So, bug #14137 was just filed and due to the lack of ability to attach files via the bug form the body of said message is inordinately long.
Emails sent directly to the lists can have attachments so its not like we are prohibiting them as a general rule - though maybe the behavior is different on -bugs...
Without testing I presume that the user filling in the bug report is emailed the message that they send - or at least it could be made to work that way.
The form gets sent to pgsql-bugs. If the user is subscribed to the list they get a copy, if they're not they don't (and have to review it in the archives).
That seems unnecessarily limited behavior since -bugs subscribers see the email as coming from the person and a reply-all goes to them (or at least their purported email address) as well.
In lieu of (or in addition) to adding a file upload capability it would be nice to limit the general initial message size and inform the user that should they need to amend their posting, to include files or additional details, they can do so as a reply to their original message.
I haven't given it too much thought but a couple recent incidents of super-verbose message bodies provoked me to at least voice my thoughts.
Limiting the length could certainly be done, and trivially so (we do actually limit the length of the subject, just not the body). Any suggestions for a reasonable actual limit? :)
I'd probably make it a soft limit initially - that once exceeded causes a message to appear on the form that describes alternate/preferred means of sending lots of data to the list.
As for a good value maybe someone will be kind and compute the 99th percentile of initial body message lengths and pick something in that ballpark - the general issue is somewhat rare...probably enough so to just live with the status quo.
Adding file upload capacity would be a lot more work. I think we need a "better overall solution" for dealing with them before investing in that.
