WG: Your message to Beginners awaits moderator approval

Folks, it would be really nice if we could get rid of these annoying restrictions (see below). A few megabytes really shouldn't matter in 2020. It just feels ancient and antiquated ...

Couldn't someone increase this limit up to, let's say, 500 MB or at least 50 MB? When someone uses a metered connection, most email clients offer an option to disable automatical attachment downloading ...

Best,

Christoph

---

Von: Beginners <[hidden email]> im Auftrag von [hidden email] <[hidden email]>
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 16. Januar 2020 16:11 Uhr
An: Thiede, Christoph
Betreff: Your message to Beginners awaits moderator approval

 

Your mail to 'Beginners' with the subject

    AW: [Newbies] code to retrieve all method categories and methods
under   a category

Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.

The reason it is being held:

    Message body is too big: 1038818 bytes with a limit of 100 KB

Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
notification of the moderator's decision.  If you would like to cancel
this posting, please visit the following URL:

...

Folks, it would be really nice if we could get rid of these annoying restrictions (see below). A few megabytes really shouldn't matter in 2020. It just feels ancient and antiquated ...

Couldn't someone increase this limit up to, let's say, 500 MB or at least 50 MB? When someone uses a metered connection, most email clients offer an option to disable automatical attachment downloading ...

Best,

Christoph

---

Von: Beginners <[hidden email]> im Auftrag von [hidden email] <[hidden email]>
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 16. Januar 2020 16:11 Uhr
An: Thiede, Christoph
Betreff: Your message to Beginners awaits moderator approval

 

Your mail to 'Beginners' with the subject

    AW: [Newbies] code to retrieve all method categories and methods
under   a category

Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.

The reason it is being held:

    Message body is too big: 1038818 bytes with a limit of 100 KB

Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
notification of the moderator's decision.  If you would like to cancel
this posting, please visit the following URL:

...

On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 12:49:38PM +0000, Thiede, Christoph wrote:
> Does your critic apply to 10 or 50 MB as well? It's so impractical to have a mailing list that does not support sending screenshots.
>

Yes it does.

For me, opening the attached graphics is an annoyance, especially when
I find out that the attachment contains something that could just as
easily have been said in a couple of lines of text. So I end up just
ignoring many of those messages and deleting the attachments.

By way of explanation, I keep a separate gmail account for junk mail,
and I use [hidden email] for things that I care about, such as
Squeak. I will often bounce things with interesting graphics over to
gmail, but postings that contain lots of casual screen shot attachments
just get deleted, sorry.

Dave


>
> Best,
>
> Christoph
>
> ________________________________
> Von: Squeak-dev <[hidden email]> im Auftrag von David T. Lewis <[hidden email]>
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 16. Januar 2020 22:10:00
> An: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> Betreff: Re: [squeak-dev] WG: Your message to Beginners awaits moderator approval
>
> Please no.
>
> I use mutt as my primary mail reader, and I use a small independent ISP
> for mail services with a relatively small disk quota. I will remove myself
> from any mailing list that propagates half-gigabyte emails.
>
> Dave
>
> > Folks, it would be really nice if we could get rid of these annoying
> > restrictions (see below). A few megabytes really shouldn't matter in 2020.
> > It just feels ancient and antiquated ...
> >
> > Couldn't someone increase this limit up to, let's say, 500 MB or at least
> > 50 MB? When someone uses a metered connection, most email clients offer an
> > option to disable automatical attachment downloading ...
> >
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Christoph
> >
> > ________________________________
> > Von: Beginners <[hidden email]> im Auftrag
> > von [hidden email]
> > <[hidden email]>
> > Gesendet: Donnerstag, 16. Januar 2020 16:11 Uhr
> > An: Thiede, Christoph
> > Betreff: Your message to Beginners awaits moderator approval
> >
> > Your mail to 'Beginners' with the subject
> >
> >     AW: [Newbies] code to retrieve all method categories and methods
> > under   a category
> >
> > Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.
> >
> > The reason it is being held:
> >
> >     Message body is too big: 1038818 bytes with a limit of 100 KB
> >
> > Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
> > notification of the moderator's decision.  If you would like to cancel
> > this posting, please visit the following URL:
> >
> > ...
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>

>

We raised the limit on squeak-dev a while ago, we will raise the limit on beginners (this probably was just an oversight).

That being said, I can see no reason why you would have to attach a fullscreen snapshot, instead of snapshotting the relevant part of your screen. Similarly, a 3-second small-window screen cast to explain something is reasonable to just paste into an email, but for a full-length hi-res video you really should send a link instead.

- Bert -

On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 9:48 AM Thiede, Christoph <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi John,

it is just annoying that I cannot send usual screenshots over the list. It's not the first time I collided with this limit when trying to send an on-topic message to the list.

I admit the request for 500 MB was way too high, but to make this discussion more fact-based, I made some tests:

A usual fullscreen screenshot on a high-DPI monitor, stored as PNG file, can cost up to 3 MB.

Sometimes we even have animated gifs on this list, Marcel sent one recently to demonstrate a bug, and I valuate this possibility, too. A small animated gif (500 x 400 px) can also cost up to 5 MB.

The mail that has been rejected yesterday contains a detailed step-by-step description with 7 screenshots (however, they only show each one window, so they are much smaller).

Don't we want such detailed content on the list? At the moment, I would need to upload the images to an external hoster, which is much more time-consuming for both writers and readers.

With respect to these values, I think that 10 or at least 5 MB could be a good compromise.

I believe in the phrase "one picture says more than thousand words". And even if it only said just as much, it would still be easier and faster to understand.

@Dave, I still do not understand what is your problem with graphics. Don't usual mail clients have a cache for attachment that can clear itself automatically? Or are you using a metered connection?

@Phil: Excessive use of memes or banners may indeed be a matter of flavor. But IMHO, first, the current limit cannot hinder anyone from sending this kind of content, and second, there are alternative and more effective ways of content moderation than attachment limits :)

Best,

Christoph

---

Von: Squeak-dev <[hidden email]> im Auftrag von John-Reed Maffeo <[hidden email]>
Gesendet: Freitag, 17. Januar 2020 15:57:15
An: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
Betreff: Re: [squeak-dev] WG: Your message to Beginners awaits moderator approval

 

What is the use case for enabling large email messages on the Beginners List? Is the list less effective because of the current limit? Are we discussing images/content other than screen shots? Have any alternatives been explored? I would like to see a rational argument for the proposal before I decide if I support it.

-jrm

On Thu, Jan 16, 2020 at 8:17 AM Thiede, Christoph <[hidden email]> wrote:

Folks, it would be really nice if we could get rid of these annoying restrictions (see below). A few megabytes really shouldn't matter in 2020. It just feels ancient and antiquated ...

Couldn't someone increase this limit up to, let's say, 500 MB or at least 50 MB? When someone uses a metered connection, most email clients offer an option to disable automatical attachment downloading ...

Best,

Christoph

---

Von: Beginners <[hidden email]> im Auftrag von [hidden email] <[hidden email]>
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 16. Januar 2020 16:11 Uhr
An: Thiede, Christoph
Betreff: Your message to Beginners awaits moderator approval

 

Your mail to 'Beginners' with the subject

    AW: [Newbies] code to retrieve all method categories and methods
under   a category

Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.

The reason it is being held:

    Message body is too big: 1038818 bytes with a limit of 100 KB

Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
notification of the moderator's decision.  If you would like to cancel
this posting, please visit the following URL:

...

--

John-Reed Maffeo