can subscribe to certain forums. With over 5000 posts a day, that's a lot of email!

I agree with Me2Be

I would never use that feature, bacuase say there was 10 posts a day in the forum, and thats small, it would still annoy me having all that email

I would read every one at first, but get tired of it and start deleting without reading.

Imagine there was 1 post with 100 replies

I would not want 100 emails in my inbox about one thing....

My normal email would get lost in it.

The only solution would be to get an email only for this

But then I could just go to the forums instead and read all posts with their replies together

So...... I don't see much point in it, and wouldn't use it ever.....

But thats just my 2 cents

Peace out

i believe that that would be the best way to go aobut it. Connect to the pop3 bobx and check for new mails. it is much better than piping all the email throught a script.
is there any way that it can be done like

$subject=Email posting
$body=i like this email posting stuff.

but that might be to complicated. are you going to do it so that the subject line tells where the post should go? or the email adress says where to go.

i don't think that the user will get every email posted in a particular forum. i think that the user should be able to post from his/her email. and when someone replies to his/her email they will get the replies. and instaed of having to go to the forum the user should be able to reply to the email instead of having to go the forums to post.

i don't think that it should be an email discussion list, but a way for users to post/reply via email.

In the past there have been requests for a full discussion list by email so I will do both
I think the Subject has to determine where the post goes - it could also go at the bottom of the mail under a seperator of some sort but the subject is easier.

I just wanted to add I think this is a great idea.... I would certainly use a hack like this.