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Is it a good idea to setup a mail server for smol mailboxes and to open registration for free with invitation links for example?
The goal would be to reduce volume of emails, as #smolweb reduces the size of websites.
Something smol like:
- one common domain name (something in .casa TLD)
- in a French datacenter
- 128 Mb of storage
- 10 Mb max per email (sent or received)
- 10 recipient addresses per email (can't be used for mailing)
- limited sent per hour (no spam)
- IMAP / POP3 / SMTP (over TLS)
- Webmail (for desktop and mobile)
- autodeleted if full for several months (to free space for newcomers)
Are you interested by such a #mailbox ?
Please share this toot to have a good idea of the interest.
message.casa could be cool for such a service, nope?
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@adele It's an interesting experiment. It usefulness may be impacted (based on my experiences) by the domain not being one of the Big Names in tech. A lot of mail servers will filter out anything not from GMail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc. So users of smolmail should expect to have a lot of conversations with people that involve the phrase "Please check your spam folder...."
@distrowatch that's why we need more diversity. Restrictions to BigTech domain appeared with the increase of their market share.
However I use "exotic" domains for all my email addresses without trouble
A lot of mail servers will filter out anything not from GMail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.
i'm on my own mailserver for decades. i currently use an email with .lu TLD. the thing you describe above hapens very rarely. it does happen and it makes me very mad, but it's rare. not often. and certainly not always.
what you need with such an email server is this:
important DNS records for mail deliverability and security including SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and MTA-STS, DNSSEC (with DANE TLSA)... (via https://mailinabox.email/)
also, if this is a community, spam will be probably nonexistent. and a good no-spam reputation.
@prinlu @adele I have been running my own mail servers for about a decade. It happens a lot here. It's nice you don't experience it, but you shouldn't assume this is going to work well for everyone.
I've also run into services which will not access non-mainstream e-mail addresses when signing up for new accounts because they assume anything not GMail, Outlook, etc are being used by bots.
CC: @prinlu@0x.trans.fail @adele@social.pollux.casa
@adele
It's a cool idea, but people have this problem that they won't respect your work! allowing mailing is not a good idea. It all depends on how you configure imitated sent per hour. I closed my service with a similar service profile
@0ct0pu5 I understand, it is a risk. Haven't you tried to set stronger limitations before closing the service?
Thx for your feedbacks.
@adele
of course I tried! but there is an additional problem - because your users are divided into those who respect the service but do not want limits + support for their own domain and those who will destroy what you create at the expense of others + fighting with the service provider to keep a clean IP address
@adele Every solution to have another solution to quit GAFAM mail is good.
But for "public use", I see one limitation : 128Mb of storage is too small.
For "public use", i think 1Gb of storage is nice. No tech people don't understand how to manage a 128Mb mail box.
though part of me thinks that 10MB messages are kinda un-smol. 200K is exceptionally generous for proper 7-bit text/plain email, and I'd have no qualms about a smol mailserver rejecting chonkyboi mime/multipart monstrosities 😆
At the MTA level, this would be delightful. Users can only send text/plain mail, whether from webmail or SMTP connections from their favorite MUA, or whatever. Attempts to send mime/multipart with HTML or images or attachments (other than inline uuencoded/b64encoded files) would get rejected.
🥰
@adele The idea of a receive-only mailbox that's otherwise standards-based is really intriguing. I've just about given up on my war vs HTML emails but I'd love to see what people who aren't focused on ads can do.
@zordsdavini smolweb (http) is not smolnet (gemini). So standard email protocol matches better. Just try to use lighter email such as plain text
@adele oh, my mistake. Then the idea is good to try. I have my own mailbox but with some receipts and pdf agreements during years it has 90MB. I try to have it clean. Your idea of small mailbox could work in sync to computer and clearing the server. There are to many emails with "small" attachments
@zordsdavini POP3 is here to do the job, get a copy of the mail from server and then delete it
@adbenitez
I know, I also use deltachat... but I want to propose something closer to email standard. With chatmail or deltachat, you are not sure that your recipient is able to get your message with his/her standard email address.
@adele mmmh good point, that would be unencrypted/not-private tho, but in some situations it doesn't matter much, I would prefer (dream 😅) if the whole email ecosystem moves to a model where all email is e2e encrypted and the providers can't not read your correspondence
btw with Delta Chat your recipient will get the message normally in their standard email client, the restriction comes from chatmail servers to avoid spam, if you use normal email server with DC it will be compatible
@adbenitez Yes, I agree, general e2ee would be great, but it is not the current standard for email. There are other protocol for that (xmpp/omemo for example). You can also use gnupg with your mails.
@adele I think any option for people to try: (1) independent email (2) without mangling the emails with advertisement and (3) with support of standard protocols (4) for free will be good. It is not any easy to find one.