Posts gone wild

[La Reine Margot]

There was a time, not long ago, when we reached our capacity for attachment. It happened more than once, actually. The first time ralphus.net went out was when it had reached a limit. It happened again after we moved the site to a new server, with more control over things. And it happened again and we were forced to upgrade our plan so the site could hold a lot more pictures.... and we upgraded again when we were meeting another limit.... and so on and so forth.

It has come to my attention that some people post pages and pages of attachments in one or two days... and those posts are not exactly GIMP. (I'm tempted to create a forum dedicated to mature ladies, really... )

I set the limits to 1 picture per post for the time being.

There were comments about how to control this... it's only possible if I take away the permissions from people that break the rules. However, I don't think that is a good thing. I think that we should all be nice about this and not abuse the capacity of a good thing.

We don't want to go through upgrades every few months, it costs money and our budget to maintain this site increases. I can foresee a time when the capacity of the server is overtaken and this site will become a relic.

This is a free site, and although we recently made a campaign to raise enough fund to make it stronger and with a lot more capacity, that is no unlimited.

I want to make a deal.

DON"T ABUSE your privilege to freely and openly post whatever you wish, except CHILD PORNOGRAPHY, of course, and I will bring up the limit of attachment per post to 3. Right now it's set at 1.

And what does it mean not abuse? Don't put 100 attachments in one week. Come on! I remember when I was just a poster here when I made a post with 40 pictures, instead of my normal 3 or 4, during the old days... but those were no attachments, they were links to our site. But Ralphus saw that as ABUSE and took the post down, completely down.

I could do that too, but it's too much work and I would have to ask for a raise.

So, this is the deal, limit yourself to the average 2 posts 3 pictures per day, not pages and pages and pages with pictures and pictures and pictures in one day.

When I see some agreements here, I'll change the settings. If I don't get more than one or two responses, the one picture per post will remain, and if I feel in a bad mood, I'll start eliminating excess of posts...

Thank you

[yyy02]

...So, this is the deal, limit yourself to the average 2 posts 3 pictures per day, not pages and pages and pages with pictures and pictures and pictures in one day.

When I see some agreements here, I'll change the settings...

Agreed. I know I have been guilty of overposting on occasion.

I think if the members would self-limit per your requirements, the problem would solve itself?

[wulf]

I've sort of expected this for a while, and I hope everyone will play ball here. I would hate to see this place shuttered or too expensive to maintain. Personally I have no problem with the limits, and will abide by whatever they are. Please do the same everybody.

[doe.1971]

Or use external links to reduce the load. True, some creations can't be hosted on most of the outside servers but places like https://postimages.org are tolerant to almost everything. They should be used more often.

[cluseb]

Or use external links to reduce the load. True, some creations can't be hosted on most of the outside servers but places like https://postimages.org are tolerant to almost everything. They should be used more often.

I used "postimages" extensively in early 2023 when we couldn't put up any attachments here, its very easy to use and works quite well. I was able to keep my topic "Block 10" going with fresh images every day during that crises.

It looks like I'm going to have to restrict the number of pictures one can post in a day. And in the case of this thread (Mature Ladies), mostly non GIMP pictures, I will start deleting.

But it doesn't address the watering down of our GIMP content with vanilla granny porn, which has been a growing pet peeve of mine.

[Ganemede]

Seems reasonable to me - I certainly appreciate the freedom this forum gives to share, and I feel there is no harm on some temporary restrictions if it helps refocus topics on GIMP content..

[BlirGimp]

I understand the desire to conserve storage but be careful of the remedy you apply. One way to conserve storage is to simply ban posts altogether. No posts, no storage, no costs, no revenues. Not a very good idea if your marketing plan for resurrecting this site was to attract viewers who wish to see the images posted in the forums and then might see/buy your videos or the products of partner advertisers.

People who post images are not your enemy. They help market the site and the products that are advertised on the site. Ad revenues on all internet social media sites are driven by the number of visitors to a particular site. More eyeballs = more revenues.

That's how Facebook became a company with $1.4 trillion market capitalization. Access to Its subscribers is literally the product it "sells." People subscribe to Facebook because of the access it provides to others who share their interests. Ditto "Twitter" (now X), LinkedIn, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram. TikTok and a million other social media sites that allow free access to their sites. They did not grow to the size they are by limiting access to their sites either by arbitrary post restrictions or imposing subscription fees.

If no images are being posted or the images being posted are of poor quality, people will stop frequenting the site and those who do post substantive content will simply go somewhere else.

[MasterKav]

I understand the desire to conserve storage but be careful of the remedy you apply. One way to conserve storage is to simply ban posts altogether. No posts, no storage, no costs, no revenues. Not a very good idea if your marketing plan for resurrecting this site was to attract viewers who wish to see the images posted in the forums and then might see/buy your videos or the products of partner advertisers.

People who post images are not your enemy. They help market the site and the products that are advertised on the site. Ad revenues on all internet social media sites are driven by the number of visitors to a particular site. More eyeballs = more revenues.

That's how Facebook became a company with $1.4 trillion market capitalization. Access to Its subscribers is literally the product it "sells." People subscribe to Facebook because of the access it provides to others who share their interests. Ditto "Twitter" (now X), LinkedIn, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram. TikTok and a million other social media sites that allow free access to their sites. They did not grow to the size they are by limiting access to their sites either by arbitrary post restrictions or imposing subscription fees.

If no images are being posted or the images being posted are of poor quality, people will stop frequenting the site and those who do post substantive content will simply go somewhere else.

Very well put

[yyy02]

The GIMP Forum is free to all members. I believe this has always been the case, along with a refreshing lack of censorship of any sort. This dearth of censorship you will be hard pressed to find anywhere else.

People who frequent the GIMP Forum are free to stay, or to go, as they wish.

I realize it may seem inconceivable, especially in todays age of profit margins and the almighty dollar, but Margot and Ralphus look after this site as a labor of love, more than anything else.

[cluseb]

One option of third party hosting --> https://postimages.org



Later today I'll put up a page explaining how to do it from " motherless" it's a little different, 1 extra step