[Dovecot] Quota handling - v2 - updated FR

[Charles Marcus]

> How is this different from just telling the customer there quota has
> been increased by the size of their .oqt box?

Because it hasn't - they can't GET this mail until they deal with their 
over-quota condition. All this does is prevent mail from being REJECTED, 
and provide a more consistent and effective way to communicate the 
problem to the user.

> Quota is there for a reason at my work, to stop accepting mail if the
> user already has too much mail.

Currently, that is correct - but I have a customer who wants to ACCEPT 
the mail for delivery (ie, never, ever REJECT a message due to 
over-quota), but just not give it to the USER until they fix their quota 
problem.

> As we deal with customers, and can't just fire them for being too
> stupid, it is much better to give them a clear policy with no fuzzy 
> grey areas. I think this also better in the case of the few employees
> I have to support as well.

Funny - I see what I am proposing as being much *more* clear, with LESS 
fuzzy gray areas.

> A hard bounce is the right way to go in this case, because it will let
> the sender know right away that there is a problem sending to the user.

This is your *opinion*. Personally, I disagree - but, of course, I would 
never force my way on you. As I have maintained, this should definitely 
be configurable - including the option of sending a notification to the 
sender that their message was accepted for delivery, but won't be 
delivered to the users Inbox until they fix their quota problem.

This means all the sender has to do is call the user and tell them 'I 
sent you the message - it is waiting for you - fix your quota, idiot'...

> A soft bounce may take days of retrying before the sender is aware of a
> problem,

Who is talking about soft bouncing? Did you even read my proposal?

> The recipient is probably going to be oblivious that a problem exists
> because if they are over quota, it usually means they haven't been
> checking their mail and will not see a quota warning message.

True - but then they would be oblivious in either case, so I fail to see 
your point.

> 89% of the cases I see of users over quota, is due to negligence.

Yep... and my way, no mail is lost or bounced, it is just held pending 
resolution of the over-quota condition, after which it is *immediately* 
delivered to their Inbox within SECONDS.

> 10% is for mailboxes that are no longer in use.

Why are you leaving an account open that is no longer in use?

Admittedly, for an ISP, this may not be a good thing to do - but not 
every mail system belongs to an ISP. I can see a lot of benefit to 
Corporate mail systems.

> I wouldn't think it a good idea to allocate extra disk space to
> either of these cases.

So set the hard limit on the over-quota box. But for 95+% of cases, it 
would never get used.

> The other 1% calls us to ask for more space which we gladly sell to
> them.

Obviously, you are selling mail services - so yes, I agree, this may not 
be a good fit for an ISP or someone selling mail services - but maybe 
you could comment on this from the perspective that not everyone would 
use it like you do...

Do you seriously not see a benefit to a corporate user?

I guess I'm just way off base here...

Maybe I'll see if I can find someone willing to modify the Quot Plugin 
that exists now...

-- 

Best regards,

Charles