email under the new regime

[logic404]

Ok, so then customer says "But why, at <insert other hosting company> they let you keep your mail as long as you want to?"

And my answer is...? Because my upstream supplier says that you shouldn't need to keep it there that long, and no, they don't really care that you want to, because they're concerned about you taking up too much disk space, even though you're only taking up what you've paid for? I'm sorry, I just don't get it. And replies like "Why is it so hard to just download the mail and keep it on your computer?" don't really cut it. It's not up to me, or you, or anyone else, to dictate the customers workflow for them. Either you are allowing people to have a 10MB mailbox, or you are not. I don't understand where all the shadowboxing about "why would you want to leave it on the server" comes from. Why would you want to prevent them from leaving it on the server? What does it matter to Matrix if the customer has 5MB of email that sit there for a year, or 5MB of new email every month that has a maximum life of 30 days. You're still out by 5MB of space, aren't you?

[Edit - just saw your reply]
Ok, so can you please explain, in small words, what the "bigger issues" are? Mail get's bounced because a customer exceeds their mailbox limit? I'm still not understanding where you guys lose in this arrangement. Customer is charged for extra traffic, you don't need more space to store the mail - everyone wins?

[jmbeach]

Let's remember that in the end, we're all sharing space here, and the staff at Vortech/Matrix have to make decisions that ultimately affect all of us.

Sadly, we cannot always get every single feature we want that we may see at another hosting provider. If you have a client who needs a certain service to be a #1 priority, then you may have to send them to a provider who can fill that niche.

I would personally rather see mail cleared out at set intervals than to have the servers performance be degraded any more than they sometimes are. Then again, I don't have any clients who need email to be unlimited in regards to storage and time limits.

If any of us want the best of all worlds (let's call it 'best of the universe') then we should be considering our own dedicated box so that we can let our end users dictate how we run the server.

Just my two pennies worth.

[logic404]

Look, I didn't mean to come accross aggresively. I'm very happy with the Matrix service (200% over my previous provider!!). And I don't have a problem with that being their policy. I would just like some reasonable, defendable explanation that I can understand, that I can tell to my customers. That's all. I want to say a big "thank-you and I appreciate you " to the Matrix staff - don't take my rampent manner for ingratitude - luv all u guys!!

[admin]

Matt and I talked about this today, we are going to try putting bigger drives in mail and maybe mail1 once we do that we should be able to lift the limit. But we may do something like AOL does as well. Like they have the file cabinet we may make a save folder used in IMAP for every one then you save any thing you want under there as long as you want.

Since IMAP users are the only ones with an issue with the 30 day thing we will try and fix it as soon as we can. But remember it was not some thing we every said we supported or even sold any one here. It just happend to be there. But since it is there we will try our best to make this work for you guys..

With the bigger drives we may be able to also push all folders back to 60 days and set every thing so it does not delete any custom IMAP folders or mails in custom IMAP folders.

We just have to fix 2 of these systems that need bigger drives. We just have to plan to do that first then we can move to the next steps..

Don't get us wrong we hate deleting mail because that is your space your paying for and sure we want to charge you for that space.. So we will get it fixed its only in both of our favors you get to keep your mail and since every thing is based on usage now we can charge you if you use to much space.. But we don't want any system getting full before we do the things we need that would be VERY VERY BAD..

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by Lindsey

Why is it so hard to just download the mail and keep it on your computer? What do you think would happen if the hard drive failed on one of the mail servers? the mail would be gone for good for people who do not save the email to their computer. It wouldn't be a bad idea for people who 'need' to keep old emails to save them to their computer.

Lindsey must have been reading my mind because I was wondering the same thing. What does everyone think will happen to that mail when a mail server hard drive decides it wants to go to that big hard drive place in the sky?? That mail is GONE. Bye Bye. There is no getting it back UNLESS you have a copy on YOUR computer. Therefore, the argument that "I can't have any email deleted" doesn't really hold water, does it?? Leaving your "important mail" on the server means you are basically leaving it there until the hard drive fails (which will eventually happen because it is a working part of a machine and they do wear out). Once that happens, who are you going to yell at??

[logic404]

That's very cool that you are listening to us...

Originally Posted by admin

Since IMAP users are the only ones with an

Um...? I did point out there is a legitimate concern for POP3 users here too? But I'll go away b4 I get flamed...! ;-)

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by logic404

And replies like "Why is it so hard to just download the mail and keep it on your computer?" don't really cut it.

Ok, that answer does not "cut it" for you. But I am curious as to why it is so hard for people to download their email. Seriously. No one has given a valid answer to that yet. Can someone tell me?? Maybe then I could possibly see the other side but at this point all I see is people basically saying they don't want to and that answer does not "cut it" for me. I want to see both sides but without valid points, that is not possible.

[logic404]

Vixen,

I think I posted this earlier, but maybe it wasn't clear. A customer, let's call him Bob, travels a lot. Prior to going on a two month trip, Bob sets his outlook at home (let's assume Bob has a cable or other permanent connection) to "Leave messages on the server", because he'll be using webmail while he's away to access his email. One week into his trip, Bob receives some mail that he'll need to reference at the end of his trip. That's nice, he thinks - don't delete it from webmail, and it will still be there in a month and a bit when he needs it.

Then, say, 36 days later, he goes to reference that email. But, magic - it's gone!

The scenario above is actually taken from a real client (and if I seem like I'm pushing the point, it's because he's very pushy!!). The thing is - he's not using it for backup, or permanent storage. He's just using it for temporary storage which he happens to need for a period of longer than 1 month.

And that's my best answer to why someone would want to keep their mail on the server longer than 30 days. I know I don't.

[Silverbug]

ive got two clients that fit the same situation aswell, they travel alot and so dont always get back to the office to download the mail from the server in time. I must admit tho a 60day limit would be better (but if it cant be done, im sure we will all live with 30)

[ramjet]

I've a customer who doesn't have a computer. (just one real example)
She uses email, and checks it using atmail (pop3) from friends or cafes.
Some stuff she would like to save... both what shes written and what she wants to save.
It would be great if she could put this into her atmail "Personal" folder and have it stay there. Its certainly wouldn't take up much space, as you say... nobody saves their spam.
At the moment Atmail has a glitch. You can set up what they call a "mailbox" which is really a subfolder under the Personal folder. You can move a message to this new "mailbox" folder, but you can't move it back to the inbox by dropdown menu. You can drop-and-drag it back in, but Atmail just loses (deletes) it. Anyway this is all Atmail accessed under pop i'm talking about, not IMAP.
My suggestion is this... if it's achievable.
Atmail could be reconfigured to allow dropdown moves of mail both back to the inbox (not really important) and directly to into the Personal folder (without creating a sub-folder mailbox). It would then be really obvious to people how to manage there mail.
To store it you just transfer it straight in the Personal folder. If you want to organise it further, you create a new "mailbox" subfolder.

And I suggest Matrix configure Atmail so trash is set to be automatically deleted on exit only (they've trashed it after all), you allow 30 days on postmaster and webmaster accounts or ones that present problems with spam,
60 days on all others (which really is more civilised!) and you DON'T delete Drafts, Personal or Sent at all.
This I imagine would solve most problems and allow a better service to some.

[Brangwyn]

We've all got at least one or two people who dodnt fit the "norm" though.

I would think with the size Matrix is now though its all about pleasing the biggest percentage possible, not the 1% of customers we have that have unusual mail requirements.

[dlrmartin]

Originally Posted by Vixen

Since when?? I have a Hotmail account that I have had for about 5 years and Hotmail will definitely delete email out of your Inbox at the end of 30 days. Now if you have MOVED it to a folder, then no they do not touch it. BUT if you do not log into your account within 30 days, they wipe it clean. I am sure there are people here that have email accounts that they may log into once a month. So, are we just suppose to let the mail sit in there for 6 months?? a year?? That seems ridiculous to me. If you want your mail, keep it on your computer. That's my opinion.

Vixen,

I don't like call ridiculous. If you know for example hotmail, you should't use this expression. Really I have importants reference mails on my hotmail inbox for so more than 1 year, believe it or not. Hotmail policy say that I must login at least 1 time each month. But NEVER, while mantain active the account, they delete my mails.
I understand the limitations of shared hosting, but I think that may be could be others restriction more acceptables than simply delete it, for example, put a hard limit to all mailbox in 20 or 30MB. for example.

Besides, sure is not hard and is so recomendable download as soon as possible mails to my computer.... in case that ALL days I work in a only office....
But not all works of all people are in a office or sitting front to only one computer...
For example is when a client is in trips... or one of my clients who has many salesman on the road without a permanent sit...
Many clients works so much with webmail, and others exclusively with webmail.

Originally Posted by Vixen

Lindsey must have been reading my mind because I was wondering the same thing. What does everyone think will happen to that mail when a mail server hard drive decides it wants to go to that big hard drive place in the sky?? That mail is GONE. Bye Bye. There is no getting it back UNLESS you have a copy on YOUR computer. Therefore, the argument that "I can't have any email deleted" doesn't really hold water, does it?? Leaving your "important mail" on the server means you are basically leaving it there until the hard drive fails (which will eventually happen because it is a working part of a machine and they do wear out). Once that happens, who are you going to yell at??

I don't think that "hard drive fails" be a rasonable argument... I want to believe that exist backups... and what about RAID ??
It isn't a well reason for a host provider... I think that customer data must be most important thing to care and a "normal" disk fail isn't a reason to say I'm sorry your data was lost...

Sincerely, I'm so happy with matrix really, but I feel that I must say my thinks on this thread because we haven't a good mail service as in opposite yes we have a fantastic web, DB and support service.

Take my opinion only as a way to make a better place and bussines for all.

[admin]

Originally Posted by Brangwyn

We've all got at least one or two people who dodnt fit the "norm" though.

I would think with the size Matrix is now though its all about pleasing the biggest percentage possible, not the 1% of customers we have that have unusual mail requirements.

You just about hit it on the nail there..

Just to give everyone a little back gound on vortech/matrix here that has not been here as long as some.. Late 2001 we hosted about hmm 1000 sites.. That was great we were happy.. LoL Then one day I said hey H-Sphere looks cool lets try it out.. Craig thoght oh this will never work.. Boy was he ever wrong.. Now at the end of 2003 we have over 45,000+ domains in H-Sphere alown, close to 10,000 in CPanel, anther 10,000+ in colo/ded. servers. To say the least we went from 1000+ sites to closer to 70,000+ sites in less then 2 years.. So we have had a lot of learning and listing to do. A few grown pains here and there.. That is why we listen to you guys because you are what has put us where we are today..

I have listend to everything everyone has said in this post, I can tell you this will ALL this mail space issue will be fixed very very soon to make the H-Sphere guys here very happy..

We are also going to be releasing a all "NEW" cp that is windows based and no its not that crappy helm..

1st quarter of 2004 we should have CPanel ( Redhat ), H-Sphere ( Windows 2000/FreeBSD Mixed ), Un-named CP ( Windows Only ) this way you guys that don't use the billing in H-Sphere will be able to have CPanel/Un-named CP ( Windows ) as well or offer it all in H-Sphere..

I understand all of your mail issue and I think everyone of you for letting me know what you think. They will all be fixed ASAP and we will update you once we get them all done and also update the TOS as well..

[ramjet]

As usual Brad .. you the best.
(are you mellowing in your old age??? )

[Brangwyn]

That is why we listen to you guys because you are what has put us where we are today..

Everyone needs to read that bit again .. twice even.

This is what currently sets Vortech apart from the rest, the forum here and the input it allows us to give the guys is in my humble opinion far more important than having sub-ftp accounts on windows, or mail retained for 20 years.