Perl6 Bulletin Board (Message Board)

Okay, it is pretty evident that this topic should move off bootstrap, and is
probably of little interest to most core Perl6 developers who are happy with
mailing lists.

I've summarized what I think might be acceptable and of interest to some,
and suggest that if you are interested in a web-based bulletin board (aka
"better mailing list archives"), please respond to me directly. If there's
enough interest this to merit its own mailing list, perhaps we'll create
one.

Concept: mailing archives + Apache mod_perl + RDBMS == Web-based Bulletin
Board

Bulletin Board Requirements
- Bulletin board is "a better archives"
- Mailing lists are primary mechanism
- Subscribes read-only to all mailing lists
- Supports basic/complex search of mailing lists archives
- Email addresses not displayed
- Posting to WG is not provided (redirect to mailing list?)
- Messages indexed by:
  o  list identifier: perl6-core, perl6-announce, etc.
  o  author
  o  date
  o  subject
- Client specific functionality
  o  Offline viewing mode: grep'able plain-text and html
  o  Threaded view configurable by indexes and depth
  o  Filters exclusionary or inclusionary by indexes
  o  Display variable amount of text/messages per page
  o  Client identified by anonymous cookie or registered login
 
Optional requirements
- Messages show date posted, view count, reply count 
- Handles subset of HTML if included in post
- Handles pod2html if included in post
- Client specific functionality
  o  User defined forums: can group several mailing lists
  o  Moderation:
     > Allow posts to be moderated by simple Yes/No survey:
       interesting, informative, funny, technical, off-topic, etc.
     > Allow client to define own default and/or forum specific
       ranking system. Example: informative >= 2 and technical <= 3
  o  Filters by client defined message values: read, bookmarked, etc.
- Support read/write discussions (messages not posted to mailing list)

Pros
- Nobody is being forced to use it
- Allows yet another point of access to information on Perl6
- Some people actually prefer a web interface
- Collaborative ratings moderation of old messages
- Good for people to track mailing lists for which they aren't
  interested in enough to subscribe or setup mail filters

Cons
- General perception that web-based discussion systems are awkward
- People have to learn another system
- People should rather opt to learn a better mail client
- May require mailing list standards to facilitate parsing?
- If anyone mentions Slashdot, people will burst blood vessels

Garrett