In the search for appropriate software systems which Steve and I have been pursueing, I made a recommendation for the Arsdigita software which this forum is run on. Right now, this is a free service provided by Phillip Greenspun.

When we migrate to our own server, this forum and all its threads can migrate with us, intact.

You can find my "Recommendations" at http://giftedgeeks.com/study/recommendation.html and the "Study" at http://giftedgeeks.com/study/

In the meantime, this can be customized quite a bit even here (I think).

-- Anonymous, February 23, 2000

Answers

Recommendation

For the immediate future, the Mega Foundation has three main directions to choose from in collaborative software. The best choice for each and some of their pros and cons are listed below.

The first choice would be the open source system from Arsdigita. This is the most versatile, robust and scalable package, even compared with the high-priced ones. It's also the system which I recommend for a collaborative high IQ for-profit business.

PRO: It has most of the modules needed already available, including discussion boards, calendar, chat, contact manager, curriculum, directory, download management, data warehouse, Ecommerce, FAQ, file storage, intranet, news, poll, press, site-wide search, project tracking, and collaborative presentation software. Its open-source foundation also provides for the greatest extensibility. Extending this suite can be done in-house or out.

CON: A programmer is needed to install and customize it. It also requires a separate database, although that's needed anyway.

-- Anonymous, February 23, 2000

>From: "Steve Coy"

>PS: Kerry, would you set it up so that the default response is to the list?

Already did.

>And is it possible to combine email list and bulletin board functionality?

Right now, if we post to the bulletin board then our post gets sent to everyone signed up at the bulletin board (as long as their personal prefs are set for that option).

I've also just added ThinkBank@onelist.com to our users there, so messages to the bulletin board are automatically forwarded to our email list. That's a simple fix while not many people are on this list, but when more join and some just want periodic interaction, we should delete that and leave the option up to the individual.

But sending messages to the bulletin board via onelist? I asked Phillip Greenspun about that last week, and he said it isn't supported by his public server (the one we're using), but that the software itself could be made to do it.

I thought about it this morning, and figured that we probably could do it with his public server, but it would require a little programming in a seperate site to trick his bulletin board into accepting it. (There is a slight risk of a programming error creating an infinite loop between the mailing list and the bulletin board, but as long as the programmer keeps that in mind it shouldn't happen. It would be somewhat embarrassing to have onelist servers pitted against Greenspun's big servers at MIT, seeing which could get in the last email...).

A better way would be to download the software (its all free) and set up our own internet server. We could program those functions in properly then, and modify at will.

Kerry

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2000