Dear Clay, Lennart, Rett and friends,

yes, I share similar thoughts. In fact, I think this would be the
best way to bridge a mailing list and the web.

Lennart: I wasn't thinking of a wiki to replace a mailing list. I was
thinking of the combination of a discussion forum and a content
management system (CMS) software.

Rett: UBB is a CGI/Perl discussion forum, just like vBulletin,
ikonBoard and YaBB. Unfortunately, UBB and vBulletin are not
providing their latest software free now. I have actually set up YaBB
on Tipitaka.net in 2003, there was almost no discussion. In 2004, due
to server migration (on the part of my ISP), I decided to use a free
remote host. So, there is, until now, a YaBB based forum, but it is
still not popular although there was some posting:
http://tipitaka.suddenlaunch.com . Because Tipitaka.net has another
bulletin board now. It does not link to suddenlaunch anymore.

Like Rett, I agree a discussion forum is better than a mailing list.
This year, 2005, I have write a small piece of PHP/mySQL bulletin
board, and stick it on the front page of Tipitaka.net. If there is
such a request, I can turn it into a multi-threaded discussion board.
Effectively, it is just the addition of a few lines of code. However,
while storage space is virtually unlimited these days, it is not
necessarily true of processing power and bandwidth. The same goes to
time management on my side. So, I'll only expand the software as the
usage grows. At the same time, I will retain this mailing list since
it is doing well and many members are accustomed to it.

By the way, many of the popular discussion forums either starts off
with PHP (phpBB), is moving towards PHP/mySQL, or offers an PHP/mySQL
version now (YaBB). The popularity of the PHP + mySQL combo has
resulted in many CMS projects, such as phpNuke, Mambo, postNuke and
Xoops. I was actually considering phpNuke in 2003, but then decided
to leave it aside for a while.

Now, there are things like blogs (a.k.a web-logs) and wikies gaining
popularity. I shall leave the discovery of blogs to you. As for wiki,
it is considered a knowledge-based system. There is no discussion or
interaction, but only subject experts adding more and more
information to the database. The most well-known is wikipedia.
Wikipedia uses a PHP/mySQL wiki software called MediaWiki. On the
other hand, Twiki, which Clay recommends, is a Perl/CGI wiki. Swiki,
which Lennart mentions, is not a wiki software but a remote hosting
site for wikies. Everything2.com uses the Perl/mySQL combo. Another
wiki I consider is phpWiki. More information about wikies here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
http://www.everydevel.com/

If we are going to develop something on our own, rather than using
what is available, I would like to use the PHP/mySQL development
platform. What about you, Clay? I hope this provides some background
information to what we have been discussing recently. For the techno-
savvy, this is certainly insufficient, but you have to find out more
on your own.


metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Clay Collier wrote:

I agree with Lennart about the role of a Wiki of some type; it would
be good to take the answers that result from the discussions on the
list and record them somewhere that they can easily be found. Topics
naturally tend to wander, so it can be difficult to find an answer if
it is contained in several emails that may have changed subject more
than once. There is a lot of practical information (such as our
discussions about fonts and Unicode), in addition to links,
refinements of meaning in words, information on Pali books, etc. that
could be an excellent suppliment to the list.