BuddyPress.org

I run a Mailman email self-help group and am thinking of moving to a forum. But it’s important we can have email notification when messages are posted and can post messages and reply by email. While some members would prefer a forum, we’ve found that having messages turn up in everyone’s inboxes mean more people read them and join in the discussion. And lurkers who say they wouldn’t think to keep checking in on a forum say they find reading the messages as they appear in their inboxes helpful. And it’s quicker to reply by email than to log in to a forum.

The downsides are that on a busy day, it crowds our inboxes. And it’s not easy to search old messages. So a forum with the option to turn notifications on and off and to reply by email is worth trying.

– What I don’t know is: do I just need bbPress or should I go for BuddyPress?
– And how do I set up the email capability?

I saw the list of plugins in Commons in a Box. It includes BuddyPress Group Email Subscription and BuddyPress reply By Email.

– Will these do the trick?
– Will they work with bbPress or do they need BuddyPress?
– Are there other plugins worth looking at?

Sorry to ask so much. I haven’t set up a forum before and don’t know the pros and cons of different packages.

By the way, it’s a private group and some members prefer to remain anonymous. So it’s important that notifications don’t include visible email addresses of other members. I’ve seen some posts in this forum saying some people are having a problem with addresses being CC instead of BCC.

Thanks for help.

Clare
(Am having trouble posting messages in this and the bbPress support forum. Tried twice there and once before here and the messages just disappear. Maybe it’s because I had links to the plugin pages, so I’ll try this time without the link. Sorry if there are duplicate posts appearing somewhere – but I can’t find my own message :0( )