Inbox Full so quickly

[~simaholic]

Hi all

Can I suggest that we can have more messages in our inbox. If that is not possible could that the person we are trying to mail that's inbox is full, get some sort of message warning them that someone is trying to sent them a message and they should empty their inboxes. I think our limit is 10 at the moment.

*Pierre your inbox is full, tried to sent you the link to your request outfit*

[Jenna]

Be glad you're given an inbox at all, slave!

Humor aside, the tiny inbox size is by Pescado's decree. Something about saving room in the DB or the like.

[~simaholic]

  Yeah, with no beta testing I kinda forgot I was a slave....having all this lovely freedom at the moment 

Thanks, I will remember to empty it out as soon as it is about 50%, so that people can still pm me while I am sleeping LOL 

[Inge Jones]

How long before the site gets its own server and can go back to being like it was meant to be?  Are we having a donation drive or what?

[Ali]

we don't have a definitive eta on servers yet Inge, however we are gathering information so watch this space!

I know it's slow going but bear in mind that most of us have never dealt with having to sort out our own hosting and servers and whatnot - never even dreamt that we would need to! - so this is a HUGE learning curve for us!

[J. M. Pescado]

The inbox space isn't gonna get much larger. The previous Kathy regime devoted a massive amount of space JUST to the junk-storage of a kajillion useless PMs. And there is simply no reason why anyone would ever get that many PMs! Seriously, what are you people *DOING* with all that inbox space? Receiving THAT many PMs within the span of a single visit is kind of absurd, don't you think? I have never gotten more than 3 or 4 between visits, and that is when something is on fire!

As for another server, at the moment, the site is already on its own server, so moving it to a different server at this point in time would simply result in pointless downtime and be a waste of resources. I could always use another server, but there is simply no point in racking up an additional bill that no one needs when present resources are adequate for the task.

[jamesabrown1]

It may be that on the prior site, deleted PMs stayed there. I got messages from Kathy alerting me that she was getting rid of messages that I had deleted some time back. Perhaps if the delete would actually delete the PM instead of simply hiding it while retaining the things and taking up space.

[Inge Jones]

Could some regular admin-led purging of old PMs be done, rather than limit new ones to quite such a low allowance?  I can't remember seeing the option natively in SMF, but maybe there is a mod for it?

Also consider vaping old chatter and game threads - anything that really isn't of interest once the time is passed.

[J. M. Pescado]

Could some regular admin-led purging of old PMs be done, rather than limit new ones to quite such a low allowance?  I can't remember seeing the option natively in SMF, but maybe there is a mod for it?

SMF does not include such a mod that I am aware of, and also, blind admin-purging of PMs might wipe out the one thing you're actually keeping because it's useful or relevant to some long-running project. The fact of the matter, however, is that 99% of user PM content is utterly vapid and there is no reason a normal user should retain that many, and indeed, allowing them to retain it will simply teach really bad habits. Do not retain old messages. Read them, respond to them, delete them. PMs stored in DB add weight to the DB and slow down all DB operations. If you MUST retain the old messages, save them to flatfile on your personal hard drive.

Also consider vaping old chatter and game threads - anything that really isn't of interest once the time is passed.

We did.

[jamesabrown1]

Can't argue with that. My world is the world of mainframes and that pretty much is exactly what is done there.

[Inge Jones]

SMF does not include such a mod that I am aware of, and also, blind admin-purging of PMs might wipe out the one thing you're actually keeping because it's useful or relevant to some long-running project.

<snip>

If you MUST retain the old messages, save them to flatfile on your personal hard drive.

Surely you could do that the other way round, save your important project-related PMs to flatfile on your own disk?

Pros and cons:
IS might have several thousand members.  Many or most of these might have 10 useless old PMs stored up, as opposed to the 10 or so users who might have an important project-related PM.  Many or most of the users with 10 useless old stored PMs will not have logged on in months.  Why leave 10,000 useless old PMs lying around when you could turn that number to 0 instantly?

The person who is receiving important project-related PMs may have more than 10 of those important PMs sent to him/her during their sleep hours.   The 11th and 12th will never be received.  Isn't this worse than the project-modder having to save his PMs to disk before they become old enough to purge?

[jamesabrown1]

Good point. I neglected to say that the purging I am most familiar with does not relate to number, but to age, after 90 days, they are gone if not saved. To modders/creators, 10 might be too few.

[J. M. Pescado]

Pros and cons:
IS might have several thousand members.  Many or most of these might have 10 useless old PMs stored up, as opposed to the 10 or so users who might have an important project-related PM.  Many or most of the users with 10 useless old stored PMs will not have logged on in months.  Why leave 10,000 useless old PMs lying around when you could turn that number to 0 instantly?

Why, indeed? If you can find a mod for purging crap specifically from dead users, let me know. Otherwise, they'll probably be purged when the users themselves are purged.

The person who is receiving important project-related PMs may have more than 10 of those important PMs sent to him/her during their sleep hours.   The 11th and 12th will never be received.  Isn't this worse than the project-modder having to save his PMs to disk before they become old enough to purge?

The Creator group has a somewhat larger inbox for that reason. Still, who the hell gets that many PMs at once unless they are soliciting spam in some way?

[Paden]

What's the flap? I mean, on PMBD we're damn lucky to have space for five PM's in total, so really folks, what's the big deal? Delete is your friend, because as some folks have found, Private Messages are not private once they are sent. Read, respond, screen cap if you want, then delete.

[Inge Jones]

Paden, why are you making a comparison with PMBD?  WTH does this site have to do with PMBD?   So now we have the rule of 6 in age like MATY, and the rule of 10 in PMs like PMBD.  And I am supposed to go on believing the plan is to NOT run it like another Pescado site?

It's not a problem for me personally, as I am not historically a frequent user of this site, or the site whose data it sprang from.  And I have certainly learnt to cope on other Pescado sites anyway.  But if the idea was to keep the old ambience and style so as to fool the old users (some of whom were here because they were deliberately trying to stay away from either MATY or MTS2) into thinking they were still at home on the new site, it's a bit PHAIL.