Crazy Idea (YaBB SE IM Network)

[irbrian]

I just had a really crazy idea! Maybe its ridiculous, maybe its revolutionary, I don't know.. but its unique to my knowledge.

I was just thinking, it would be really interesting to be able to send IMs not only within a forum, but to other YaBB SE forums as well. Maybe one way this could be done would be to have an optional field on the IM send screen for a forum address:

To username: [ irbrian              ]
Forum: [ www.yabbse.org/community ]

[Daniel Hofverberg]

It's certainly an interesting idea, but I don't see how it would be practically possible to achieve... To my knowledge, it's not really possible to connect to other servers via PHP (or any server-side language) like this.

Okay, I'm not an expert on PHP (far from it) and maybe other people have more advanced answers, but I would say that it's pretty much impossible...  

[[Unknown]]

This could be done, but it CERTAINLY IS a crazy idea.

* unknown thinks about it because he is crazy too......

-[Unknown]

[groundup]

this could be done, it poses a huge security risk but it can be done. I don't think any server admin will allow you to do it since it involves creating another user that can be accessed from outside of the server and then you would need to give access to that user to everyone else. You could do it in another way but once again you are just creating a user that can destroy a server

Doing it is not feasable.

[[Unknown]]

this could be done, it poses a huge security risk but it can be done. I don't think any server admin will allow you to do it since it involves creating another user that can be accessed from outside of the server and then you would need to give access to that user to everyone else. You could do it in another way but once again you are just creating a user that can destroy a server

Doing it is not feasable.

Privledges could be set for that user, but you are right... it's not gonna happen.

* unknown is still thinking about it because he is crazy too....

-[Unknown]

[Peter Duggan]

I was just thinking, it would be really interesting to be able to send IMs not only within a forum, but to other YaBB SE forums as well.

You'll be inventing email next!

[groundup]

this could be done, it poses a huge security risk but it can be done. I don't think any server admin will allow you to do it since it involves creating another user that can be accessed from outside of the server and then you would need to give access to that user to everyone else. You could do it in another way but once again you are just creating a user that can destroy a server

Doing it is not feasable.

Privledges could be set for that user, but you are right... it's not gonna happen.

* unknown is still thinking about it because he is crazy too....

-[Unknown]

they would need mysql access or write access to a folder where an xml doc or such could be stored.

[irbrian]

Actually, I was kind of thinking of using a sort of central proxy email server.

For instance, you could have a server somewhere called "yabbsemail.volunteermodder.com" and the volunteer would have to be someone with a significant amount of bandwidth and no qualms about allowing outside access to a mysql database.

There would be a database user/pass for each network participant (aka each participating board), and these would have access to the yabbsemail database on the volunteer server.

Or something like that. But... yeah, it really is a really crazy idea.

[Mr.Sins]

peer to peer is best for low bandwidth

you could use a seperate db for the untrusted user.
and yabbse would then access then this db.
this way your yabbse db is not accessed by untrusted users

another way, you know that there are some apps that fill out http forms for you, this is posible since they know how the page is organised maybe this is the most secure solution of them all.

[irbrian]

Good points... but actually, they wouldn't necessarily need to fill out the HTML form itself, they would only need to send the equivalent data to the remote server.

The problem is that the user would have to have an account on the remote server, in which case they may as well just go to that board and post in the first place.

Which may very well be a good argument for why this is just a crazy idea.

[Mach8]

What about duplicate usernames? Someone on forum A has a username of Sam, someone on forum B has a username of Sam... completely independent of each other. Yet with a centralised system, who would get the username?

[irbrian]

This was originally my mod idea, but the more I think about it the more I'm convinced its not so much crazy, as it is pointless. Someone could probably pull it off, but there really isn't any reason for it. If you're going to send someone an IM on a particular board, you may as well just register on that board, and because thats an unnecessary hassle, you could just be Old Fashioned and E-mail them instead.

[Peter Duggan]

You'll be inventing email next!

[Mr.Sins]

Good points... but actually, they wouldn't necessarily need to fill out the HTML form itself, they would only need to send the equivalent data to the remote server.

The problem is that the user would have to have an account on the remote server, in which case they may as well just go to that board and post in the first place.

Which may very well be a good argument for why this is just a crazy idea.

if the form is standard you could write a program that would fill in the form for you.
and about finding the right persons account on the right server use something like [email protected]
the same way as emails get to the right server.

or for servers with multiple boards
[email protected]/yabbse/ we specify the location on the server to

[irbrian]

and about finding the right persons account on the right server use something like [email protected]
the same way as emails get to the right server.

You'll be inventing email next!

Indeed.

You know, forget the whole board to board IM thing.. what about just allowing users to integrate the IM system with their existing E-mail server? For people (like myself) who have the ability to create unlimited e-mail accounts associated with their web hosting account, it would be pretty cool to automatically give users an email address and use it as the core of an alternate IM system.

Naturally there would still be a need for the current IM system for people who don't have that ability, but for those who do, it could be very useful.

What I'm thinking is basically that when a user registers, it could automatically create the E-mail account with that username and password using the root domain of the board (i.e., either [email protected] or [email protected])... or there could be an optional prefix or suffix set by the admin (i.e., a prefix of yabbse would yield the account [email protected]).

Benefits:
- Users get an e-mail account with their board registration
- Eliminates having to check E-mail AND IMs for some users / merges the two technologies
- etc
Drawbacks:
- Not all admins have the ability to create multiple/unlimited e-mail accounts
- Ends the "Seperation of Board and E-mail" which some users may find preferable
-etc

I believe that discussions regarding similar future projects may have taken place in the past, but I'm not sure.