URGENT NEWS

[BobDarkroom]

I agree with Horny thumb. Why keep everything that has been posted over the years?
Let's say I want to find an image I remember seeing on the site some time ago but I can't remember the year, the thread, the name of the poster... I won't spend hours by browsing through the archives hoping to find it. I guess that applies to everyone here.

An archive is fine if it has some sophisticated search engine associated with it. As far as I know this is not the case so what is the benefit of keeping everything in an archive?

Even if the extra cost for more storage could be overcome, eventually the site will run into the same problem again when it reaches the new storage limit.

Keeping a site free from ads at a reasonable cost implies limitations on storage capacity and hence some kind of time limit for keeping posts on the site.
Just my 2 cents

[theelectrician]

An archive is fine if it has some sophisticated search engine associated with it. As far as I know this is not the case so what is the benefit of keeping everything in an archive?

Search function is broken. If possible maybe host the archive as downloads somewhere else?

[klingsor]

You could buy more disk space and have forum members share the cost with an annual fee.
I would be quite ready to pay a few $.

It would also be better if we always had to log in to enter the forum.
I'm surprised that the moralist scene hasn't attacked the site yet. ... you can read and see nasty things here...

[gowron]

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?

I assume people save stuff worth keeping, so it'd be a problem only for newcomers or infrequent visitors.

[La Reine Margot]

We began removing a bunch of files from the server. There were a number of directories listed to be removed because of their size. This action will temporarily affect the archive pages, like the old GIMP pages where Ralphus had the daily pics. The pages will be there still, but with broken links to the images.

We're working to upgrade the hosting plan, it's a little complicated, but once we settle for the appropriate one, we'll do it.

There was the issue of "Unlimited Storage" which Jac asked the tech support at the hosting service. This is a little of what transpired:



Another possibility is to use to different plan, which means we would have to move a website or two there or create a totally new one where all the archived pictures can be located. It would be a website linked to ralphus.net but with a different web address. In any case, the cost of hosting will double, we're just looking into what's more practical and permanent. We don't want to go through this issue every time we hit some high mark.

The ideal situation is to have a server like facebook has, but for that we would have to become billionaires and that's not going to happen this month.

The forum won't be affected, for know, even though the entire ralphus.net/files directory was on the list. That's where all the attached pictures in this forum are. It is huge.

After we remove the files we'll see if that solved the current problem or if we need to do something else.

We're very, very busy preparing two productions, one of which starts tomorrow, se we're kind of pressed to do this fast, and it's going to take at least a month or more for us to get to get the removed files back in biz.

As someone said before, maybe not too many people go back there to see those files.

That's it for now.

[La Reine Margot]

You could buy more disk space and have forum members share the cost with an annual fee.
I would be quite ready to pay a few $.

It would also be better if we always had to log in to enter the forum.
I'm surprised that the moralist scene hasn't attacked the site yet. ... you can read and see nasty things here...

This is one solution, to make this forum, and the entire website, more private and maybe with a small fee. One possibility is to get a 2, 3 dollar monthly contribution... or a 10 bucks a year, something like that. But I have strong doubts that enough people will take it.

[BobDarkroom]

This is one solution, to make this forum, and the entire website, more private and maybe with a small fee. One possibility is to get a 2, 3 dollar monthly contribution... or a 10 bucks a year, something like that. But I have strong doubts that enough people will take it.

Dear Reine Margot,
As I understand from your previous comments on this topic, you use this forum also as a promotion tool for your video productions and in return you carry the cost of maintaining the forum operational for free.
I really appreciate this and I can see why you are reluctant to move to a paid membership and/or a mandatory login to browse the forum. These measures would probably result in a serious decrease in the number of visitors since there wouldn't be a "Guest status" anymore. Consequently the promotion purpose would become significantly less effective.

I really understand the "business model" but IMO it's incompatible with the desire to keep a huge archive of everything that has ever been posted on this forum. So, if I had decide on this issue I would go for deleting posts after a certain fixed time (e.g. one year).

Maybe launching a poll on how visitors think about this option might help you to figure out the best solution?

[La Reine Margot]

This is one solution, to make this forum, and the entire website, more private and maybe with a small fee. One possibility is to get a 2, 3 dollar monthly contribution... or a 10 bucks a year, something like that. But I have strong doubts that enough people will take it.

Dear Reine Margot,
As I understand from your previous comments on this topic, you use this forum also as a promotion tool for your video productions and in return you carry the cost of maintaining the forum operational for free.
I really appreciate this and I can see why you are reluctant to move to a paid membership and/or a mandatory login to browse the forum. These measures would probably result in a serious decrease in the number of visitors since there wouldn't be a "Guest status" anymore. Consequently the promotion purpose would become significantly less effective.

I really understand the "business model" but IMO it's incompatible with the desire to keep a huge archive of everything that has ever been posted on this forum. So, if I had decide on this issue I would go for deleting posts after a certain fixed time (e.g. one year).

Maybe launching a poll on how visitors think about this option might help you to figure out the best solution?

Our history with the GIMP site goes a long way. We promote our work in places where we know or think many of our fan base spend their time, and a couple of these places are long gone, like cruxfoundation where we spent a lot of time promoting, arguing, digressing, and where Camille posted a lot back in the day. All those posts and exchanges are gone forever. The domain name cruxfoundation.com is for sale now, at the low price of over 14,000 dollars. Imagine that.

When the problems with ralphus.com started, we intervened, first it was Amy who worked on rescuing the site when the 'guestbook' app went out of business. Amy set it all up with a new one. Then the hacking issue came up and that's when I got in to set up the forum because the guestbook format was no longer available. But then the server filled up over its limit and everything came to a halt. Once again I intervene but this time moving the site to our hosting service.

So, yes, we are covering the costs of maintaining the site and we do most of the work to keep it going, and sure part of the reason is because we use it as a promotion tool, but that's not the main reason. We developed a strong attachment to it and we would hate it if it disappears.

One way to cover the bigger expenses that would come if we increase our storage capacity while keeping it the way it is, would be for us to be far more aggressive in our promotion work. That means that we would be putting adds for our films all over the place. Not just a post once in a while when we have something coming up. It doesn't mean that people here will go nuts and start purchasing our films like hot potatoes, it means that we would be pushing and pushing and pushing some more.

We would also work in more aggressive ways to get more people coming in while adjusting our approval terms. And we would limit the number of attachments. There are some people that post really a lot, and some of it is not even strictly GIMP. In some cases it's more like a dick feast than anything gimp related. Which if fine, but it does add to the weight. Right?

But for now, we are removing a lot of pictures avoid the suspension of the account. That will affect most the old GIMP site that is in archives. The pages will still be there, but the links to the images will be broken for some time.

After that is done, we'll be looking into upgrading the hosting plan to have more capacity, and with it, we'll work on how to cover those costs.

[hornythumb]

This is one solution, to make this forum, and the entire website, more private and maybe with a small fee. One possibility is to get a 2, 3 dollar monthly contribution... or a 10 bucks a year, something like that. But I have strong doubts that enough people will take it.

Dear Reine Margot,
As I understand from your previous comments on this topic, you use this forum also as a promotion tool for your video productions and in return you carry the cost of maintaining the forum operational for free.
I really appreciate this and I can see why you are reluctant to move to a paid membership and/or a mandatory login to browse the forum. These measures would probably result in a serious decrease in the number of visitors since there wouldn't be a "Guest status" anymore. Consequently the promotion purpose would become significantly less effective.

I really understand the "business model" but IMO it's incompatible with the desire to keep a huge archive of everything that has ever been posted on this forum. So, if I had decide on this issue I would go for deleting posts after a certain fixed time (e.g. one year).

Maybe launching a poll on how visitors think about this option might help you to figure out the best solution?

Our history with the GIMP site goes a long way. We promote our work in places where we know or think many of our fan base spend their time, and a couple of these places are long gone, like cruxfoundation where we spent a lot of time promoting, arguing, digressing, and where Camille posted a lot back in the day. All those posts and exchanges are gone forever. The domain name cruxfoundation.com is for sale now, at the low price of over 14,000 dollars. Imagine that.

When the problems with ralphus.com started, we intervened, first it was Amy who worked on rescuing the site when the 'guestbook' app went out of business. Amy set it all up with a new one. Then the hacking issue came up and that's when I got in to set up the forum because the guestbook format was no longer available. But then the server filled up over its limit and everything came to a halt. Once again I intervene but this time moving the site to our hosting service.

So, yes, we are covering the costs of maintaining the site and we do most of the work to keep it going, and sure part of the reason is because we use it as a promotion tool, but that's not the main reason. We developed a strong attachment to it and we would hate it if it disappears.

One way to cover the bigger expenses that would come if we increase our storage capacity while keeping it the way it is, would be for us to be far more aggressive in our promotion work. That means that we would be putting adds for our films all over the place. Not just a post once in a while when we have something coming up. It doesn't mean that people here will go nuts and start purchasing our films like hot potatoes, it means that we would be pushing and pushing and pushing some more.

We would also work in more aggressive ways to get more people coming in while adjusting our approval terms. And we would limit the number of attachments. There are some people that post really a lot, and some of it is not even strictly GIMP. In some cases it's more like a dick feast than anything gimp related. Which if fine, but it does add to the weight. Right?

But for now, we are removing a lot of pictures avoid the suspension of the account. That will affect most the old GIMP site that is in archives. The pages will still be there, but the links to the images will be broken for some time.

After that is done, we'll be looking into upgrading the hosting plan to have more capacity, and with it, we'll work on how to cover those costs.

Thank you so much for the detailed posts and efforts to keep the site going. As with some others, however, I think a business model of saving every image and gif users posts does not work. Ultimately, a capacity constraint must be encountered. Even the largest actors, say the Fed or NASA, or even Google, could not pull that off.

There seems but no choice to delete some of the older content. If not after six months or a year, then after 3-5 years say. Regardless of the lag window, the amount of requisite storage will remain constant, unless there is growth in the number of members or posts-per-member, or both.

Again, heartfelt thanks for a super-good site.
HT

[BobDarkroom]

Our history with the GIMP site goes a long way. We promote our work in places where we know or think many of our fan base spend their time, and a couple of these places are long gone, like cruxfoundation where we spent a lot of time promoting, arguing, digressing, and where Camille posted a lot back in the day. All those posts and exchanges are gone forever. The domain name cruxfoundation.com is for sale now, at the low price of over 14,000 dollars. Imagine that.

When the problems with ralphus.com started, we intervened, first it was Amy who worked on rescuing the site when the 'guestbook' app went out of business. Amy set it all up with a new one. Then the hacking issue came up and that's when I got in to set up the forum because the guestbook format was no longer available. But then the server filled up over its limit and everything came to a halt. Once again I intervene but this time moving the site to our hosting service.

So, yes, we are covering the costs of maintaining the site and we do most of the work to keep it going, and sure part of the reason is because we use it as a promotion tool, but that's not the main reason. We developed a strong attachment to it and we would hate it if it disappears.

One way to cover the bigger expenses that would come if we increase our storage capacity while keeping it the way it is, would be for us to be far more aggressive in our promotion work. That means that we would be putting adds for our films all over the place. Not just a post once in a while when we have something coming up. It doesn't mean that people here will go nuts and start purchasing our films like hot potatoes, it means that we would be pushing and pushing and pushing some more.

We would also work in more aggressive ways to get more people coming in while adjusting our approval terms. And we would limit the number of attachments. There are some people that post really a lot, and some of it is not even strictly GIMP. In some cases it's more like a dick feast than anything gimp related. Which if fine, but it does add to the weight. Right?

But for now, we are removing a lot of pictures avoid the suspension of the account. That will affect most the old GIMP site that is in archives. The pages will still be there, but the links to the images will be broken for some time.

After that is done, we'll be looking into upgrading the hosting plan to have more capacity, and with it, we'll work on how to cover those costs.

Thank you Reine Margot for the detailed explanation.
Can we still post with attachments or should we stick to links for the time being?