I want to make a Jekyll-based site that multiple authors can post to by email. Can you help?

November 5, 2012 6:27 AM

I want to make a Jekyll-based site that multiple authors can post to by email. Can you help?

So I have all these friends whose writings I would like to publish with Jekyll. Assume no technical expertise on part of the authors.

So I thought, email. Ideally, email "conversations" between two or more people are published immediately. I've looked at JekyllMail: https://github.com/masukomi/JekyllMail. Is this possible?

posted by anonymous to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

If you could follow up anonymously through a mod (send a mod a MeMail, or use the contact form), I think it would help us to know a bit more information:

1) Why, specifically, Jekyll? I like Jekyll as much as the next guy, and I use it for a couple of microsites I maintain, but it doesn't really seem optimized for this kind of scenario. Where Jekyll shines is version-control-driven updating (ie, git post-commit hook that regenerates/publishes the site), or allowing template driven sites where server-side scripting isn't possible. It seems like there are plenty of friendlier systems out there, if the goal is publishing by non-technical end users. I know it's got a bad rap in a lot of ways, but WordPress has an excellent WYSIWYG-ish editor and is pretty easy to post in, assuming your host has PHP and MySQL support. If you're limited to a host that does not support server-side scripting at all, that's a different problem (you'll need a computer somewhere checking mail or whatever, and updating the site). So many variants here it's hard to make suggestions without knowing more detail.

2) Can you please elaborate on what's wrong with JekyllMail in the context of your scenario? The reliance on a secret in the subject line? The inability to distinguish between multiple authors? That authors need to specifically address messages to a pop3 account? Without knowing these details, it's hard to figure out what challenges you need addressed.
posted by Alterscape at 7:54 AM on November 5, 2012

I think you're way overengineering this. What goal are you trying to achieve that something like Google Groups (or any other listserv with an archive) can't?

I agree with Alterscape that JekyllMail seems like it would functionally do what you want, but I think it'd be weird to have each reply to each message spat out as a separate blog post without a good way to navigate threads.
posted by mkultra at 8:02 AM on November 5, 2012