URGENT NEWS

[La Reine Margot]

Houston, We Have A Problem

We are in the middle of downloading files from the site to back everything up.

We received an email saying that we have to delete a number of files/directories because they are TOO BIG, and it's affecting the service.

I will explain in more detail tomorrow, but I'm afraid we have to makes some changes, including an upgrade, to save the site.

You'll see some changes tomorrow and maybe during the week, as we work this out.

Unfortunately this comes at a time when we are preparing a two big production values movies and we're really busy, so I hope we will complete this changes in a day or two.

This is part of the email:

(...) As a result, your website hosting account has been suspended. (...)

Your website hosting account is storing files in a manner for which it is not intended or compatible. While you will need to fully review your current and intended usage, the following is of primary concern at this time:

/public_html/ralphus.net/special/myclips
/public_html/ralphus.net/thegimpforum/files
/public_html/ralphus.net/dailypic18
/public_html/ralphus.net/dailypic16
/public_html/ralphus.net/dailypic19
/public_html/ralphus.net/dailypic20
/public_html/ralphus.net/dailypic17
/public_html/ralphus.net/dailypic12

In other words, we have to move those files, and maybe others, before December 18, when they will review the service.

We will be suspending the attachments for the time being until we resolve this issue.

I will have more details tomorrow.

[gowron]

And I suggest again people post links to pictures, not the pictures themselves.

If said pictures can't be found anywhere, they can always be posted on sites like BDSMLR so a link becomes available.

Note: there's Tumblr, but they censor nudity.

[Frank]

And I suggest again people post links to pictures, not the pictures themselves.

If said pictures can't be found anywhere, they can always be posted on sites like BDSMLR so a link becomes available.

Note: there's Tumblr, but they censor nudity.

Having to click on the links first can become tiresome pretty quick, as you can't see a thumbnail beforehand and thus don't even know if a certain picture is of any interest to you. Imagine having to do that with *every* picture on this forum. Naww - that's not a solution.

[gowron]

And I suggest again people post links to pictures, not the pictures themselves.

If said pictures can't be found anywhere, they can always be posted on sites like BDSMLR so a link becomes available.

Note: there's Tumblr, but they censor nudity.

Having to click on the links first can become tiresome pretty quick, as you can't see a thumbnail beforehand and thus don't even know if a certain picture is of any interest to you. Imagine having to do that with *every* picture on this forum. Naww - that's not a solution.

You can post the link with the [img ] tag. It'll show up without having to click on the link.

[hornythumb]

We can also just reduce the volume of posts. Think hard about whether an image merits posting. In my view, the best posts tend to show a face, but there are of course hot pics without a face. We just need to be respectful of storage constraints.

[yyy02]

Isn't part of the problem that the Forum has stored every image since the beginning of this latest version of the Forum?

Maybe archive the images after 30 days or so, to Cloud storage? But that would create more work?

Or just delete them, to keep the Forum lean and mean?

And I suggest again people post links to pictures, not the pictures themselves.

If said pictures can't be found anywhere, they can always be posted on sites like BDSMLR so a link becomes available.

But doesn't that mean we're just foisting the GIMP's storage problems off on someone else?

[La Reine Margot]

Isn't part of the problem that the Forum has stored every image since the beginning of this latest version of the Forum?

Maybe archive the images after 30 days or so, to Cloud storage? But that would create more work?

Or just delete them, to keep the Forum lean and mean?

And I suggest again people post links to pictures, not the pictures themselves.

If said pictures can't be found anywhere, they can always be posted on sites like BDSMLR so a link becomes available.

But doesn't that mean we're just foisting the GIMP's storage problems off on someone else?

The GIMP site, in its many forms, has over 20 years of existence and an accumulation of files, mostly pictures and gifs, that are now too heavy to handle unless... an upgrade is made to a bigger hosting plan that could, in theory, double the space, but that comes at a cost.

Right now we need to unload the server from a lot of images, around 250 gigas, most of which is almost the entire archives of the GIMP.

We are downloading everything, even tough we have them archived in our hard disks somewhere, but just in case, we are creating yet another backup.

We'll remove them from the server as soon as we have them all nicely stored in our hard disks.

That means that all the pages at ralphus.net that contain pictures, all the archives and so on, will not have pictures at all until such time that we reconnect it all in a new hosting plan. A bigger hosting plan.

It will not affect the current Forum until the moment when we will have to move it and since we have the experience of having problems when moving, we hope we don't this time.

Before we upgrade the hosting plan we have to take a good look at the financial issues. It's a monthly charge, which we are now covering, but if it is double what we pay now, then we have to really consider what to do, how to handle the new expense.

The reason why the site stopped working on the previous hosting service, a while ago, was the same. The system collapsed because the files exceeded the quota of 300 Gb. It did not allowed for us to make a backup of the site, only to download the files, we could not do anything about the forum back then.

We can do a lot now and we need to increase our capacity and in some way this new development can be positive, but it is making us think that from simply having a bunch of sites to share our work, pictures and so on, we might have to jump into full developers status, which means that we will be paying a lot, we will have to work a lot more and we will need to figure out how to pay for it all, and how to make some money as well.

We cover all the operational expenses with the money we make selling our films. We promote and sell them and we hope that people visiting here buy a film or two. We will have to make a lot more to upgrade the hosting plan on a monthly basis. It means we will need to increase our monthly average in sales, which is not easy. So we have to come up with solutions and fast.

That's the situation right now.

[gowron]

Isn't part of the problem that the Forum has stored every image since the beginning of this latest version of the Forum?

Maybe archive the images after 30 days or so, to Cloud storage? But that would create more work?

Or just delete them, to keep the Forum lean and mean?

And I suggest again people post links to pictures, not the pictures themselves.

If said pictures can't be found anywhere, they can always be posted on sites like BDSMLR so a link becomes available.

But doesn't that mean we're just foisting the GIMP's storage problems off on someone else?

The other sites make money with ads, so they want visitors. And they'll get visitors if people post interesting stuff.
Therefore they don't see it as a problem, on the contrary.

[La Reine Margot]

Isn't part of the problem that the Forum has stored every image since the beginning of this latest version of the Forum?

Maybe archive the images after 30 days or so, to Cloud storage? But that would create more work?

Or just delete them, to keep the Forum lean and mean?

And I suggest again people post links to pictures, not the pictures themselves.

If said pictures can't be found anywhere, they can always be posted on sites like BDSMLR so a link becomes available.

But doesn't that mean we're just foisting the GIMP's storage problems off on someone else?

The other sites make money with ads, so they want visitors. And they'll get visitors if people post interesting stuff.
Therefore they don't see it as a problem, on the contrary.

We don't put ads, people promote their work here, some producers do it, like we do too, but the site doesn't make any money from that, except that we keep it going, covering the costs.

[hornythumb]

Isn't part of the problem that the Forum has stored every image since the beginning of this latest version of the Forum?

Maybe archive the images after 30 days or so, to Cloud storage? But that would create more work?

Or just delete them, to keep the Forum lean and mean?


But doesn't that mean we're just foisting the GIMP's storage problems off on someone else?

The other sites make money with ads, so they want visitors. And they'll get visitors if people post interesting stuff.
Therefore they don't see it as a problem, on the contrary.

We don't put ads, people promote their work here, some producers do it, like we do too, but the site doesn't make any money from that, except that we keep it going, covering the costs.

Maybe just delete everything 6 to 12 months old. I conjecture most views don't look back much at all. The enjoyment is in the moment.

Is that stuff worth keeping?