Blog service that lets users participate via email?

March 5, 2003 11:53 AM

I need to pick MeFier's brains and I guess this is the place to do it.
I belong to a mailing list that has an absolutely horrible archive. There's great information in the archive that's next to impossible to dig out.
The solution seems to be to switch to something like a blog. But Movable Type, as far as I can tell, doesn't allow people to participate both on a blog-type page and by email, does it?
Can any MeFiers tell me of a blog-type program that also sends out posts as emails and lets people respond via email?
Thanks in advance for any help and I apologize if this is too off topic.
posted by stevefromsparks to MetaFilter-Related at 11:53 AM (9 comments total)

Have you thought about setting up a yahoo group? If you want to keep archives of an email list, since that method of communication is easiest for the members, I'd go that route. MT does have the functionality wherein you can keep a list of people that get emailed when you update the weblog, but that doesn't sound like what you want.
posted by machaus at 12:06 PM on March 5, 2003

It doesn't do you much good now, but I think that Moveable Type Pro would do what you are looking to do...
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 12:18 PM on March 5, 2003

What is the list-owner using to create the archives? If he is using MHonArc, there is an example resource file for formatting the archive like a 'blog. I haven't tried this so I don't know how usable the resault is but it is worth a try.
posted by mumbaiyaa at 12:26 PM on March 5, 2003

QuickTopic is free, simple, and lets you read and post messages via email but it has no security (aside from unguessable URLs) and no real search facility.
posted by jamespake at 12:40 PM on March 5, 2003

Blogroots might be a better place to post this; their resources page has reviews of some blog tools.

But since we're here, BlogComp compares weblog tools and services.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:42 PM on March 5, 2003

I'll let this off-topic post stick around, but I would suggest moving your list over to mailman, which makes great web-based archives.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:58 PM on March 5, 2003

My vote's with Mailman, too. I've been running several discussion lists with it for a couple years, and it works great.
posted by waxpancake at 9:22 PM on March 5, 2003

I would have voted for Yahoo Groups, but our group has run into 3 different "brown-outs" with the service in the past month. It's not a terribly active group (40 posts a day, but spiking to 100 during certain times) so we were surprised to see it fail a couple times.
posted by grum@work at 7:51 AM on March 6, 2003

You might want to look at Mailman, NPOGroups, Dgroups, and Sympa.
posted by tranquileye at 6:56 PM on March 6, 2003