Gallery Trimming to Save Storage

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I would argue that images are an important part of the technical information this site provides. In particular, I'm thinking about lens tests, flare tests, and camera and lens pictures that can be found in various threads.

Maybe a simple solution would be to keep any pictures that are linked from an RFF thread, to maintain the coherence of old discussions.
 
This is a disheartening turn of events. I for one am very selective about which ones to share this group. My vote is to have a disk quota and let each individual maintain that amount as he or she feels fit. 25,000 members? Really? Where are they? They sure don't seem to be giving lots of opinions on the various threads. It's always the same familiar faces yakking back and forth. (That's a good thing, by the way) :) I hope the head honchos will reconsider the forthcoming mass deletions.
 
I think the 18 month thing will pretty much kill the gallery - why go through the hassle of the upload if its going to evaporate? Just link from Flickr or some other more permanent repository. Perhaps that's the head bartender's point.

If we want people to use the RFF gallery - an open question given the cost of storage and running a server - a small quota is far more preferable to my mind.
 
@ photogdave; Stephen gave considerable and serious deliberation to his carefully posted notification thread and the opening text as he wrote it. It's serious. I'm taking his comments equally seriously. Stephen did not ask for proposals, he did not ask for a poll, he did not ask who is in favour, nor ask for other solutions.

He clearly stated "...July 1st gallery images older than 18 months will be deleted. " and has now defined the gallery as a place "....intended to showcase and discuss the members latest work, not as a long term image archive."

Clearly everything in my gallery and every other RFF member's gallery will eventually be deleted. We've been notified, it is time to face the facts.
 
He clearly stated "...July 1st gallery images older than 18 months will be deleted. " and has now defined the gallery as a place "....intended to showcase and discuss the members latest work, not as a long term image archive."
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But he did subsequently say...

"Thanks for your comments on the gallery trimming. The simple fact is that we will run out of storage within about 4 months at this rate unless images are cut back.

The question is how is best way to do that.

I'm not sure, and if this thread can convince me of a better, DOABLE way, we just might take that route."

It's clear that there is a genuine problem with running out of storage (and not that there is any nefarious reason to get rid of photos as some seem to have hinted), and that he is open to suggestions for a solution.
 
Just a few thoughts...

If we move to the 18-month model, I won't stop using the gallery here, I'll just use it differently. I've never seen it - or any other online gallery - as a long-term storage (my own computers, my own site, and my filed negs are my long term storage), but I have aimed at themed galleries and been very selective in what I post.

What I'm likely to do in the 18mo version is actually post more - I'll be less selective, won't bother about individual galleries, and will post more warts-n-all shots that I would generally think are not worth showing in a gallery (because I would probably learn more from comments on my also-rans than on my favourite shots).

If we do go to 18mo, and we do aim towards more discussion of our recent work, one thing that would also help would be for us to post more comments on people's photos - I think the "Best of the Week" thread is a great motivator (though I've been away for a few weeks and haven't been able to contribute), and I'll make an effort to add comments to people's photos as I go along (and not just to those I select as my favourites).
 
back alley said:
... it seems the 'banned users' thread was deleted by the op.
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Yes, I saw gertf state that was the case, on another forum.

On a related matter, has anyone noticed that attachments to earlier posts are no longer available? Yesterday I went looking for my post in October 2005 discussing a problem with a Canon 50/1.2 lens. I'd illustrated the post with images of the problem. The thread and text is still there but the attachments are gone.

If you click on "User CP" up on the menu bar, then on "Attachments" at lower left, you get a list of the image attachments you've attached to posts. My list now has nothing earlier than September 2006. I think it's a real shame that we're losing the history of this place, but I need to keep reminding myself this is a business, not community property.
 
i dont care much if my photos are gone from here, because i have them all on negatives. but i think that it will push people away from rff, there are a lot of member who come here to watch photos, and they will turn to flickr or something similar if number of photos here is low. i agree with idea of limiting free accounts and deleting galleries of inactive members. that is not a perfect solution also because there are a lot of inactive members who made some nice photos but life goes on.
also you can save photos which have a lot of views and comments and delete others. for example 50+ views and photo stays. that will delete many of my photos - but in future i will try harder to make better photos. :)
 
Something else to consider

Something else to consider

CameraQuest said:
The question is how is best way to do that.

I'm not sure, and if this thread can convince me of a better, DOABLE way, we just might take that route.
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Might I make a suggestion here ... a two-point approach.

First of all, kill all galleries from stale users. Users who have not logged on in {n months} get nuked. If they're no longer active, they no longer need gallery space, right?

My guess is that would free up boocoo space, in and of itself.

Then, if necessary, a limit of {so many} images per active user.

Another thing to consider is referrals. For example. In the tag line I use on many boards I have two links, a link to my blog, and a link to my RFF gallery. Any of my posts at APUG will show this.

I can't see how many referrals end up here, but I do get a report on blog traffic and I know that I do get at least a couple blog hits per day from the links on photo boards. I'm assuming a similar number of hits end up here.

Links like this generate traffic to the site.

I don't know how many of these visitors "stick" and become users or customers, but I'm sure that by having my primary on-line gallery here, I am supplying at least a modest supply of new traffic to the site here.
 
To the RFF webiste owners. As you manage and pay for the website, of course you have the final say and we must respect that. Yet, you are surely interested about the needs of your members/customers. In my case, I would suggest :
- delete all inactive accounts (more than a year).
- cap the number of photos to 100 per user.
It would increase the quality and freshness of the galleries. We would only keep the best and newest pictures. Though I understand the main goal of the gallery is not too store pictures, it would be nice to use it as repository of our best works and the associated comments.
 
This seems an appropriate thread to ask this question:
Every photo I look at in the gallery has "Click on image for larger image." below it. When I do I now have two windows: one the original gallery page and a pop up with the larger image.
Is it saving any disk space doing this? Would one version at 800 pixels be better than two different images?
Rob
 
@ Alan, you're right Stephen subsequently made a second post (50) and asked for possible alternatives, however I'd deleted my photographs by post 35. My photography is at the links below my RFF signature and a few are still here in the RFF gallery.
 
I don't have a problem with this, but I don't understand why upgrading storage is hard. You can get a 1 TB disk for under $300 these days!

/T
 
rbiemer said:
This seems an appropriate thread to ask this question:
Every photo I look at in the gallery has "Click on image for larger image." below it. When I do I now have two windows: one the original gallery page and a pop up with the larger image.
Is it saving any disk space doing this? Would one version at 800 pixels be better than two different images?
Rob
Click to expand...

This is odd, because when I click on a gallery image I get a pop-up, but it's the same size as the original! why?

/T
 
it is

it is

using a commercial web hosting service, even if RFF owns the hardware.

What I think dmr is saying is that it's not just the raw storage costs, it is bandwidth transfer and/or whatever the hosting provider wants to charge.

Linked images (inline and external) to flickr or whatever, incur bandwidth concerns to those image hosts, and not RFF.

leicasniper said:
Surely this forum has their own server and isn't using commercial web hosting.
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nzeeman said:
...save photos which have a lot of views and comments and delete others. for example 50+ views and photo stays. that will delete many of my photos - but in future i will try harder to make better photos. :)
Click to expand...

I really like this idea. There are many photos in my gallery I'd delete if it was quicker to do, and they are all the ones nobody much looks at. On the other hand, sorting my gallery by "number of views - descending" gives me a couple of pages that make me feel much better. Over time, the RFF audience has excellent taste and can edit your work for you quite nicely. Anything with under 100 views disappearing would do it for me.

Tom
 
Just delete about 15 photos...96 to go. Anyway to have a "delete all" function added. It does take a while to do this.
 
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