All posts in the topic My reason for Exploring GroupServer (Short link)

From: David Teall Date: 2005 Oct 04 16:14 UTC Short link

I am looking for suitable software to use on a Sailing Club website to provide
Bulletin Boards (Forums), Discussion Lists and Newsletter Lists.  The perfect
product (almost) exists in the form of Yahoo Groups but I want our own boards
integrated with our own website. The features I require are:

 The ability to utilise our on-line database, which includes a User Name,
Password and email address for every member, as the basis for membership of the
Boards/Lists rather than a separate inbuilt database.

 The ability to configure Mailing Lists so that clicking on Reply addresses the
reply back to the list and to the author of the message.

 A web page for Mailing Lists where members can read current messages and
archives.

 The ability for members to configure the Board to send entire messages to them
by email, not just a notification that a message has been posted or a partial
clip of that message.

 The ability for members to send new messages and reply to messages by email.

 The ability to customise which messages members can opt to receive to include
the following options:
 Level 0 Delivery  No Messages
 Level 1 Delivery Special Messages only i.e. messages from the List Manager(s)
 Level 2 Delivery Special Messages plus new questions from other members.
 Level 3 Delivery  All messages.

Background:

My sailing Club is the leading National Organisation for Offshore Cruising in
the UK.  We are very anxious to use modern technology to give added value to
our members,  especially those who live a long way from our HQ in London and
those on board their boats around the world.

The nature of our Association means that, for protracted periods of time,
members are on board and their only means of electronic communication is via
satellite or mobile phone, both of which are slow and expensive.  Members very
much want to be able to keep in touch with HQ and help one another by answering
questions but any system that swamps them with too many emails will fail
because they will simply un-subscribe.

I currently run a very successful system for those of our members in the
Mediterranean using Yahoo Groups which does most (but not quite all) of what we
want.  However, we now want to offer a similar service to all our members and
do so through our own, rapidly expanding website.  Our intention is to
introduce a concept called 'MyClub' which will involve members having their own
User Name and Password to log-in to the members-only sections of the website.
This will include inter alia a recently-introduced on-line shop and a range of
Discussion Forums/Mailing Lists.  An essential part of running 'MyClub' will be
placing a mirror of selected fields from our membership database on-line in
order to authenticate the log-ins.  The database is already kept up-to-date by
our secretariat so you can understand my wish to make use of it to authenticate
our Forums/Lists.

The average member would contribute to the Forums on-line when back home but by
email when cruising.  The various Delivery Options I have outlined would give
members a good choice of how much email they received to suit their own wishes:

'No messages' would keep email to the absolute minimum and would necessitate
visits to Internet Cafes to keep in touch.  This would suit members with no
on-board comms and those use very, very expensive satellite links..

Level 1 - Special Messages only would keep members in touch with HQ but not
burden them with messages from other members, or the answers to those
questions.

Level 2  - Special Messages plus 'New' questions only would allow members to
see questions from other members and answer them without burdening them with
all the answers.  As the average question generates 30 answers, this is very
significant.  This is the likely default setting.

Level 3 - all messages would give members access to the whole shooting match,
even when cruising.

Having answers sent to the List *and* to the member who asked the question
would enable that member to see answers to their own questions even when their
Delivery Option was set to Level 2.  If that meant they got the answer twice
when they changed to Level 3 at home, that would be a small price to pay as
they would most likely be on broadband then.