(I posted this in “feature ideas” but realized it makes more sense here)
hi @stalwart - would like to see mailing list mode enabled for this discourse forum. It will allow users to interact and receive updates from this discourse via e-mail.
Additionally, add reply via e-mail as well.
@mdecimus any thoughts on enabling the option for mailing list mode on this discourse?
Oh yes, that would be very nice indeed to have full email ↔ Discourse setup. Additionally, it would be useful to share how you integrate Stalwart and Discourse. During Summer I might be able to share my own setup since this is a use-case I have been practicing for a while. It only takes one email account for infinite possibilities with Discourse and Stalwart.
Besides, white on black is not my cup of tea, and I would appreciate being able to either use my email client or change the Discourse theme.
@mdecimus: I am still interested in getting this enabled. If there are any technical limitations, please let me know.
@how: the process shouldn’t be any different for a self hosted e-mail provider such as with stalwart. Per docs:
I may give it a go on a containerized setup to familiarize myself (in case the docs provided here are outdated).
Sorry, this won’t be added. It will considerably increase our mail server traffic and we are concerned about IP reputation. We might add it in the future if we can secure some EU funding to add an additional outbound server.
@mdecimus I have been running this setup for more than a year over several domains. Discourse creates “clean” mails for reputation AFAIK. At first, with the SocialHub (ActivityPub forum), GMail had issues, but now GMail users receive notifications and can participate normally. It was indeed a reputation issue I guess, rather than a technical issue with any of Discourse and Stalwart. So I understand your concern. But in this case, could you please enable changeable themes for users?
@debtquity I was thinking about documenting using email aliases for groups and categories. It works like a charm. With a single account you can serve an infinity of those. There are still caveats on how Discourse interprets some incoming messages, but it generally works well.
Appreciate the response.
I can’t see it being an issue since it’s an opt in feature by the user. Plus many of us already use stalwart as the primary mail server.
But if you think it’s a burden to maintain/support, I suppose I can revisit this at a later time. Maybe after 1.x.y.
Didn’t realize discourse can be setup like that. Basically a traditional mailing list via discourse.
Would users be able create new thread to specific category by sending message to the appropriate email alias? Or would new threads have to be created in discourse first and then can be continued in mail client?
If email-in is set up, and the category has an assigned email address, then you can start a topic via email. In the recent versions though, this was restricted to public categories (I think it’s a bug, since there is a setting for “allowing incoming emails from addresses with no account”).