in reply to MonkMail!
Well, like many, I've pondered the prospect of MonkMail. But really, I'd just like to have internal mail, with which to communicate with other monks. Leaving /msgs in my chatterbox forever really isn't practical.
But, as a short-term hack, the chatterbox is a great start. What if, for instance, you had a page which only you could see, but to which many people could write (via a form)? Initially just a pared-down chatterbox page, which received (longer) /msgs, and had a textarea for replies.
Then, with added features, maybe I could use other pages as subdirectories, so I could organize stuff a little more after the fashion of regular mail. And have an automatic response, or ban certain people, or set a minimum level to send mail to me, etc.
Personally, I don't feel a need for yet another email account. I wouldn't mind the capability of using it as regular email, but I'd rather not have to, as I'd certainly rather not deal with spam. If I really want to impress people at business meetings, there's always my #!/usr/bin/perl tattoo. ;-)
Anyway, I think a monks-only mail system would be quick to implement, and really enhance communciations on the site.