Hi guys,

Something I kept wondering about features in the major forum systems like V-bulletin and such.

When you receive a mail alert after a thread subscription, not only is there an alert but there is also the post content embedded in the alert, right?

Wouldn't it be great to be able to just reply to the email and then have the reply automatically posted in the concerned thread?
Thus, you could continue to participate to a thread even on the road with a mere email client enabled phone.

So, why this hasn't been done before?

Technically speaking, I see nothing difficult : on the server,a cron jobs opens the email content with PHP IMAP functions, read it and allocates the right replies with the right posts in the database.

So, why don't we see this?

There are some software applications that do similar things to this. Many support ticket systems are at their core a "forum" - threaded discussions - and of course email interaction with these systems is the primary way of adding content. There are blog and web site content management systems that allow for email (or even SMS) input, too.

I wouldn't use cron myself but have mail pass through a filter; pass through mail for a specific domain or address through the filter, you can drive this either by fetchmail or even the MTA. Setting such a filter up with fetchmail isn't difficult; I've got a Python solution for exactly this which is all of several dozen lines of code.

What you'll need to consider is how to prevent SPAM from being injected, and how to prevent forwarded mail from being used to compromise any user authentication you build into this. Since the email client can't participate in your already existing http-based user authentication system, you've got more to implement there too.

You'll probably also want to consider implementing post limiters - for example WHT doesn't allow for more than one post every 90 seconds. With email and automation I could fire off thousands of posts in 90 seconds.


Building email input to support systems or web logs is pretty easy - limited interaction with a single user and a random "key" in the subject line or secret password in same makes it possible. But you'll need something more robust than that for a community application where many users are posting to a given thread.

So it's fairly easy to implement but still, it's not widely implemented. I'm registered to +100 forums and never encountered such a feature anywhere :(
To me, it's a killer application to boost traffic on a discussion forum.

I seem to recall a hack for phpbb or vbulletin (can't remember which) that did just this..several years ago, but I know it's been done...

Edit: A google search turned it up:
http://www.mail2forum.com/forums/index.php

I seem to recall that the script worked, but the crap that third party email providers (yahoo, hotmail, etc..) added into the emails was getting inserted into the forum as well...

I don't know if development just stopped on it or what...

Interesting.
Looks like the project is still active.

... but the crap that third party email providers (yahoo, hotmail, etc..) added into the emails was getting inserted into the forum as well...
..

Didn't think about that.
A solution would be to force users to set up a personal text string of their choice (or their username) that they would have to add at the end of their messages. Thus, a simple strstr() would remove what would come after.

A much simpler solution for replies to existing threads, at least, would be to do like Kayako helpdesk does:

"Please reply above this line"

Then you just take everything that is above

---------------------------------------------------------------

and post it to the thread.

Kevin

My bad! ;)
Yeah, much smarter indeed.

If you go too far down the road what you've implemented is a mailing list, not a forum. Both have their place.

Happened to run across this today, a Python package for "email remote control" - could be integrated into a forum posting system.

http://labix.org/letterbot

The author clearly has thought about authentication; it seems too involved to be used for a general purpose forum where the user knowledge level is going to vary wildly.

I've a few thoughts on how to make such a scheme work; on my todo list to think about further.

Yeah, put it on your todo list! :)

I seriously think it would be a killer application considered the trend with mobile communication. Participating to normal discussion forums with your mobile on low/cheap bandwith is the way to go.

If I had more time, I would make my own forum engine based on something totally different (all the forums are alike). And I would implement this "email-to-thread" feature.

...I seriously think it would be a killer application considered the trend with mobile communication...

You are forgetting something. The most forums, including this one, exist only to make money. This one makes money based on banner views and every single view counts. Replaying from your email would work against that model.

You forget that you can insert text ads inside email messages.
Those are less easy to avoid compared to banner ads in web pages.