[p2pu-dev] Two way communication for notifications and messaging

Jessy Kate Schingler jessy at jessykate.com
Mon Jun 4 17:51:20 UTC 2012 

that's cool dirk i've not heard of cloudmailin!

looking at their site it seems like a pretty neat service in general, but
i;m not sure how much it would buy us in terms of reducing the work we have
to do on the server side. doing it ourselves i guess we would write a
script that parses incoming mails in the postfix maildir or exim equivalent
(which cloudmailin would take care of). but we still have to disambiguate
responses into specific accounts/discussion threads/models.

anyway, my sense is that it wouldn't save us a ton of effort, and would
increase dependencies on external services, but curious what others think.

other thoughts?

On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 8:53 AM, Stian Håklev <shaklev at gmail.com> wrote:

> To get a sense of the traffic levels, how many messages are posted every
> month on P2PU right now? (Of course, we'd then have to estimate roughly
> what percentage of those messages are likely to be posted through email
> rather than online).
>
> Stian
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 11:22 AM, Dirk Uys <dirk at p2pu.org> wrote:
>
>> Googling around a bit I found http://www.cloudmailin.com/
>>
>> They turn your email into an http post to your website. I like the
>> idea, it keeps the email stuff separate from the messaging logic.
>>
>> They also have special pricing options for non-profits.
>>
>> The alternative would be to setup our own mail server and use some
>> python bindings for mail and a celery task. There's poplib and imaplib
>> for python.
>>
>> Any thoughts
>>
>> Cheers
>> d
>>
>> On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 1:02 AM, Stian Håklev <shaklev at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > A lot of emails disregard anything after a + in an email user name, like
>> > GMail which will send all mail to shaklev+test at gmail.com to
>> > shaklev at gmail.com. So if the server receives all mail to reply+dfsfd
>> to the
>> > reply address, and the reply address is able to strip this out of the
>> > header, and then know where to put it, based on the unique ID, we
>> should be
>> > good to go.
>> >
>> > I am sure there are services and APIs out there for doing this as well,
>> but
>> > they are probably expensive for the kind of volume (although we'd have
>> a lot
>> > less replies by email than we have email notifications).
>> >
>> > For such a common problem, you'd think there'd be a Django module or at
>> > least a Python implementation out there somewhere as well. But I don't
>> know
>> > how much of the challenge is in the Lernanta codebase, and how much is
>> the
>> > email server etc.
>> >
>> > Stian
>> >
>> >
>> > On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 1:44 PM, Jessy Kate Schingler <
>> jessy at jessykate.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> really cool dirk.
>> >>
>> >> i dont have a particular mail server recommendation though have
>> personally
>> >> done more with postfix than exim.
>> >>
>> >> i just did a quick search for "comments reply by email" and noticed
>> that
>> >> wordpress implemented this last year. obviously they're php but it
>> might be
>> >> interested to take a look at the WP codebase to see how they
>> implemented it.
>> >>
>> >> looking at facebook notifications, they use emails structured like so:
>> >> update+ohlp1evf at facebookmail.com
>> >>
>> >> so i guess update@ is their updates email address and the hash let's
>> them
>> >> disambiguate to a specific conversation thread via some kind of script
>> >> internally. i think this would be a fun/interesting thing to
>> contribute to
>> >> if it gets going, but know my time will be somewhat limited this
>> summer with
>> >> internship work.
>> >>
>> >> jessy
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 6:26 AM, Dirk Uys <dirk at p2pu.org> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> Thanks, having a look at ack atm!
>> >>>
>> >>> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 3:07 PM, Jos Flores <josmasflores at gmail.com>
>> >>> wrote:
>> >>> > Dirk, thanks for the walkthrough, it does make sense.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > I've noticed you recommend grep... have you tried ack? it's really
>> >>> > cool!
>> >>> > I use grep very little since I discovered it :)
>> >>> >
>> >>> > cheers,
>> >>> > José
>> >>> >
>> >>> > On 1 June 2012 09:57, Dirk Uys <dirk at p2pu.org> wrote:
>> >>> >> No problem. At the moment the notification code isn't in one place
>> >>> >> (something we can work on).
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> I'm going to start explaining from the point where the email is
>> sent
>> >>> >> to the user and work my way backwards to where notifications are
>> >>> >> generated. Please tell me if this ends up being confusing
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Emails are sent to a user by calling
>> >>> >> django.contrib.auth.models.User.email_user
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> (
>> https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/auth/#django.contrib.auth.models.User.email_user
>> )
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> email_user() is called by an async celery task SendNotification
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> (
>> https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/blob/master/lernanta/apps/users/tasks.py#L25
>> )
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> SendNotification tasks can be created in multiple places:
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> There is a signal
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> (
>> https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/blob/master/lernanta/apps/content/models.py#L245
>> )
>> >>> >> that fires when tasks are created or modified. This signal then
>> calls
>> >>> >> a function called send_email_notification
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> (
>> https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/blob/master/lernanta/apps/content/models.py#L213
>> )
>> >>> >> that creates SendNotifications tasks.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Another example is sent_creation_notification
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> (
>> https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/blob/master/lernanta/apps/projects/models.py#L270
>> )
>> >>> >> thats part of projects.models.Project. This function is called from
>> >>> >> the create function
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> (
>> https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/blob/master/lernanta/apps/projects/models.py#L270/
>> )
>> >>> >> that in turn gets called in the create view
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> (
>> https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/blob/master/lernanta/apps/projects/views.py#L189
>> )
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> I'm not sure at what other places SendNotification tasks are
>> created,
>> >>> >> but you can grep to code base to find out. grep -r
>> SendNotification *
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> The fact that the places where SendNotification tasks are created
>> are
>> >>> >> spread all over isn't a problem in itself, but at the moment checks
>> >>> >> for notification preference also seem spread out a bit. For example
>> >>> >> task updates
>> >>> >> (
>> https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/blob/master/lernanta/apps/content/models.py#L234
>> ).
>> >>> >> It also makes it difficult to implement batching of notifications.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Than being said, I think that notification may be one of the first
>> >>> >> parts of Lernanta that we can put into a separate module without
>> too
>> >>> >> much surgery on the whole code base.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Cheers
>> >>> >> d
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 10:28 AM, Jos Flores <
>> josmasflores at gmail.com>
>> >>> >> wrote:
>> >>> >>> Hey Dirk,
>> >>> >>>
>> >>> >>> I know nothing about the topic but curious about where the
>> >>> >>> notifications code is and how it works... could you point me
>> towards
>> >>> >>> it?
>> >>> >>>
>> >>> >>> cheers,
>> >>> >>> José
>> >>> >>>
>> >>> >>>
>> >>> >>> On 1 June 2012 09:01, Dirk Uys <dirk at p2pu.org> wrote:
>> >>> >>>> Hi
>> >>> >>>>
>> >>> >>>> I've been thinking a little bit about two way interaction for
>> >>> >>>> messaging and notifications. On the software side of things I
>> don't
>> >>> >>>> foresee too much trouble, but on the config side of things I'm a
>> >>> >>>> little uncertain.
>> >>> >>>>
>> >>> >>>> Our primary MX record points to google, then @lists.p2pu.orgpoints
>> >>> >>>> to
>> >>> >>>> the service we use for the mailing list. I guess we could use
>> >>> >>>> something like @site.p2pu.org? I see that github uses
>> >>> >>>> @reply.github.com with something that looks like a one time
>> token.
>> >>> >>>>
>> >>> >>>> Is there any specific mail server that anyone would suggest? I
>> have
>> >>> >>>> always skipped the talk about mail servers when reading linux
>> >>> >>>> sysadmin
>> >>> >>>> docs :)
>> >>> >>>>
>> >>> >>>> Cheers
>> >>> >>>> d
>> >>> >>>>
>> >>> >>>> ps. I apologize for the thinking as I type email
>> >>> >>>> _______________________________________________
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>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Jessy
>> >> http://jessykate.com
>> >>
>> >>
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>> >
>> >
>> >
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-- 
Jessy
http://jessykate.com
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