Open Discussion Larger PM Box please!

Depressicaa

Depressicaa

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 6, 2010
Messages
1,184
Why is it so small? 100 PMs goes by fast. I would think something like this isn't significantly more costly to add the ability to have a few kb of text every now and then, 1000 is more than enough, and maybe 500 should be good enough. I would love a larger PM box, the people who don't use it wouldn't care, and the people who do will appreciate it. I want to give PMs but they're always closed already.
 
I just back up my PMs to text and store in a email account. Both yahoo and google display text attachments inline within the email now. Perhaps someday a larger PM box could be a reward for those giving a certain level of financial support.

Its been mentioned by admins in support quite a bit lately that innovations and tweaks are on hold til after an impending major upgrade of BL's software. So your suggestion will likely not get any big consideration until they are past that hurdle.

Edit: To back up your PMs to txt click on the txt link under Download all Private Messages as: at the bottom of your PM inbox.
 
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^Yes, because they are utilizing PMs for a lot of site related functions. Crew (retired mods) have the same size PM box as members because we aren't having to PM people on account of performing site functions. Its actually, in my estimation, only a slightly larger PM storage for staff vs non-staff especially considering how many extra PMs a staff member gets as a result of attending to business.
 
^If you are asking when the next upgrade will occur, I'm not sure, but I watch the announcements forum for new posts and I'm sure it will be up there when its about to happen. Historically it has involved a potential for small outages and an admin gives everyone a heads up in announcements a little while before the upgrade.
 
Enki said:
I just back up my PMs to text and store in a email account. Both yahoo and google display text attachments inline within the email now. Perhaps someday a larger PM box could be a reward for those giving a certain level of financial support.
We're looking seriously at this in the near future.

Enki said:
Its been mentioned by admins in support quite a bit lately that innovations and tweaks are on hold til after an impending major upgrade of BL's software. So your suggestion will likely not get any big consideration until they are past that hurdle.
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This is in the not so near future, but not put out indefinitely.

We currently have limited time to address the upgrade, and see the financial problem as a more pressing concern. We should have more information in the next week or so put out in an ANNOUNCEMENT and-or here in SUPPORT.
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Why dont you just do a little housekeeping and clear the old PMs out or as suggested copy them to your hard drive.

100 is more than enough.
 
This has been discussed among staff too. Believe me, no matter what size box you are given, it will never be enough because people always have PMs they feel are important, and the longer you're here, the more you have. You just have to decide which are most important, or keep them elsewhere.

Ftr, even as a smod I dont have anywhere near the space for 500 PMs, not even half that actually, so you probably shouldnt hold your breath for that as a member. It does take up server space, and adds up considering all the people on here.
 
lol. I've been a member since 2001 and maybe have sent/received like 30-40 pm's, most of which got deleted as soon as they were no longer relevant. I know some people do pm a lot but since we can download them what's the point of having more space?
 
I know they take up server space, but I'm just wondering why its so low. The people who don't use them won't really care and won't use the extra space, while the people do will appreciate it.

I don't think it is that much space, probably less than 10 gigabytes for the entire forum to have larger ones. I just find it irritating that I have to empty it every week or so.

The point is to have to clear the PM box less. I've done this more often than all other forums combined. Forums usually take up bandwidth, but server space shouldn't be that big of a problem that you can't allow people to store a few more text files, right?

Yes its not my site and I'm sorry if I'm being an idiot, but I don't see the rational. Now the small avatars I can understand but this is just text, not a significant space nor bandwidth problem. Look at the number of people always asking others to empty their PM box. It happens too often.
 
Yes its not my site and I'm sorry if I'm being an idiot,
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Goodfaith questions and suggestions are not idiotic. Suggestions and ideas about the site are important even though sometimes they can not be implemented in the near future because of software limitations or other considerations. It was actually timely that you started this thread. :)
 
how much money would you be willing to pay for, say, a 500 PM sized box? ;)

as indicated above, this might become an option for members who wish to help keep our site afloat. all of those messages do actually cost us money to store, you know. :)

in the mean time, please have a play about with this section at the bottom of your inbox:

Download all Private Messages as:
XML | CSV | Text
 
i definitely need more room. i have so many memorable PM's and some of them have a lot of good information in them. i'm always at like the 97-98 limit and whenever i send one or am expecting one i always delete a couple (and it's usually hard for me to make the pick of which one gets deleted when i have to lol)
 
^ you know you can download them to a file on your computer and free up all that space? read the thread from the beginning.

that solves all your problems: you can keep memorable pms; you can free up space in your inbox; you don't have to agonise over which message to delete every time.

given the download feature, nobody needs a larger inbox.

alasdair
 
alasdairm said:
given the download feature, nobody needs a larger inbox.
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I have to agree... While having a large inbox would be nice, it's def. not needed.

I think it should be an option to have a bigger inbox--Pay a certain amount each month to have that extra online storage if you can't be bothered to download the messages every day, week, month, whatever it takes.
 
Its hard for me to justify paying for something when someone else gives this for free. I'm probably the wrong demographic to cater to, I'm in the mentality that if I don't have to pay I won't. There are also a lot of member who don't utilize their PM box. Unless there is a static amount for every user a larger PM box should be possible with no larger costs.

Bluelight may be the first thing I ever donate to if ever though, not monthly though.

If they were compressed on the server wouldn't those costs be negligible? I'm not sure how much text there is on the forum, but I don't think it should be that large right?

Another option might just be an easy migration service, I like to preserve the formatting. It would be really neat to just be able to keep them as links and whatnot, but so far the export has been very ugly. Have you ever seen what the exported files look like? Yes I've exported them before, but I don't like this at all.
CSV looks like crappy shitty vomit, look at the cell structure!
Text and XML look pretty bad too. Can anyone say that this is a good reading experience? Its just a lot of computer code in between the stuff I really wanna read, I don't have a use for computer code and I don't really care to see the forum code either.
If there was an export in HTML or whatever I probably wouldn't have brought up a larger PM box.

But the problem is that the current model should change, if there was a better exportation method that would be great. I would love to see an export to HTML or doc at least something readable by people. If there was a larger PM box I could export them less as well. Something nice might be an XML/CSV/TXT reader that you could give us (as a download or on site, probably a download or at least link to something), so that regular people who don't really care to see
could read the conversation.
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Depressicaa said:
Another option might just be an easy migration service, I like to preserve the formatting. It would be really neat to just be able to keep them as links and whatnot, but so far the export has been very ugly.
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I totally agree with this. I've exported PMs before and they are in a really ugly format. There should be a way to preserve the formating. Maybe not exactly, but it'd be nice if it could come close.
 
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