I hope this is the right place to post my questions. If not, my apologies and
please direct me to the correct place.
I've been looking around for a replacement for Yahoo Groups and GroupServer
seems to fit the bill well. I'm developing a system for a paid membership club
consisting of about 500 members. I'm not proficient in python and haven't
worked with Zope, but I've been programming in other languages for a while
(PHP, Java, XQuery).
The bulk of the content of the site is managed through a WordPress site, and so
far seems to work well. But for our discussion groups I'm considering
GroupServer. Its email list/forum hybrid is what I'm looking for to satisfy
most members preferences of how to receive information and participate in
discussions.
The documentation is good and I've been able to install GroupServer on a VPS
successfully and start playing around with it. Following are some of my
questions.
My biggest questions are regarding customization. Since this is a paid
membership club, most groups will be secret groups. The remaining will be used
for public discussions and marketing.
Would it be possible to add users straight through the database? Since we use
the WordPress site to manage club members, I could add a hook to add the user
to GroupServer secret club member-only groups. One issue would be how to have
GroupServer send the notification email?
Is it possible to customize GroupServer so members can't leave specific secret
groups? If the secret groups are for paid members only, we don't want them to
leave unless they decide to end their club membership. (They can always choose
web only if they don't want to receive any emails.) If we allow club members to
leave a secret group, it would be too difficult to manage who is a paying
member if they want to join the group again.
In general, I'm looking for advice on how to integrate GroupServer with our
existing system. Leaving and joining secret groups should be managed by club
administrators. Worst case the joining can be managed manually, it's the
leaving part that needs to be controlled.
Is there a way to add a custom attribute to users? I need a way to create a
relationship between GroupServer and our member database. Currently our user
primary key is their WordPress username. They can change their email address
both in WordPress and GS. It can't necessarily be there GS nickname, because
it's possible for someone to join GS before they join the club, and there is no
way for me to enforce their WordPress username be the same as their GS
nickname. Like GS, WordPress usernames can't be changed once it's created, so I
would prefer a looser connection between the two.
Are there any other resources for documentation other than Read The Docs? For
installation it's great, but I was hoping for more of a comprehensive manual.
GroupServer is fairly straightforward but I was just wondering if there are
other resources to reference.
Is there a configuration to access ZMI other than through localhost? The only
way I can access it is to ssh port forward. I don't foresee having to access
ZMI often, but when I do it may be on a machine where port forwarding is not
available to me.
GroupServer.org talks about scalability and handling 7,000 email messages a
month. Does this mean 7,000 topics, or actual emails sent? Our announcement
group would go out to 400-500 people, so if it's actual emails, we would
surpass that within a week or two.
Thanks for your time!
Eugene
please direct me to the correct place.
I've been looking around for a replacement for Yahoo Groups and GroupServer
seems to fit the bill well. I'm developing a system for a paid membership club
consisting of about 500 members. I'm not proficient in python and haven't
worked with Zope, but I've been programming in other languages for a while
(PHP, Java, XQuery).
The bulk of the content of the site is managed through a WordPress site, and so
far seems to work well. But for our discussion groups I'm considering
GroupServer. Its email list/forum hybrid is what I'm looking for to satisfy
most members preferences of how to receive information and participate in
discussions.
The documentation is good and I've been able to install GroupServer on a VPS
successfully and start playing around with it. Following are some of my
questions.
My biggest questions are regarding customization. Since this is a paid
membership club, most groups will be secret groups. The remaining will be used
for public discussions and marketing.
Would it be possible to add users straight through the database? Since we use
the WordPress site to manage club members, I could add a hook to add the user
to GroupServer secret club member-only groups. One issue would be how to have
GroupServer send the notification email?
Is it possible to customize GroupServer so members can't leave specific secret
groups? If the secret groups are for paid members only, we don't want them to
leave unless they decide to end their club membership. (They can always choose
web only if they don't want to receive any emails.) If we allow club members to
leave a secret group, it would be too difficult to manage who is a paying
member if they want to join the group again.
In general, I'm looking for advice on how to integrate GroupServer with our
existing system. Leaving and joining secret groups should be managed by club
administrators. Worst case the joining can be managed manually, it's the
leaving part that needs to be controlled.
Is there a way to add a custom attribute to users? I need a way to create a
relationship between GroupServer and our member database. Currently our user
primary key is their WordPress username. They can change their email address
both in WordPress and GS. It can't necessarily be there GS nickname, because
it's possible for someone to join GS before they join the club, and there is no
way for me to enforce their WordPress username be the same as their GS
nickname. Like GS, WordPress usernames can't be changed once it's created, so I
would prefer a looser connection between the two.
Are there any other resources for documentation other than Read The Docs? For
installation it's great, but I was hoping for more of a comprehensive manual.
GroupServer is fairly straightforward but I was just wondering if there are
other resources to reference.
Is there a configuration to access ZMI other than through localhost? The only
way I can access it is to ssh port forward. I don't foresee having to access
ZMI often, but when I do it may be on a machine where port forwarding is not
available to me.
GroupServer.org talks about scalability and handling 7,000 email messages a
month. Does this mean 7,000 topics, or actual emails sent? Our announcement
group would go out to 400-500 people, so if it's actual emails, we would
surpass that within a week or two.
Thanks for your time!
Eugene