[NGO] Request for Discussion: Mailing List Tools

[Hugh T. Ranalli]

Hi everyone,
My name is Hugh Ranalli and I am the technology director for Digital
Opportunity Trust, an NGO focused on technology training and capacity
building in countries around the world.

We're just rolling out our first version of Plone, and I am very excited
about what we can do with it. As others have commented, the Plone community
needs a solid discussion forum / mailing list product. To my mind, this is
one of the most critical tools to get regular people to interact on 
collaborative systems such as Plone.

I know that listen is being developed, and the Zope-based GroupServer looks
very interesting, although they don't yet have any sort of API for
integration. I realise I'm just a fledgling member of the Plone community,
but to my mind it makes sense to support and develop one tool. 

I don't have large budgets, but what I do have is access to a program at the 
University of Toronto's computer science department, where students work
(approx. 120 hours in total) on a project for a non-profit. The students in
this program learn Python, and so they would be naturals for Plone
development. I come from a development background, so I would also be
willing to work closely with them.

I am going to be at the Plone conference in Seattle, and would love to sit
down with anyone else who is interested to discuss how we can collaborate
on something the entire community will benefit from (and which is the best
direction to go in). I have a couple of other projects I would like to see
developed, but this one is foremost on my priority list.

Any takers? Perhaps we can get together one evening.

Thanks,
Hugh