I don't think I was being particularly hardhearted in what I said, Nathan.
I am aware that some people are on antiquated mail systems which have
severe strictures as to the size of any single item (fortunately, we
don't seem to have any of those set to digest).  As I said, the limit should
be set to what works best for the list in question.  If a lot of people are
complaining because they don't know the order of the digests (I guess they
don't have access to the headers, entirely possible) reducing the frequency
of the digests by increasing the size limit would certainly seem in order.
If you double the size to 2000 and 99 of your 100 digest subscribers are
happy with that but one gripes, that is the one you have to tell,"sorry,
this is what seems to work best for the list."  The size limit could
be raised 500 lines at a time, quit raising it when enough people start
griping of truncated digests, something like that.
 
Each list is different, both in character and subscribers' facilities/
abilities/expectations/etc.  so the key is always "what works best for
*this* list."  Someone has to make the determination as to what does
work best and that is, generally, the much reviled/ignored listowner.
 
On this discussion about web vs. email I strongly believe everything should
be available via email.  That is all many people have.  No ftp, no archie,
no veronica, no gopher, no lynx browser, no uucp, no nothing except email.
Period.  And plain, lower order ASCII for files, please.
 
Douglas
       Douglas Winship   Hays County, Texas  [log in to unmask]
                    Secondary AUTOCAT Listowner
                              MEDLAB-L