Posts gone wild

[La Reine Margot]

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.

Just to clarify somethings.



If we were open to have ads, and I mean paid ads, and in addition set up the site so anyone who registers becomes a member, we would have a million bots advertising everything and anything, from viagra, to casinos, millions of porn sites and everything the meta universe has to offer. We don't have the capacity, nor the technology to deal with that. This is a one man/woman operation, depending who has the time to work with this at any given time.

We're working on changing the system we're using to one where we will have more control and less issues with bots. We are using an open source app, which means it attracts bots because that's what bots do, they attach to the app at its source. But using a more sophisticate app, non open source, comes with a high cost, which we hesitate to get into. But if we do, maybe then we'll open up more.

We promote our films, sure, and other producers do it as well, free of charge, so I guess that helps, sometimes. But we don't have a million subscribers to reach to. We do have a few hundred, sure, that are lurking around, but most of the regulars that post are very few.

So, basically, this is a nice meeting place dedicated to discuss, exchange, enjoy GIMP images, stories and so on. GIMP is the key word and that's what started this a quarter of a century ago.

Non GIMP images are ok, I guess, we don't censor and people seem to be ok with that here, but when we get a deluge of images and posts in a couple of days in one NON GIMP thread, I begin to worry because I can see that we will be reaching our capacity very fast and we'll have to upgrade again or get stuck with no storage room and 0 operational capacity.

What I'm asking is for a bit of self control and respect for the rights of the others. To limit the number of posts per day per person, per thread. Sharing a few pictures per day, like 5, 10, is fine, but putting 50 pictures and 3 pages of posts by one person in one thread and in less than 48 hrs is basically abusing the privileges we have here. Really.

So, I'll go back to the 3 pictures per post settings and we'll see how it goes.

[hornythumb]

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.

Just to clarify somethings.



If we were open to have ads, and I mean paid ads, and in addition set up the site so anyone who registers becomes a member, we would have a million bots advertising everything and anything, from viagra, to casinos, millions of porn sites and everything the meta universe has to offer. We don't have the capacity, nor the technology to deal with that. This is a one man/woman operation, depending who has the time to work with this at any given time.

We're working on changing the system we're using to one where we will have more control and less issues with bots. We are using an open source app, which means it attracts bots because that's what bots do, they attach to the app at its source. But using a more sophisticate app, non open source, comes with a high cost, which we hesitate to get into. But if we do, maybe then we'll open up more.

We promote our films, sure, and other producers do it as well, free of charge, so I guess that helps, sometimes. But we don't have a million subscribers to reach to. We do have a few hundred, sure, that are lurking around, but most of the regulars that post are very few.

So, basically, this is a nice meeting place dedicated to discuss, exchange, enjoy GIMP images, stories and so on. GIMP is the key word and that's what started this a quarter of a century ago.

Non GIMP images are ok, I guess, we don't censor and people seem to be ok with that here, but when we get a deluge of images and posts in a couple of days in one NON GIMP thread, I begin to worry because I can see that we will be reaching our capacity very fast and we'll have to upgrade again or get stuck with no storage room and 0 operational capacity.

What I'm asking is for a bit of self control and respect for the rights of the others. To limit the number of posts per day per person, per thread. Sharing a few pictures per day, like 5, 10, is fine, but putting 50 pictures and 3 pages of posts by one person in one thread and in less than 48 hrs is basically abusing the privileges we have here. Really.

So, I'll go back to the 3 pictures per post settings and we'll see how it goes.

Most of us understand and appreciate your efforts. Terrific site. Hope the bots don't ruin it someday. Also, the rule of three is quite reasonable:
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"So, I'll go back to the 3 pictures per post settings and we'll see how it goes."

[BlirGimp]

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

So, how does this work if the images one wishes to post do not come from a web site, but reside on an individual's PC as work that individual has done themselves?

[BlirGimp]

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 today's 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.

Many people will claim that they "love" the work they do, but work, any work, is something that requires payment to entice the worker to show up every day. If they really "loved" their work, as they claim, they would do it for free.

Running a web site is not costless but requires resources and a marketing plan to map out how the expenses of the site will be met. This is a pretty small site, with a fairly limited number of regular contributors and visitors. There's also a small number of "partners" who I assume are paying something for the links to their sites. The link to their sites is not as prominent as it should be, in my opinion. At a minimum, a link to the "Our Partners" page should be in the Quick Links menu on every page.

Other erotic sites, like Renderotica, Renderosity and DAZ, have an on-line store where vendors can offer their products for sale. They also feature curated ads from sites/vendors to be displayed on the site. That's probably how they cover the expenses of running their sites. Curating/Approving the ads is also how they prevent the bots from inundating the site with irrelevant junk.

One idea might be to copy the Renderotica business model. For example, offer commercial artists, like SlasherComix, Badia, Damian, Davo, Quoom, OZ, etc, the opportunity to sell their products directly on the GIMP site, with GIMP taking a commission from the sales made through their site. The success of that would depend, of course, on the mechanics/expenses of setting up an on-line store and significantly growing the numbers of regular visitors and contributors. It would also require advertising the GIMP site on related sites to draw in more visitors and contributors. It would require spending more money.

You cannot shrink your way to profitability. Restrictions on what forum viewers may post may save some electrons, but at a cost of shrinking the number of visitors and contributors because the site is no longer interesting. In the business world, this is sometimes called "Eating your seed corn." It feeds you for a day, but you starve in the long run.

In the world in which we live, it is all about money and figuring out how to make ends meet. I hope Margot and Ralphus are up to the task.

[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

So, how does this work if the images one wishes to post do not come from a web site, but reside on an individual's PC as work that individual has done themselves?

You post images all the time in "Art Contributions" if you have a dual screen then you probably "drag and drop"
if you have a mono screen then you probably "copy and paste" worst case you click the folder icon and worm your way to it from "my pitchers" goto step 1 and upload something.

[Edukator]

So, how does this work if the images one wishes to post do not come from a web site, but reside on an individual's PC as work that individual has done themselves?

You post images all the time in "Art Contributions" if you have a dual screen then you probably "drag and drop"
if you have a mono screen then you probably "copy and paste" worst case you click the folder icon and worm your way to it from "my pitchers" goto step 1 and upload something.

Is there a way to make it more difficult and (user) unfriendly ?

[BlirGimp]

So, how does this work if the images one wishes to post do not come from a web site, but reside on an individual's PC as work that individual has done themselves?

You post images all the time in "Art Contributions" if you have a dual screen then you probably "drag and drop"
if you have a mono screen then you probably "copy and paste" worst case you click the folder icon and worm your way to it from "my pitchers" goto step 1 and upload something.

Is there a way to make it more difficult and (user) unfriendly ?

Ha! It's akin to "gun control" logic ban guns and tax ammo to reduce crime) or navigating that brainless AI/Chatbot that screens calls to prevent customers from speaking with a live customer service agent.

[La Reine Margot]

The limit of pictures per post is back to 3, since yesterday.


I'm counting on everyone to use some common sense and be nice about it.

Time will tell, if we reach a point of no return, then let it be.

We have a lot of image storage space, and it should be fine for a while, but that long while might get shorter and shorter if some people decide to post pages and pages with dozens of pictures every day.

There are more changes coming over in many fronts for a more exciting experience at the entire GIMP site, not only the Forum.

I know there will be some people who will read this, most people will not.

Sometimes I'm tempted to search for a new "Guestbook" app to re set the site to how it was at the beginning.

Back then Ralphus used to approve ALL posts! ALWAYS. That system needed a lot of hands-on work, which is hard to do these days.

I leave with a picture of our up and coming endeavors... A picture that hasn't been release yet. We're working on a campaign, and I'm working on a post about it and so... here it is



So, to those few that read this, thank you and don't worry, the Forum will be goin on strong for a while. I just worry to much about the abuse of the privileges people have in this site.

[MAV]

I leave with a picture of our up and coming endeavors...

I couldn't help but notice this in your first post Reine (and didn't see anything on the main RF thread). Is this coming out soon as well?

[La Reine Margot]

I leave with a picture of our up and coming endeavors...

I couldn't help but notice this in your first post Reine (and didn't see anything on the main RF thread). Is this coming out soon as well?

It's one of the films in Post Production. It's part of a two films about secret agents.

Agent Honey Trap



Deep Cover Mole