RE: [cobalt-users] The List Lives!

["Clark E. Morgan" <prlhkr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Do you know how many members this list hosts?  How many postings a day
> do you consider necessary before you call it a high-traffic list?  Do
> you know something we don't know?
>
> Early Qubes and RaQs were NOT designed for large domains or for
> processor-intensive tasks.

Yes well, fortunately, we aren't limited to "early" Qubes and RaQs.

> Evidently you know how much traffic this list handles.  Just how much is
> that, Clark?

Well, my original post is so rotting old now, I'm  tempted to leave this
alone completely; but that just wouldn't be like me. First off, touche,
I guessed at the size of the list by the traffic I see; and that led to
an assumption and you know what they say about that, quite rightly so. It's
probably true that the vast majority of subscribers reamin advisedly silent.

But I can clarify the experience I referred to:

A list of 7,000 + users with about a 75/25 mix of per post/digest and
message traffic averaging over 100 mails a day, on a Celeron 233 with
64 Megs, running Slakware Linux on Kernel 2.2.8, sendmail 8.8.9 and
majordomo.

I'm not going to venture a guess out loud how that compares with the current
list - I just want to qualify my earlier assertions about my own experience.

> I host a few lists myself; I own the "email-lists.com" domain.  In fact
> I host The Unofficial Official Cobalt Qube Mailing List on a Cobalt
> RaQ3i.  The fact remains that if I were hosting the Cobalt lists, I
> WOULD host them on their own system.

I probably would too, that's different from saying I'd use something
else entirely.

> The Qube's are designed as gateway systems for small business, and to
> run small-to-medium volume intranets and internet presences (with the
> right kind of connectivity); the RaQs are designed to handle a few
> hundred low-traffic domains.  Just where do you see that the RaQ was
> designed for email-list hosting?

This scarecely merits a response. First of all, this is the problem with
snipping, that's not what I said, so let me reinsert it here:

"Handling a low to moderately trafficked mailing list is a reasonable
expectation of these machines, especially given that they ship with
majordomo installed."

Additionally, this is from the Cobalt website summary dexscription of
the RaQ line:
"Email Services Services include mail accounts for each domain, automatic
vacation responses, automatic forwarding and group mailing lists."

Additionally, my RaQ3i manual dedicates 3.5 pages to the subject. While it
does not explicityly say "Go ahead and sign up a buttload of users", neither
does it offer up any proposed limitations of the feature, nor any caveats
about it's use.

> Sorry, but as I see it the right tool for the job is still the right
> tool for the job, even if I don't make it, don't sell it, and don't have
> it.
>
> Jeff

Certainly no need to apologize for that. I agree completely. My points
continue to be the same as they were at the time of my original post.

1) The RaQs are perfectly capable of handling these lists.

2) Cobalt at least inferentially suggests this to be so in at least two
places that I found in the space of about 30 seconds.

Nothing I wrote was intended as a jab at Cobalt, or at you for that
matter. I love mine and when I get a few more clients, I'll certainly
buy into the line again. That said, I still think it is passing strange
that they don't use their own stuff for the job, or would think so
if I knew for a fact that they didn't.

Clark E. Morgan