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Re: huge lists



On 21-Oct-1998, Steve Lamb <morpheus@teleute.ml.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Oct 1998 18:27:30 +1000, Tyson Dowd wrote:
> 
> >Every single time this comes up, people who don't pay for internet
> >access by the minute or the megabyte pop up and try to be helpful
> >with "solutions" such as .procmail scripts or mail scoring.
> 
>     Well, pardon me for this one assumption but...  If a person is paying per
> minute/per megabyte I then assume one isn't connected 24/7 and isn't getting
> mail sent directly to their machine.  So...  What is stopping them from using
> those helpful procmail filters on the SERVER side to reduce the load a bit?

Their ISP usually.

> 
> >Some people do pay per minute and per megabyte, and the cost is
> >significant.  Consider it significant enough that they cannot
> >help develop for Debian if the lists continue to grow.
> 
>     Pardon me, but I didn't read "unmanagable" as "costly."  "Unmanagable",
> to me, means hard to manage.  IE, hard to read through, skim over and gleen
> important information from.  That is completely different than the lists
> costing an arm and a leg to just *GET*.

The original post did use the work "unmanagable" but also spent quite
some time talking about how long they too long to download, even in
digest form.

> 
>     As for the lists growing, they are growing because Debian is continuing
> to grow.  Certainly you're not suggesting we stifle the growth of Debian just
> for people who pay to get the lists?  I'll assume (sorry) that you're not
> which means that is something people who pay will have to deal with.  It is
> something that they face with every list that deals with a growing topic.

No, the people who run the lists will have to deal with it, or face
the fact that proportionally less and less users will ever read
debian-user, simply because of the multi-megabyte downloads.

Since debian-user is the main support mechanism for Debian, it is
essentially telling users: you want support? you pay for it by
downloading all this stuff.  There are better ways to present the
lists.

> >Filtering at the receiving end is too late.  It is not a solution to
> >this problem.
> 
>     Again, I point out server side filtering.  Another thing they can do is
> employ IMAP and off-line reading that way.  But as for size and cost, unless
> you can offer some reasonable suggestions other than those presented (stress
> on reasonable) there is no point in crying about people who don't pay who
> offer suggestions about "unmanagable" lists when what was meant was "Costly".

A solution was suggested in the original email and that was to use
better web tools than just monthly archives.  I support that
suggestion.

Another suggestion I have is to get sites such as reference.com or
dejanews.com to index the mailing lists.  This has some drawbacks,
but would provide users with the list in searchable format with little
maintenance on Debian's part.

-- 
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.     - Benjamin Franklin

Tyson Dowd   <tyson@tyse.net>   http://tyse.net


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