Greetings, esteemed monks!

I went ahead and checked with one my my close contacts in the server admin section and got this surprising response (they have over 30 users to our seven (soon to be 9), and a 30-GB home partition to our 20):

We've been using a quota on our /home now for months, with only a few 
problems.  Of course, these problems can tend to be really big problems, 
since it's on the home filesystem (half-written windows profiles, lost 
email, etc.).  On the other hand, we haven't had /arc/home fill up once 
since we set it up (and it was happening just about on a weekly basis).  
The soft quota (enforced by bugging the bad user until they quit) could 
certainly work.

If you'd like us to set up real quotas (i.e. enforced linux filesystem 
quotas), I think we might consider it, but there would probably have to be 
some pretty high level discussion (i.e. section chief to section chief, 
or at least section chief to Greg), just making sure that everyone 
involved is aware of the potential problems, and working out exactly how 
to do it.

Anyway, I think I am going to start out with a link on our section home page to a simple web page listing the sorted by-home-directory listing of space usage in home as oputput by dhog-o; I might tag those over 2GB in bold. I will probably augment with an emailer of some kind.

My users in general are reasonable, cooperative, good people. I don't have the kind of horror stories most tech support people have. I think I will first try seeing the effect the shame factor of having that info "out there" for all to see and then go from there. I am also thinking about having the program that calculates the sizes post complimentary text for users with the smallest directories, and maybe even track info like largest 24 hour change in both relative and absolute terms and create a "most improved award" for the person who reduces their space consumption the most or something (the "Prodigal Son" treatment if you will). I want to focus on positive reinforcement. If things don't improve, it's time to start the email barrages. This is all of course subject to boss approval, but when home/ fills up, work doesn't get done. I think as long as I am not verbally berating people in the hallways or really going out of my way to hurt peoples' feelings my boss can't deny me.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll try to keep y'all updated. This is an interesting experiment that is really just as much psychology as it is Perl....or are the two closer than I once thought?