[CentOS-devel] Talk about existing forums

Thu Dec 17 05:09:22 UTC 2009
M. Milanuk <memilanuk at gmail.com>

FWIW, you can do some pretty sophisticated 'mining' of information using 
MarkMail.org... the main CentOS list is archived there, as is this devel 
list.  I know the lists are archived several places (such as Gmane) but 
MarkMail is pretty good for drilling down when searching - not so good 
for just browsing.  I first came across it when looking for some 
information related to the R-project.  Here are a couple examples:

A search for 'dnsmasq' on the main CentOS list:

http://markmail.org/search/?q=dnsmasq+list%3Aorg.centos.centos

And a listing of all the CentOS mailing lists.

http://markmail.org/search/?q=+list%3Aorg.centos

They provide the code for a small form to embed in an existing site so 
users can enter their search string, hit 'Go', and it takes them to the 
MarkMail page where they can waller around in all the mailing list 
goodness they want ;)

As far as integration into the forums... it looks like there is a 
'mail2forum' project... but it is current only for phpBB2, not phpBB3. 
Eventually (as with most open-source projects) it should get caught 
up... at that point it looks like it should be possible to bridge the 
gap between the lists and the forums.  Until then, I don't think 
neglecting the forums in favor of the mailing lists (or vice versa) 
would be prudent.

HTH,

Monte