[Zope-dev] Homegrown vs. Storebought

[Edmund Goppelt]

I'd like to add two capabilities to my city government web site:

1. users should be able to initiate discussions about legislation
pending before our City Council.  i.e., discussions will be tied to the
relevant bill document.

2. users must register in order to post.  I'd like enough information
so that if someone posts death threats or the like they can be tracked
down.

I don't need threaded discussions (though that would be nice) so I'm
tempted just to roll my own.  Is there anything out there in the way
of easy to use discussion Products that I could pop in to my site
without buying into a gigantic set of associated machinery a la CMF?

As far as enforcing some minimal accountability on the part of
posters, the Membership product seems like my best bet, though there
are some things I'd like to change, e.g., I'd like user info stored in
a SQL db, not Zope, passwords should not be encrypted 'cause I want to
send them out every month, and I want different info. stored about
users than the default properties provided by the Product.  How hard
do you think this would be with Membership?

Are there any other Products I should consider IYO?

Thanks!

-- 

Ed Goppelt