Saving Direct to Shared Mailbox (Was: Re: [Dovecot] Sending email over IMAP?)

[Eric Rostetter]

Quoting Timothy White <dovecot.user at weirdo.bur.st>:

> this simple style of mailing list, would require us to teach our users
> that reply-to-all is needed when you want to reply to the mailing list
> ;-)

Think of it as best purposed as a "distribution list" rather than a mailing
list.  A distribution list is one to push information out to people, in
one direction only.  Useful for things like school announcements (school
closing, parking disruptions, crime alerts, reminders about upcoming
deadlines, etc).  It isn't intended for two-way discussions like a mailing
list is.

This then becomes a simple, efficient way to mass-mail people with notices.

> I'm starting to think, that maybe I need to write some specialised
> 'mailing list' software, that will cater for what I want.

If you want a distribution list, I'd say it sounds like a worthy project.
If you want a (bi-directional) mailing list, then why re-invent the wheel,
adding confusion to the end-user?

What you've described is only a delivery mechanism, which is all that people
typically want for a distribution list.  A mailing list on the other hand
usually involves much more (commands to subscribe/remove, moderation,
ability to reply, archives, etc) and is far beyond the scope you are talking
about.

You could try to create such software as a delivery mechanism to be
used with some other existing mailing list software though.  That would
split the work up, and leverage existing work.

> Tim
> --
> Linux Counter user #273956

-- 
Eric Rostetter
The Department of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin

Go Longhorns!