[New Suggestion] Re: please take it seriously to make our team healthy

[Oommen Thomas <oommen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 19 Aug 1999, Dr. P. Sriram wrote:

sriram> On Thu, 19 Aug 1999, Mehul Jhaveri wrote:
sriram> > Can we make a setup of our linux group like netmeeting have.
sriram> 
sriram> i am not clear what mehul is hinting at - but it sounds to me like a
sriram> suggestion for additional mailing lists (sub-lists). ilugc itself was
sriram> expected to be a low volume list, mainly for announcements and other items
sriram> of local interest (and not technical matters; ilug is a better forum for
sriram> technical matters). if volume of technical discussion increases, we can
sriram> create additional group(s) with thematic content (ilugc, ilugc-tech etc).
sriram> proposals welcome.
sriram> 

Apologies for a long reply, although this I hope will be informative.

In my opinion, when the volume as well as member-size increases, a
web-based discussion forum like HyperNews will be a better option than an
email-based list. As Asokan has offered space on a Linux server, I think
we can try setting this up there.

In our company (where email is THE mode of formal communication and very
minimum paper-based communication exist) we found that when the volume
increases, people tend to ignore/delete most mails as there is hardly any
time to go through each and every mail and take action. That defeats
the very purpose of keeping people informed or discussing. Also, it
becomes difficult to keep track of the old mails (even if we think of
having some archiving mechanism in mailing lists).

A 'news' server was an option we had; but we have gone in for 'HyperNews'
which is a hybrid of the Web and News technologies. And we have received
a very good response from our colleagues.

Key features include:- 

* Multiple forums based on Topic
* Each forum with all postings arranged as threads available at a specific
  URL and can be accessed using a browser
* Authentication possible at different levels (including posting/reading) 
* Users can register as members so that they get email notifications
* Email-HyperNews gateway exist 
* Posting can be done thru emails or web interface
* Posters get an email copy of all responses to their original posting
* Easy-to-use Web-based Admin tools (including archiving/deleting
  provision) 
* Even if the emails are deleted, the postings and replies lie on the
  server
* Space requirement not much for installation
* The whole software is (cgi)perl-based and hence can be customised as per
requirement

(Lets make use of newer technologies which suit as better.....)

The site http://www.hypernews.org will give more details.

Asokan, can we have this setup on your server, so that the traffic on the 
ilugc list can be reduced and technical discussions can be on the
web-based forum which has an email gateway too? 

We (myself and my collegue Mr Saravanan) will be very glad to help out in
setting this up. 

Thanks for your time.

-
Oommen.


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