[TriLUG] 9kb message limit on TriLUG mailman server

[Alan Porter]

> Resending (truncated)... * (Can someone please increase
> the ridiculously tiny message size limit for this list?)*


The 9kB limit was determined a few years ago by looking through a huge history of messages posted to our mailing lists.  Basically, Kevin Hunter slogged through all sorts of messages, sorting them into "well formatted" posts vs "me too" and "quoted too much" and "reply to digest" posts.  The cutoff he found from our mail history was 9kB.

That is not to say that we don't allow >9kB posts through... it just means that they don't go through immediately.  A mailman moderator needs to nudge it through.

Is it a hassle?  Yes, on a very few isolated occasions, it has been.  Some people get delayed more than others.  In fact, some of our best list participants (Aaron Joyner, for example) are known for posting longer-than-average responses, and they tend to get snagged more than others.

Is it worth it?  That's up for debate.  Our main mailing list has over 700 recipients.  I'd rather lean towards early filtering than letting all 700 readers slog through a series of "reply to digest" or "me too" posts.

Personally, I feel like 9kB is too small, too.  I find that I have to approve a lot of posts between 9kB and maybe 15kB.  But since Kevin actually did a proper study of our actual list postings from several years, I have erred on the side of using his limit.

If we need to change it, I am open to changing it.  And if others want to join the moderation list so we get faster responses, I am OK with that, too.

Yesterday, the steering committee (re-)noticed this problem, and we're trying to convince mailman that the 9kB limit should apply to the plain text portion of email messages, and not to the HTML+plain total size.  We're testing that out on another list before subjecting all of you to our experiments.

If the group wants to change the current settings, let's discuss it.

Alan Porter
mailing list janitor