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On Monday 11 February 2002 12:20, you wrote:
Adrian Midgley wrote:Requirements --------------------- The LMC wants to be able to run a threaded discussion protected by password security. In my view the connections should use SSL/ssh or similar security, since matters discussed might touch on patient information that would allow inference attacks, and also since NHS sysadmins should not be tempted to allow anyone access to such streams of information.Would a private newsgroup server meet the threaded discussion need? It would thus not mandate any specific client, and possibly a web interface could be made available for those unwilling to use a news client.
A reasonable approach IMHO. Is hosting an NNTP server easily available? Co-location probably is over the top, so can it be done with a virtual server or with private newsgroups on an available system? I think News has many useful characteristics for this, but it would be a "new" technology to most of the users. Very reasonable approach I'd say, just comes down to installation support, getting it going support for each user, and then maintainability.
Archiving requirements?
I'd suggest archiving to storage in the secretariat, which does have CD-R burning abilities. The volume thus far has been low, one may hope that the number of articles would increase, but I suspect that modest amounts of disk would hold it all for a while. I tend to think in terms of minutes and sumaries rather than an archive in use for every passing comment.
Further to that, I see a need for a collaborative document preparation, manual updating and generally holding easily-alterable pages in common. THis is not the immediate need but should be considered.
I'm a tad unclear as to whether this include connectivity issues, i.e. do you want a bank of modems included in the work, would it be expected to run on the same server etc. Or were you expecting an Internet connectivity based solution? i.e. These systems already dial into the Internet but are firewalled.
Internet. We have the connectivity, will need to identify hosting arrangments. I was getting at a Wiki or an equivalent, as a possible later addition, or if the main thing was eg a threaded discussion board cum publishing system based in PHP then PHPWiki might fit right in from day one.
Collaborative document work, like a Wiki, or like version control and workflow (such as Lotus Notes).
Notes also does threaded discussions, but it wasn't easy to use, or terribly good last time I looked. I think it supports NNTP.
Our office manager has Notes experience, and I've used Notes systems in the past. It didn't seem a popular choice really, albeit more reliable than MS Exchange-based systems. -- From one of the Linux desktops of Dr Adrian Midgley http://www.defoam.net/ -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.