Reply by Email

Cory Booth

Well-known member
Many "bug" tracking applications use it...
Would it be possible to implement a "Reply by Email" so users could actually just hit reply to a froum email and have it added to the forum as a post? I know the arguments - it would drive down traffic - but.... I would truly pay top dime for a forum encorporating this feature... (goes back to Mobile/WAP support as well)....
 
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I am in the midst of choosing a bulletin board system to which to migrate a bunch (50+) of Mailman mailing lists. Without this feature, xenForo probably isn't an option. Any news on it?
 
I am in the midst of choosing a bulletin board system to which to migrate a bunch (50+) of Mailman mailing lists. Without this feature, xenForo probably isn't an option. Any news on it?
You'll need to hire a custom coder to accomplish what you want.
It's still quite a niche request.

Probably your only current option would be vBulletin 3 or 4 with the email to post addon (dont know the name, dont know if it currently works).
 
You'll need to hire a custom coder to accomplish what you want.
It's still quite a niche request.

Probably your only current option would be vBulletin 3 or 4 with the email to post addon (dont know the name, dont know if it currently works).
It is/was for VB3.
It did not work properly, the developer left it behind.

"Email Integration"
 
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I also suggested this a long time back and agree it would provide a compelling reason for a lot of YahooGroups to migrate to xenForo.
That is what I wanted the vB3 plugin for ... migrating a Yahoo Group.

This request will never ever be in the Xenforo core (My opinion only) (Feel free to ask MAK if you want).
If people really want this done .... they'd have to hire a programmer to do it.

Migrating yahoo groups is a niche request.

FWIW, I hate the search options in Yahoo groups. So useless.
 
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Digital Doctor, the only people that can say a suggestion will never make it into the core product is Kier and Mike. They usually do this by marking it as "No Thanks". Please refrain from making incorrect statements.
 
Of course it is just a guess.
I edited my post to reflect it was my guess.

I only provided my guess to help MargyLY and the others in this thread.
I guess no official word on this request was given for the last 3 years.
I stand by my guess that this suggestion will never be a part of Xenforo core code.
Of course MAK makes those decisions.
 
mail2forum does this very well, but it's only available for phpBB2. I've been using it successfully on a private, paid-membership forum with 1200 members for about 7 years now. It greatly increases participation, and like previous posters mentioned, advertising is not the only business model.

It works like this: when a post is made in a forum, each subscribed user gets it by email. Users can also reply to these emailed posts and they are then threaded into the discussion just as if they were made through the web interface. New topics can be started by email as well - users simply send a message to the forum's address. Each forum has a unique email address and users can choose from which forums they want to receive emails. mail2forum even handles attachments and can downsize big images so that users' mailboxes aren't clogged with big files.

Regex filtering does a good job of keeping out out-of-office replies and the like. To keep things clean and prevent replicating quotes from previous emails, "Reply above this line" can be used and the Regex filter would strip everything below it.

This feature combines the best of both worlds allowing members who prefer email communication to stay active and contribute, while those who prefer the web interface can participate online only.

Google Groups works like this, but they require a Gmail account for all participants.

I'm looking forward to seeing this feature implemented in a modern forum, not necessarily as a part of the core, but as a supported add-on.
 
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A third party add-on is too much work for 1 person to build and maintain over versions. All attempts to add this functionality to vB failed because of the development effort involved in building and then maintaining such feature.

It needs to be a paid add-on from XF, or built into the product. It needs to come FROM XenForo. Otherwise it won't be maintained.
 
I have been speaking to a few developers. If you know of additional ones you recommend, then please send me a PM.

If you, like myself, feel this modification or add-on would give you a leg up on your competition and you would be interested in supporting the creation of this, then send me a PM.

I don't want to muck up the thread or take it off topic any more than I have. I do want to see this created and am working to find the right development team or developer.
 
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