[nieman]

I’m trying to find out if anyone has tried to build a plugin that allows reply by email for a bbPress forum. This would be similar to what basecamp does.

1. Someone posts to the forum

2. Everyone subscribed to the forum receives an email

3. When you get the email, you can hit reply and it posts to the forum and email everyone.

Thoughts?

Thanks

Phil

[chrishajer]

As far as I know, there is no plugin like that for bbPress. WordPress allows you to post by email, and even if updates were sent out via an RSS to Email solution, the person receiving that wouldn’t be able to reply and have that posted to the blog.

Sounds like a better application for a mailing list, not a forum.

Or, does Basecamp do all that already?

[douglerner]

It’s a common feature in many web-based forums. Then users have the choice of always coming back to the web or participating via email. Email-centric users enjoy it, but can still come into the web to search old content, etc.

doug

[kewe65]

do you have any recommendations for a forum tool that has this feature? (being able to use email in addition to visiting the site itself)

thanks

[_ck_]

I’ve never seen or even heard of a forum with reply by email.

In theory this could be done via a unique key sent with every message to the reader.

But writing code to download and process email replies would be tricky.

Since bbPress 1.0 will have trackbacks for topics, this might open another avenue.

This kinda defeats the whole idea of a forum though, allowing people to stay away from the site entirely.

[chrishajer]

I always pull this out for discussion when the topic comes up:

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/email-notifications#post-20324

[kewe65]

In effect, Yahoo Groups works as a forum that allows communication entirely via email while also allowing users to go to the web site to review the email string… bulletin board, forum, ‘group’… whatever the label, the functionality is there

[chrishajer]

Why not use a Yahoo Group then?

[kewe65]

yeah, that wasnt the question, but thanks anyway…

[chrishajer]

It was an honest question kewe65. Why *not* use a Yahoo group if everything you need is there, no matter the terminology (board/forum/group)? I really want to know; maybe others do too.

With every Yahoo group I’ve even been a part of, none has ever felt like a community. It’s almost like it’s an archive of an email mailing list (majordomo anyone?) It feels dead, just a snapshot. Maybe it’s just the groups I happened to join. But those are reasons why *I* would never use a Yahoo group where I really need a forum. And for the same reasons, I would not allow people to skip participation in the forum by opting to get their replies via email. That kills the community feeling for me, too. That’s what the Joel on Software article was trying to say, I think. I know the article is long, but you can skip to part relevant to this discussion if you just search that page for “email”.

[hamzahali]

Please see it this can help
https://github.com/rmccue/bbPress-Reply-by-Email

[Spencer Hill]

Here is a thread with a potential solution: https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/post-by-email-social-media-integration/