1000 byte private message limit

[Dog-One]

I was asked a question via private message and had to break my reply into 4 parts because of a 1000 byte limit. Is there a proper way around this?

[superbnerd]

I know, I had to cut back and only include the esential details. Felt like I was back in school editting my essays. The admods would have to increase the limit, so good luck with that.

[Dog-One]

It's not a huge problem for me, just a little bit of a pain cut and pasting. I would use email, but the gentlemen didn't allow it directly.

[crackers]

I don't think it's intended for a replacement for other messaging systems, but rather a kind of "ping me" operation. Instead of trying to force the information into the message, why don't you just explain the gist and ask the recipient if he/she would mind e-mailing you about it?

[jcstille]

1000 has always been plenty for me, but if it becomes a large problem, this forum has always been open to suggestions.

[Ug]

Surely if its a problem it would be better to discuss it in a forum thread for the benefit of all? And as crackers rightly said its only for short messages.

[superbnerd]

Surely if its a problem it would be better to discuss it in a forum thread for the benefit of all? And as crackers rightly said its only for short messages.
I try to do that all the time but you keep closing my threads :confused:

[Ug]

I'm referring to Fedora related problems. Nothing "off-topic" so to speak - for that email is the perfect medium.

[superbnerd]

I thought the wibble was for off topic discussions?
Commonly used to describe chatter, content-free remarks or other essentially meaningless contributions to threads in newsgroups.

Now I am really :confused:

[Ug]

OK I'll clarify. ;)

If you have a fedora related problem then it is best to post it in the support forums, so that everyone can benefit from the knowledge rather than hiding it in PMs.

If you have an "off-topic" conversation to make and want to have it in public then "wibble" is fine for that. But I'm guessing that a lot of people like to have "off-topic" conversations in private. In that case PMs are really an insufficient medium for that.

Referring to the original post however i'd guess that it was a support question if the answer had to be divided into four different posts.

[superbnerd]

Referring to the original post however i'd guess that it was a support question if the answer had to be divided into four different posts.
My PM wasn't a support question :rolleyes: but I guess this is not a very common problem.

[ewdi]

Listen guys, wibble is a place you can chat about anything BUT no forum politics or negative slurs like some people i know always like to bring out. remember, we have teh right to suspend any users that we think as a disturbance to the community.

I do not want to bring this kind of topic out anymore, but one thing for sure, this place is always need to be moderated. Again, this is fedora forum, not a debate or politics forum. leave it at that. That's That!!

As for the PM limit, i used to run a large forums with over 30000 members. We have what we called PM Spammer. members got tired of them, so 1000 limit is good enough, and if you do need support, open a topic and pm the person your topic link requesting him or her for answer if possible, that way everyone will benefit from the same thread if they hit the same problem or similar.

[Ned]

I had the same problem (1000 characters max) recently having a PM conversation with the original poster (One-Dog). I agree that it's limiting, even relatively short messages with the original(s) quoted soon go past 1000 characters.

Personally, I'd prefer to see a reduction to the number of PMs allowed (say max of 50 from the current 200) traded off against an increase in size if it's space that's the issue. This is the system we use on another forum for which I am a moderator and it works well.

I totally understand what you guys are saying about posting openly in the forum or using e-mail, but the PM system has a place also. I would like to be able to respond fully to PMs and feel the current system restricts me from doing so. It's a great feature that's there to be used, so I would ask you to give us the ability to fully use it according to our needs.

Listening to users needs, and implimenting where possible, is an important part of maintaining a successful forum, but equally I fully respect these are your forums and your decision is final :)

Ned

[crackers]

Ever thought about using GAIM? Those systems are built for messaging - a PM system like the one here is not built to handle a high-volume of PM-type traffic. It's not necessarily about the disk-space, but more about the database indexes, system resources, etc.

Yes, more resources can be thrown at it, but the software design doesn't necessarily support the notion of a "full-blown" messaging system - it's built to be a portal/forum with some limited PM capabilities.

[superbnerd]

Sure we have, but not everyone has gaim or an account to use one its supported protocols ;)

[ewdi]

it's private messaging, not an email or discussion thread :)
basically like your cellphone messaging.

[superbnerd]

Like I said The admods would have to increase the limit, so good luck with that. :rolleyes:

[crackers]

Sure we have, but not everyone has gaim or an account to use one its supported protocols ;)
Intended purely as a example, of course... **snif**

Danged hard to do that really over-the-top cat-like "I meant to do that and I'd be insulted if you thought otherwise" in text... :D

[Ug]

So to wrap this one up then. I'm sorry to say that we won't be increasing the private message limit for the reasons discussed in this thread. At this time its just not something which we would like to encourage.

And superbnerd if you were to trawl through the archives of this forum - you'd be surprised by how many things we change and implement. We are not required to do everything.