Important Notice Regarding Images

[Evan Burton]

In this thread, Andy has made mention of Forum problems sometimes being caused by the amount of storage space we use, and how he has to clear out attachments that are not being utilised or which were posted some time ago.

In order for the Forum storage space to be maintained at a viable capacity, Andy is going to have to delete attachments on a regular basis.

Some of these attachments are, however, quite important to people. In order to minimise the disruption caused by this cleaning process, everyone should be aware of the need to replace important images (that have been attached - on site) with off site images (e.g. Photobucket).

Commencing 1 NOV 07, Andy will be deleting all attachments over 90 days old.

If the attachment is important to you, you should download a copy of it for your personal records. In most cases this will mean simply right-clicking the attachment and using the SAVE LINK AS / SAVE IMAGE command (or whatever your browser uses) to download a copy of it to your computer. Please always remember to virus scan any downloads onto your computer, even from a trusted site like this. Always ensure your virus detection files are up to date.

If anyone has problems doing this, please contact me via PM (or post on this thread) and I'll do my best to assist you.

If the attachment / image is important to the thread, then (preferably) the poster should save the image / attachment off-site at Photobucket, Imageshack, or whatever image / data hosting site they prefer to use. You should then replace the tags within the post (they look like "attachment ID=123456") with the external link (e.g. <img>http:/www.hostsite.com.au/myimages/image123456.jpg</img>; note that you have to replace the <> with [] to make it work).

This will insure that the original intent of the post is maintained whilst reducing the strain on the Forum site.

Once again:

- If people are uncertain on how to do this, please contact me (PM or via this thread) and I'll help you out.

- Commencing 1 NOV 07, all attachments over 90 days old will be deleted.

- If it is important to you, save a copy of the attachment onto your computer (Always beware of viruses!).

- If the attachment is important to the thread, replace the attachment tags with external link tags.

If you feel an attachment is important and should remain as such, and there are genuine reasons why the attachment cannot be hosted off-site, please contact John or Andy and they can determine if your attachment should be exempted from the deletion process.

Any questions, please post them here or contact one of the Mods / Admins via PM.

[Evan Burton]

Some good thoughts Peter. I'll pass them to Andy.

[Evan Burton]

Post passed via PM to Andy.

[Evan Burton]

Even though what you say makes sense and I support it Peter, I think we all have to try to make a change in our posting habits and use external host sites wherever possible.

If you have to upload using an attachment, try to minimise it's size. Where you really do need to use an attachment, it would be worthwhile to let Andy know so that it doesn't get culled.

[John Simkin]

While I completely understand the problems a large amount of attachements may cause, so many threads are discussions over important [at least to some] photos. A thread about an event in Dallas, a possibly altered photo, events of 911 loose all meaning without the photos being talked about. I 

ave sometimes gone back to look at old threads and the photos are, yes, all missing and they are an integral part.

I agree. I have only deleted attachments from threads that are considered to be dead topics. I have never deleted any images that I consider to be important in the investigation of the JFK assassination. I will suggest to Andy that I takeover responsibility for deleting images. I am also willing to place important ones on my website.

[Guest]

While I completely understand the problems a large amount of attachements may cause, so many threads are discussions over important [at least to some] photos. A thread about an event in Dallas, a possibly altered photo, events of 911 loose all meaning without the photos being talked about. I 

ave sometimes gone back to look at old threads and the photos are, yes, all missing and they are an integral part.

I agree. I have only deleted attachments from threads that are considered to be dead topics. I have never deleted any images that I consider to be important in the investigation of the JFK assassination. I will suggest to Andy that I takeover responsibility for deleting images. I am also willing to place important ones on my website.

That's fine by me. However we are still in a state of nearly double our maximum and getting it under control will not be an easy task. The only images I have deleted recently have either been extremely large ones 2MB+ or images in threads that have not be viewed for a considerable amount of time.

I would therefore urge members to do either compress their images where appropriate before uploading them to the forum or (and this is my preference), host them somewhere else and link to them

[Craig Lamson]

While I completely understand the problems a large amount of attachements may cause, so many threads are discussions over important [at least to some] photos. A thread about an event in Dallas, a possibly altered photo, events of 911 loose all meaning without the photos being talked about. I 

ave sometimes gone back to look at old threads and the photos are, yes, all missing and they are an integral part.

I agree. I have only deleted attachments from threads that are considered to be dead topics. I have never deleted any images that I consider to be important in the investigation of the JFK assassination. I will suggest to Andy that I takeover responsibility for deleting images. I am also willing to place important ones on my website.

That's fine by me. However we are still in a state of nearly double our maximum and getting it under control will not be an easy task. The only images I have deleted recently have either been extremely large ones 2MB+ or images in threads that have not be viewed for a considerable amount of time.

I would therefore urge members to do either compress their images where appropriate before uploading them to the forum or (and this is my preference), host them somewhere else and link to them

I must say that photobucket is the perfect solution. Not only does it free up forum storage space, it allows the posted to use larger, more detailed images to support their work. Noting is worse that trying to see some important detail in a highly compressed jpg image.

Working with photobucket is quite easy. The upload process takes no more time or skill than uploading to the forum, and placing the correct link a post is a simple cut and paste.

http://photobucket.com/