Hi Ken,

I had a long conference call with James and Bruce yesterday and have gotten the business requirements for an e-mail interface. I have been asked to "head up" development of the project. I am putting together a requirements document that I will be posing soon. I invite you, and anyone else who can, to participate in the development of this e-mail system. There are some real business challenges to overcome- as the requirements are "set in stone" and if we can come up with a system that meets those requirements, they will be happy to add it to the forums.

I can tell you that they are dedicated to making this system, within their business restrictions, the best it can be. I throughly discussed why they didn't just "put up" the old Lyris system- They had real technical hurdles that would have resulted in further months of delay before P2P would be back up. I have details about that, if you wish to know them.

a) The sending of e-mail from the web system is part of the forum, and working well. Changes have been made in the past to make them more rule-friendly. Another change is coming to the e-mail format (like the removal of the Hi so and so,") and better formatting. It's in process. I don't see how reading the messages in your inbox doesn't tell you how many messages there are. A spell checker is on it's way and is being tested. This was a custom implemented spell checker to provide maximum flexibility.

b) This is what I am working on, specifically. A modification to allow e-mail posting. I am not sure what you mean by "overflow limit" but I am sure James can look into the problem.

c) you can do this now with your e-mail client. Just subscribe to the forums you like to read and they will come into your inbox- you can then group by topic (at least in outlook). Each message has a reply link on it. Click the link and reply to the message that you read in your inbox. Not a perfect solution- but good in the short term.

d) it can be :)

e) I have seen this implemented in message boards (such as petfinder.com's message boards) and in News Clients. But I have never seen great threading in e-mail. Perhaps I misunderstand you?

Ken, I hope you wish to participate in the development of the e-mail system- I have great respect for you and adOpenStatic.com. I use it frequently as a source of information.

Hal Levy
Daddyshome, LLC