Private Message Limit (Round 2)

[darr]

I have been running the print exchange for 5 years. We have in upwards of 60 participants--do you think I receive a lot of PMs? I do not have a problem handling all my messages. Maybe I approach things differently than you do. I am always appreciative of whatever life brings me and in this case, this forum. I have been visiting this site long before we had the vbulletin software and we conversed to each other via email. Do you remember those days? My personal email is my responsibility and I do not expect someone else to manage it for me. I think you should just simply be grateful for what we have on this forum and leave it at that. You could always develop your own photography forum and have more control over whatever it is you want changed here.

If you "buy a lot of things" off this site, then I cannot imagine you would not want to keep those financial records on your own computer if nothing else for budget and tax records.

It's not a complaint, it's a suggestion for improvement. I believe this forum didn't have a Classifieds until requested. So why can't we ask for things? Seriously?? Furthermore, you are forgetting an entire member of a transaction - the BUYER. If I buy a lot of things, maybe I want to see my PM's stick around for a while? Or should I also setup a site to ask for what I'm looking for?

I don't think anyone is talking about making this forum NOT FREE. Why is that even in your post? If the admin needed to ask for money to increase the PM count there is probably more problems than just getting money for the extra 5kb of space needed.

[D. Bryant]

Didn't know there would be so much animosity towards a simple change that would improve the functionality of the site. Sorry if I don't want to archive them on my computer. I routinely use many different computers and travel so it's much, much simpler to log on and check the PM's box, and I don't have to constantly update an archive or whatever.

Just put them in cloud storage and sync your computers. These days that's pretty simple. And cloud storage can be free.

I really can't understand the need for more than 100 PM storage. I find little need to maintain an archive of PMs. If the information is really that important then take care of your own baggage.

[Greg Miller]

Just put them in cloud storage and sync your computers. These days that's pretty simple. And cloud storage can be free.

I really can't understand the need for more than 100 PM storage. I find little need to maintain an archive of PMs. If the information is really that important then take care of your own baggage.

Diito. Just get a free 2GB Dropbox.com account and they will be accessible from any computer with internet access.

[Vaughn]

I vote "Its up to the site's owner", but unfortunately that was not a choice given.

[eddie]

everytime i hit 100 PM i think...."man! i am so glad it is not 50 anymore!"

i find that i un check the save sent messages most of the time. this saves lots. i figure the other person will respond and i will get my original topic back.... i do save my sent messages if it is important.

i have been saving my PMs to my computer for years now.....i think i MIGHT have had to go back and look at them once! just yesterday i was thinking about not saving them any more ever......

but as said above, most messages can be deleted right after we read them. just today i had a discussion with a member. sent him 6 or 7 messages and received that many responses. adds up fast. all have been deleted....well the "sent" messages were never saved so......

i prefer people access my through my e mail (under the drop down on my user name) but even when i say e mail me i get PMs. PMs are harder to access on my phone when i am on the run.

i am just glad we have more than 50!


edit: the poll needs an "i do not care either way" option

[Corran]

It's amazing what someone will read into a post. I AM grateful for this site, or specifically the information and opinions contained within. I still think it's a simple matter that more PM's would be beneficial to some and would of course not impede anything (assuming that there was not some catastrophic problem in the server storage algorithms or whatever, which seems unlikely).

[BrianShaw]

I'm curious... have you PM'd the site owner and asked him if he will increase the limit? Or is this thread how you are communicating with him?

[Greg Miller]

It's amazing what someone will read into a post. I AM grateful for this site, or specifically the information and opinions contained within. I still think it's a simple matter that more PM's would be beneficial to some and would of course not impede anything (assuming that there was not some catastrophic problem in the server storage algorithms or whatever, which seems unlikely).

All things equal, yes, more PMs would be better.

But nothing comes free. Going from 100 messages to 500 would, at least quintuple the required storage for PMs. If they are using any form of RAID, which is likely, it will be more. Perhaps they have the space today, perhaps this would push them into purchasing or rent more storage now, at the least it will cause them to have to upgrade earlier than otherwise. A bigger database means more RAM and CPU are required to maintain performance. All subsequent database maintenance tasks will take longer. Backups will take longer and be bigger. If they keep multiple backups, the additional size grows significantly. When they need to migrate to new hardware, it will take longer. If they ever have to restore the database it will take longer. If they need to migrate due to a database schema change, it will take longer, and the site will be down longer.

So what you are asking will cost money, and will take more of someone's time. I'd rather see them spend money on film or lenses, and spend time out photographing.

The fact that you have 3,000 PMs saved on some other site has me really scratching my head. Maybe they are important, but I cannot fathom having that many PMs that really need to be saved.

[Corran]

No I haven't emailed anyone, I thought the whole point of this sub-forum was to make suggestions so I thought that would be appropriate.

I really don't know, so I am curious as to the real-world implications of the extra storage. I know I personally use only a fraction of my upload/download and storage on my business website. If there is already a glut of extra space, then it shouldn't matter from a cost perspective, but yeah it'll take longer to backup/migrate if that happens. I can understand that.

On the other hand, the difference between a *.txt document that is 300,000 characters (100 PM's of 3,000 characters) and one that is 5 times for 500 PM's is 2.94 KB vs. 14.7 KB (just checked on Microsoft Word). According to the site there are about 2700 "active members." If they all filled up their boxes of 500 PM's it would be about 40 MB, which is practically nothing these days. These are just estimates based on raw text so I guess it doesn't really matter, but I was just curious. Obviously increasing the limit doesn't mean people will actually use it. I imagine the majority of users don't PM anyone.

A note about the 3,000 PM's on the other site: I don't reference them all the time or anything but there are some valuable things in there that I have looked back on. I don't think that site has the backup/storage to harddrive option which is why I never even thought about that here in the first place.

[Darin Boville]

I'm impressed, Bryan, by your stamina! And I agree with you 100%.

Just keep in mind--this is a board full of large format photographers. As a group, they (we?) are resistant to change. Sort of by definition.

--Darin