Email Integration
Table of contents
- 1. Watchlist Notifications
- 1.1. Use Cases
- 1.1.1. "Walled Garden" Editors
- 1.1.2. Discussion Pages
- 1.1. Use Cases
- 2. Implementation
- 2.1. Reference
- 3. Email as print option
- 3.1. Implementation
- 3.2. Reference
- 4. Document Email-in Capability
Possible uses of email with Deki Wiki.
Watchlist Notifications
Users should have the option to receive email notifications about watched pages or areas of the wiki. Most wikis offer this ability, and I think it's critical for successful adoption. Most of my users have no idea what RSS is--if it doesn't appear in their Inbox, it isn't real, and it will be forgotten.
Use Cases
Having the option to get change summaries as emails advances several key uses.
"Walled Garden" Editors
Appointed or self-appointed editors of the wiki, or areas of the wiki, will want regular updates about changes or new pages in their areas of interest.
Discussion Pages
If discussion pages are to be useful, participants will want a convenient means of seeing updates. Again, email makes the most sense here.
Implementation
Some thoughts on how to do it.
- Offer truncated summaries of each change, perhaps as a giant table.
- Offer immediate, daily/nightly, or weekly notifications (per-user, not per watched page or area).
- Permit users the ability to manipulate other users' watchlists, or at least administrators
- Part of the thinking here is that the the very users who are reluctant to use the wiki will most need someone else to manage watchlists for them.
Email as print option
To encourage wiki users to generate and record their content directly into the wiki, there needs to be a means of sharing that content easily with other users--even those who never touch the wiki.
Business users will want and need an easy way to go from the old system (email) to the new system (wikis).
TWiki has an add-on for this, and this one of the more frequently used features of our dear old, pre-DekiWiki TWiki installation.
Implementation
How to do it.
- Include HTML version of page as body of email
- Option to add brief note at the top of the page
- Include a link back to the original page
- Preserve as much formatting as possible, embedding CSS in tags if necessary
Document Email-in Capability
Users can send an email to a Deki instance with the document(s) in attachment and the page title as subject line. If there's any text in the email, it'll get posted as comment. Contact pub.msu -at- gmail.com if you need any elaboration. I'll try to elaborate on this here.
- Tag page
- What links here
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I see it as much more flexible and less work for you ;)
edited 20:02, 2 Nov 2007
John Whitlock
wik.is customer
Add a checkbox to allow the author (or moderator) making the change decide if it's 'major' enough to be emailed to those subscribing to changes, and include a feature for including/not including new comments as a 'Watch Item' to be emailed.
Emailing without spamming is always going to be a tricky balancing act, but such a large part of our community uses email as their sole e-communication portal that we are forced to strike a compromise, as you are obviously aware.
Does this sound like a reasonable idea to others?
- Marc
(Cross-posting from my entry in the forum thread at http://forums.opengarden.org/showpost.php?p=12660&postcount=17 )
Case in point, will anyone be notified of this comment?!
But please - create it so e-mail addresses can be related to specific secure areas that are restricted in access, so it can be used with sensitive mails also.