In reply to:

OK, I really don't understand where you're coming from; Marc's list is in no way confusing to me, and I don't think there's anyone else who has been confused or misled by it. Nonetheless, lets try to fix this problem. If WWWThreads starts supporting a real, two-way mail interface, I think they'll have a great product on their hands.

The issue isn't "Is it confusing the few tech-savvy people who are using it today?" it is "Will it confuse the non-savvy people who are just general Empeg consumers a few months from now when Empeg's hit the street on a wider basis?"

On the topic of replying back to the board.... there are LOTS of issues:

1.) user authentication
2.) threading
3.) post authorization (a different entity altogether from authentication)

Further, putting this into the wwwthreads program as opposed to having an independent gateway deal with it requires that -- to install it -- you need to have all sorts of greater access to the box than currently required. (right now all that is needed is cgi-bin access... playing games with dynamic e-mail addresses requires access to the configuration files sendmail/qmail/MTA-of-choice uses. Since MANY wwwthreads users install the software at "joe's random web hosting" company, that's going to be really ugly.

If marc wanted a functional mailing list, he'd have either (a) written it himself, scratching the itch as ESR would put it, or (b) contacted the wwwthreads author about "doing it right" ... instead he put a half-cooked recipe out there which is just a brain-dead non-solution and tries to convince the rest of the world that everyone should help HIM. If he was interested in "communities" he would have solved the two-way problem or made a greater effort (any? effort) to convince the software author to solve it. I find no evidence that Marc has tried to solve the problem at all, really.

D