Picture attachments issues

[MarkM]

Useless posts are up for debate as to what is useless or not, what isn't up for debate is the BST sections...anyone want to look and see how far they go back?

Markers http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?t=11407 2001!

Air systems http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?t=32045 2002!

Misc paintball items http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?t=32052 2002!

Now me I think there must be a way of Archiving the older posts so peoples precious post count doesn't drop but what period do we draw the line..6 months old? A year? The age I would go for would be 6 months but in archiving these sections the file size volume is still there..with this amount of threads they will contribute to being quite a few meg or possibly gigs. It is something that can be looked at.
The forum can actually be set so that all posts in the BST section do not add to the post count and since many people who regularly use the BST sections for sales (not buying) are constantly adding to their post counts with "up, TTT, Bump! etc etc"

[Lohman446]

Useless posts are up for debate as to what is useless or not, what isn't up for debate is the BST sections...anyone want to look and see how far they go back?

Excellent point. I hadn't really considered those. Though it would be neat ten years from now to look back and say, wow - remember when E-mags were XXX or whatever. Hmm.. I started this thread to say there was no argument at all and that the value of old BST was obviously zero... back to thinking about that one on my part.

[MarkM]

Excellent point. I hadn't really considered those. Though it would be neat ten years from now to look back and say, wow - remember when E-mags were XXX or whatever. Hmm.. I started this thread to say there was no argument at all and that the value of old BST was obviously zero... back to thinking about that one on my part.

Hence the idea of archiving them but that would still incur a cost. Is it good to pay for something just to say in 10 years "oooh thats neat?"

My Phantom cost me $562 at the rate of exchange at the time, it wasn't worth that but that's what they cost. Now that would buy me another Angel with an air system (if I searched long enough)

I started this thread with the idea of clearing the pics not needed on AO's servers not a radical spring clean of the forum itself and offering an alternate means of posting pictures.

The post count setting is something I do believe should be changed, we had a situation just this last week where a user appeared to be fully fledged due to a post count but in reality they had 4 posts outside of the BST sections and so had contributed nothing to the forums, they weren't acting very well so they got themselves a ban, a huge post count and lots of contributions to the forum and it still would have happened (just in case you think it was just because of the lack of contribution ) But because of the post count gained in the BST sections people got sucked into thinking they were a useful member...to buyers they might be, but then both Paintball Talk and Friendly Corner both require participation of varying degrees to have validity..I know it might appear that I am arguing semantics but a post count gained by contributing to the forums as a whole is way better than constantly posting "up etc etc"

[MarkM]

Ok we are all aware that currently there is a slight problem with the picture attachment feature on the forum.
I currently do not have information to share with you as to why this has happened or when it will be restored to full working order so in the meantime this thread has appeared.

"Crusade mode" If you wish to see AO continue it might be an idea to see what you can do for AO, lots of ideas were thrown around at the time TK retired but the Forum still costs money to host and the attachments increase this cost because of bandwidth etc.
To drop this cost and ensure that all your pics can be seen it would help you (as you can see them) and AO (for the drop in the hosting costs) to find an alternate place to host these pics "Crusade mode off"

Many ISP's provide you with free webspace when you use their service so many of you already have this space but just don't use it. If you are unfortunate enough to have an ISP that will charge you for webspace then....

You can get FREE accounts at the following

https://www.muchos.co.uk

https://www.jayloo.com

Now these two are "free" to a point one has a minimal cost per 8 week period, one has a cost if you go above a usage figure.

This is now where you guys come in I have listed two hosts. Now post away with your hosts....remember TOTALLY FREE is what we are looking for or as close to FREE as you can find.

**edit** It also might be a good thing for each user to go to their user control panel and select Attachments to see how much space they are currently using on AO...I didn't think I posted many pictures and found I had nearly 6 meg uploaded..they are now deleted as they were all on old threads and certainly not currently needed..take a look I think more than one or two of you are in for a shock!

Quoting myself as we are now on the second page and people tend to go on different tangents with thread subjects as we have above so this is the original subject and why this thread is here.

[Lohman446]

Hence the idea of archiving them but that would still incur a cost. Is it good to pay for something just to say in 10 years "oooh thats neat?"

When its not me paying for it - yes I understand your point, is it worth it? Good question.

I started this thread with the idea of clearing the pics not needed on AO's servers not a radical spring clean of the forum itself and offering an alternate means of posting pictures.

I have been surprised myself at the amount of work some members have gone through to do what they can once that has been brought up. Excellent initiative to point this out, because most of us never even considered the resources we were using with attachments. I personally would have given about as much warning as the old PM issue (remember when they were unlimited) and then instituted a solution like was done there. Though I realize it made some people less than happy

[MarkM]

When its not me paying for it - yes I understand your point, is it worth it? Good question.


I have been surprised myself at the amount of work some members have gone through to do what they can once that has been brought up. Excellent initiative to point this out, because most of us never even considered the resources we were using with attachments. I personally would have given about as much warning as the old PM issue (remember when they were unlimited) and then instituted a solution like was done there. Though I realize it made some people less than happy

It has been surprising to me also but then as I presented this all in a sensible way it has got the right result so far....every little bit helps.

Yes the Pm's I remember that but then to be honest since you can download them as various file formats it isn't an issue. I have to download my pm box pretty regular but then you have to consider I get pm's that are not a friend talking to a friend they are mod related so I have to have them. Given todays pc's all come with sensible sized hard drives and even if they don't you can either burn them to a dvd/cd or even a floppy so there is no excuse.

[ColdFuzion]

I'm a good AO'er. I use Photobucket.

-Cold

[Chris Nearchos]

I didnt mean it like that

Please no - AO is a database of knowledge, of ideas, of thoughts. Well we can generally live without the diagrams if we have to, loosing the vast accumulation of thought, knowledge, communication would be a blow. How would you judge useless information today from what may be useful tomorrow?

I Myself use this site to take in and also let out many ideas. I didnt mean just delete any thread/post but the ones that are TRULY POINTLESS. (see below for what I meaning)

Useless posts are up for debate as to what is useless or not, what isn't up for debate is the BST sections...anyone want to look and see how far they go back?

The forum can actually be set so that all posts in the BST section do not add to the post count and since many people who regularly use the BST sections for sales (not buying) are constantly adding to their post counts with "up, TTT, Bump! etc etc"

As MarkM has pointed out, many people just post what they can, JUST to get their post count up. The big one is in the BST section were they just post things like (up, up for the day, ttt, lets get this gone today, etc). I know iam guilty of posting like that, but i go back the next day and delete it and post it up again. That way I dont have a 5 pages of ups just for a one thread.
But there are many other pointless threads/post going on like also in the BST, people making 3-4 threads of the same gun/part (one for each week that didnt get sold). i mean come on, if you want to start with a fresh thread each week please delete the old one(s). Another example are the threads/post that are just pure spaming. and those are all over the site.

[Chris Nearchos]

true, but

Actually, I bet you would be surprised how little space the text part takes up.

I know text takes very liitle space. but if you count up all of those Kb`s of the pointless post/threads it really starts to add up like pennies! And its not just the text but bandwith/space used up with the boarders and background of the post/threads.

[punkncat]

I just found out that I have been provided with 10MB of space through my ISP that I haven't been using and just activated. Hopefully it will allow enough bandwidth to hotlink and be useful to save space here.

Might want to check your own ISPs this must be a fairly standard feature.

[Chris Nearchos]

wow?

man pics out again. good thing i switched all my pics over to jayloo after the last pic crash.

[kurama]

I've always used imageshack on every site I go to. No uploads on any of them

[ta2maki]

I just found an AWSOME hosting site. The only limitaton is that the filesize be under 1.5mb and that they are jpg,gif,or png. After uploading they give you the code to cut and paste into your post and here's a good one, you don't have to sign up for an account.

It's definitely worth checking out.

http://paintedover.com/

[Def Jeff]

Why not simply disable the entire file attatchment system and force everyone to use an outside site? There's plenty of them and all that's needed is a sticky thread with all the possible places. That way the cost of the site goes down, and people still get to host their pics. Win-win situation to me.

[BD_Paintball]

Why not simply disable the entire file attatchment system and force everyone to use an outside site? There's plenty of them and all that's needed is a sticky thread with all the possible places. That way the cost of the site goes down, and people still get to host their pics. Win-win situation to me.

thats a very good idea. as long as people know where to host the pics then it will be all good. it will save tom alot of money.