Forum and List Synchronization

Related: Mail-in

This page describes how to set up a Tiki forum such that all web posts to the forum go to a mailing list, and all e-mails in the mailing list are posted into the forum. It preserves e-mail threading, even on posts in the forums! This allows Tiki to become both a web-based and email-based forum or group where users can use either email or web, or both, to view and submit messages.

Note that the Tiki does not provide the mailing list server capability. You will have to use some external service like Mailman, YahooGroups or similar. Tiki will use its sendmail access to send web-based forum posts to the mailing list. Then you need a unique email account with POP3 (not browser) access for Tiki to retrieve email traffic from the list to post to the forum.

Basic Setup

The portion of the forum administration page you need to modify is as shown below.

There are actually very few options to set in Tiki. But the options setup in Tiki and similarly named options in your Mailing List software can be tricky to get correct. So read through everything to understand the implications before starting.

Before giving the details on each Tiki option, lets give a quick summary of the three email addresses you will be setting up:

Each Tiki option and its setting is covered next. We will then follow by talking about the additional setup required in your mailing list software.

Tiki Registered Users and Mailing List Subscribers

A registered Tiki user who makes a post using the web-based Forum interface will appear in the mailing list with their Tiki user name. The From: email address will be the same for all — the outbound email address as detailed above. An email coming into the Tiki forum via the mailing list will be scanned. If the email address of the sender is the same as one of Tiki's registered users, then the forum post of that incoming email will show as coming from that registered Tiki user. Otherwise, unrecognized email addresses (or Forum users not logged in when posting) appear as Anonymous. The nice thing is that Tiki registered users can use email to read, write and respond to posts and it appears as if they did it via the web-based forum directly.

Transparency of Mailing List and Tiki Forum

Tiki checks the incoming email account and processes all pending emails each time the forum is accessed in a browser. So any visitor will see the latest posts — whether from a web-based Forum entry or the email list. Emails are sent out to the mailing list immediately when a web-based forum post is made. So this setup is transparent to the users of either mechanism (mailing list or Tiki Forum). Nobody can check the Tiki Forum without Tiki first processing the email list for new entries.

But the forum will not update with new email unless someone checks the forum. This only really matters if doing a site-wide search before looking in the forum. Current emails may not be processed and thus not found in a search until someone checks the forum first. Only the Mail-in option for Wiki and Article updates operates independent of user access to the Tiki.

Mailing List Setup

The tricky part is to avoid mail loops during set up and operation. Tiki Forum processing knows to ignore incoming emails from the outbound email address. But sometimes the sender gets changed by the mailing list software. So setup can be tricky; especially if you do not have access to the source email with all its headers.

There are up to three different host domains that will be used. The mailing list (or mail groups) domain, the Tiki Forum's domain (for originating messages from forum posts), and the domain of a unique email account with POP3 access subscribed to the mailing list. They can all be the same domain but do not have to be. You cannot have all three be the same email address though. In fact, never make the "Forward messages ..." (mailing list) and "Add messages ..." (inbound, list subscribed email) be the same address.

While setting up, make the mailing list be moderated. At least until you're sure that everything is working OK. You may want to keep it moderated even later during normal operation; especially if you allow anonymous posts in the Tiki forum. This will help control the email coming from and going to the Tiki forum during setup and break any unintentional loops. Linking a Tiki forum into an active, operating mailing list is possible but difficult to get right without many test messages going to your active mailing list.

Tiki Forum users will likely be confused by automatic messages generated by the mailing list software such as password reminders, automatic response messages on submission, and bounce processing. So if you can avoid those being sent, do so. This is why having a separate account for incoming email (for example, ForumIn@ above) is helpful. You can usually set the membership properties in the mailing list uniquely for that account.

Some email lists make the reply-to field in any email be reset to the list itself. That can help here but can be annoying to some users when private-intended responses are broadcast to the whole list unexpectedly. Simple email replies to posts originated in the Tiki Forum go back to the email list if reply-to is overridden in this way. If reply-to is not overridden and left to the senders email address, then simple replies to emails sent from Forum posts will be lost (as the ForumOut@ account is purposely bogus). A trick can be to use the list email address in place of the ForumOut@ address so that replies will go back to the whole list. Or make the ForumIn@ and ForumOut@ addresses actually be one in the same. But this can also get you into trouble in some other ways and begin to make the mailing list and forum get different messages. (For example, when a message sent to the mailing list by Tiki Forum is bounced from one of the subscribers.) Best to use three separate email addresses, and setup the mailing list with reply-to processing turned off (that is, left to be the sender's email address in the email list).

Make sure the email accounts (ForumOut@ and ForumIn@ in the example above) are subscribed to the mailing list. ForumOut@ posts should be pre-approved (not moderated) and should not receive emails back from the list. This email address is only for submitting messages to the list. Only moderate this address if you allow anonymous posts in the forum and do not want to clutter your mailing list with anonymous posts. ForumIn@ should get emails directly and individually from the mailing list; no digesting. If you have the option, text emails are generally better than HTML going to the Forum. This email address can be moderated in the mailing list as it should never be used to post a message.

Each mailing list engine may require some other unique options. Some common mailing lists and their setups are covered next.

Using "Yahoogroups"

For yahoogroups (http://groups.yahoo.com), it is recommended that you set:

Step 1: contact details

Yahoo Profile: your profile name in yahoo (something like yourprofile at yahoo.com),
Email address: Select the email address that you want the messages to be set to. Here you have to add the same email address used before: ForumIn@myMailHost.com

Step 2: Messages delivery

Select Individual messages only (don't select "Daily digest", or "Special announcements", or "Only Web").

Step 3: Mail preferences

Select Traditional (instead of "Complete (New and Improved)"), for easier viewing in your Tiki (all ads come below the text message).

Press Save changes when done, and that's it.

Using "Mailman"

Mailman ("The" GNU Mailing List Manager) is free software for managing electronic mail discussion and e-newsletter lists, and is used all around the globe. More information: http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/

How to configure it?

That's pretty easy... 😊

Follow a similar approach as in the previous list server case, and if needed, request some help in http://tikiwiki.org/forums 😉