Geeklog Forums

I have a large (1200+) and active (50-100 messages/day) listserve that I run using mailman. A large proportion of these users are not terribly computer savvy -- just enough to be able to use email and browse the web. I am setting up a geeklog-based web site for them, and I'd like them to be able to log into geeklog with their mailman credentials. I especially don't want them to have to manually create geeklog accounts if I can avoid it.

The way mailman is configured at my ISP, I cannot get access to the mailman server itself except through mailman's web-based administrative interface, so assume that any code I write against mailman will have to be of the screen-scraping variety. I have already written PHP code that will test whether an email and password represent a valid mailman subscription.

So I'm trying to figure out a meaningful approach to integrating the two systems. Here's what I'm planning on doing:

Modify the geeklog login code so that it first tests the username and password against mailman. If mailman says it's a valid subscription, and no geeklog account already exists with that email address, then create a geeklog account whose login name is a munged version of the email address (e.g., user@example.com becomes user-at-example). If there is already a matching geeklog account with that email address, log them in as that user. Allow users to change their login names if they desire.

Does this sound like a reasonable approach? Can you think of any major gotchas? Can you think of something that would make it even easier than this for my users? (That's my primary goal.)

How arre you tackling this?
I am also interested in trying to manage a closed mailman list via PHP.
I have done something similar with ColdFusion/Lyris using a low tech approach of having the script send admin emails to the lyris list server using a listowner email address along with an admin password.
Am finding that I can't get users subscribed/unsubscribed using a similar strategy with mailman. The request either get trapped as administrivia or sent to the list.
I'm sure this must be easy as I have seen the supposed commands (http://www.washlaw.edu/listserv/mailman.instructions.html) but can't get them to work.

(This is the same person as projectmayday. Sorry I had to change my username.)

Just to follow up: I decided not to do this. It seemed like a lot of work that possibly only a few people would really take advantage of. As it's turned out, the people on my listserve have had what appears to be very little trouble signing up for new accounts on the site. The site is at www.livefromarlington.com if anyone wants to see it.