WEB-HOSTING AND LINKS

[Horsty]

Hi there!

Firstly I like to thank you all for the recent lines and having participated in this discussion! I can see that some people make their thoughts about this great board and this gives me a good feeling.

Q and sholibhak - although I find my English quite fine, I didn't understand all your points, but if I saw it right your main problem is that you don't like to spend too much time in splitting files and uploading a huge file in pieces.

Concerning the preview images displaying/loading: I just don't know why, but letting display 40 preview images that are hosted files here on the board is something TOTALLY different to let display 40 preview images from an ordinary gallery website. I had never problems with letting display normal galleries, but these hosted preview images sometimes really drive me crazy.
Yes, it is easy to post the link and to say just change the last numbers for more galleries. It is all a matter of doing the effort or not!
An example: Once I found around 10 galleries of Narkiss. I could have just posted the link and that was it. But I really liked to do the effort and downloaded almost all the pics, made nice rar-files and corresponding contact-sheets and posted them step by step. These files now in her thread will last very long and new members who like Narkiss and like to download her stuff will be happy that they have it this way and don't see a dead link to 10 galleries. I also know other forums that mostly only work with hosted files. All I feel is that I find it so disappointing to see all the red crosses instead of working links. Even if one page here in our forum is full of thumbnails or rar-files it takes always very few time to let display the whole page and scrolling one page is easy.

You make some valid points but I think you miss the reason for the board - to find a safe, reliable place for material and RapidShare doesn't provide that.

Thanks lineback, this is such an important point!

We had one poster who successfully uploaded a 526MB file to the Milena thread with no errors. Yes, he took most of a week to do it but I downloaded it in an hour and it worked.

I haven't seen this great work and I don't know this member. But this is what IT IS ALL ABOUT. Doing the effort or not! I for myself must say that I really even enjoy doing the effort and it gives me such a good feeling that my files are downloaded at least 1 time. An example: yesterday I posted a great Jelena Jensen set, 65 pics with altogether around 13 MB. I have only dial-up and a relatively slow computer. But I created 11 rar-files with corresponding contact-sheets and posted the complete set in 6 posts. And downloading all the pics first to my computer took me over one hour. So the whole act took me around 3 hours. But after that I saw that my files are downloaded, and that filled me with delight! And all Jelena fans who will participate in our community in the future will be not disappointed because they will see the pics in a saved place.

Repeatedly: It is all about doing the effort or not. I strongly believe that doing the effort is really worth it; hopefully more posters will understand and not fight shy of doing the effort.

[hopper]

MHO on the pro's of posting content as opposed to links.

Like most dedicated addicts to the board I know the value of backing up my HDD, so industriously (almost religiously) every other week I'd burn my newly garnered content to a couple of CD's which lived in the optimum cool dry climate.
Shock and horror, I return home from a weekend away to find that I have been burgled , my pc gone and the cool dry storage cupboard plundered. Eight years of internet surfing and gathering gone. The only content I was able to resurrect was that which I'd posted on this and other boards. All rapidshare and the like content, gone along with the paper file which stored the links, and those of them which I did have reference to once insurance had paid out and I'd got a new pc etc. were mostly gone due to inactivity.
As i was saying, IMHO posting content to a board such as this makes sense even if it's just so that you can have the possibility of getting your own back.

[Horsty]

Thanks hopper for presenting us also this point of view!
I have a similar understanding of what you told us. Very often I saw already interesting rar-files or pics that are uploaded to the HD of this board, but I just didn't have the mood or the time to download them immediately. And of course it also happened that I forgot them for a longer time. But it doesn't matter because I know someday I can go back and I will find them and then I can download them.

And just to remind the two main factors again:
1) Members who join in the future will not be dissapointed about dead links but happy about the stored and saved content here.
2) Dial-up users with a relatively slow computer can enjoy too.

[snotmerchant]

I gotta agree with most of the posts here, I think tho it may take a little extra effort its better to just post the pics rather than links. I had posted 149 pics in the kirstens room thread and it took me 38 posts and about an hour to get them all loaded but in the end i think it was worth it, sure I could have just rar'ed them and gotten it done in one post but i know I just like to download the pics I want rather than downloading a big file and having to delete most of the pics just to get 4 pics and I'm sure most members and dail up users probably feel the same way.

I remember the dail up days and I know that if I still had it i wouldn't even bother with those links, it took long enough just to load the pages I wanted to see without having to go through a bunch of links that may or may not have something I want or even worse, spending all that time waiting for a page to load only to get some error message or "page not found" message.

Plus it helps stop most of the duplicate postings from careless, cheating or ignorant members and for those still bold enough to post duplicate pis, it help us mods find and delete those posts and helps ol' butler bill ban said members.

[butler bill]

Ah Snot you are too kind

[sholibhak]

True enough.

I'm not trying to be lazy, I assure you, but between work, family, hobbies, and whatever else, it's hard to justify spending 3 hours or even half an hour of my day sitting around uploading or even downloading for that matter.
I just like to share things I find with people, and I've posted a little using each method, and if they're already on my harddrive just waiting to be uploaded, I'll upload them, but otherwise I probably won't bother with the extra work.
Plus, I may only download one or two pics from a gallery that suit my personal taste, while others might prefer other pics or collect full sets, which I only do for my favorite girls.

You're saying it would be better for us to offer a limited handful of uploaded pics than offer several hundred to choose from via links?
I'll certainly comply if that's what's being asked of us, but I honestly think it's detrimental.

What about a sort of compromise, where those of us who come across links but don't have the time for downloading and uploading all the content can post those links in a separate section that guests can't view, and then those who do have the time can post the content from them in the appropriate place?
Just an idea without much thought behind it, but maybe it could prove helpful.

[butler bill]

We are happy for any good posts that add to the content of our board. What I think most of the members are saying is that the individual pics are more usefull to a lot of our members. I, for one, cannot use Rar files, so the content is wasted as far as I am concerned. Those with slow connections or machines do not benefit from large files because they are impossible to download at 2 KB/sec. Any good post in any format will be welcome, but I think that the reason that we have so many members is because the Board is easy to view and use with the Browse/Add Atachment/Submit system

[Horsty]

I fully agree that many people have family, hobbies and also other things to do and they have just not the time for spending much time in uploading.
But what I don't really understand is that files from our computer also need to get uploaded to a host-website!? So why not directly uploading them to our board?

If we are only talking about ordinary pics' galleries from free-websites, then the family thing is of course clear. It needs of course much more time first to down- and then to upload the pics again; posting the link costs only some seconds...

What about a sort of compromise, where those of us who come across links but don't have the time for downloading and uploading all the content can post those links in a separate section that guests can't view, and then those who do have the time can post the content from them in the appropriate place?
Just an idea without much thought behind it, but maybe it could prove helpful.

Hey, I find that really a good idea. I just don't know if the admin or mods can create such separated sections. But it could also work that someone found a gallery, post the link, and ask someone (who has enough time) for posting the pics again as thumbnails or in rar- or zip-file. What do you all think?

Hey Bill, what kind of computer or system do you have that you cannot handle with rar-files? I find rar-files so cool...

By the way, I have 3 - 4 KB/sec, so do I have a highspeed dial-up?

[gryphondo]

Gee....., I have a home, family, job, hobbies, commitments to associations, yada, yada, yada. How do I do it???? I have over 8,500 posts and uploaded close to 17,000 pics to this site. (16,858 to date, to be exact.) I generally post more in a day, than most post in 2,3,4 or more months. Is that because they're busier than me? Perhaps, but I doubt it. I'll match my schedule with anybody's. Having said all that, let me just say that I admit that I may be a bit of an anomaly when it comes to posting, but I have done nothing that anyone else couldn't do if the effort and commitment was there.

Using small numbers, if someone were to post five times a day with accompanying pics, in the course of a month they would have about 150 posts. In 2 or 3 months they would have 300 and 450 posts respectively. Ok, maybe that's too much effort. How about 1 post a day. Now at the end of the month you got 30 posts, and at 2 or 3 months one would have 60 or 90 posts. Not much effort there, but very few take the time. Less than 100 members of this board have a hundred posts or more. (95 at present, to be exact). There are currently 25,084 members.

Everybody's gotta do what I suppose is comfortable for them, and if the admin allows it, so be it, but the only time I've personally found uploading a chore, is when we've had some times when the board was moving slow. For the most part though, I have found the process pretty simple to execute. Does it take effort? Yes it does, but it's the effort of the contributor's of this board that makes it so great. Is anything built that is worthwhile effortless?

I could make it easier for myself for sure, but that's what 99.9% of the members of this board do. I throw up stuff that crosses all lines and appeals to a broad spectrum of tastes and quirks, but everything I throw up can be seen by all members without any manipulation other than looking at the thumbnail and clicking it. What a guy. Anyway, regardless of who posts what and how, I for one will continue to upload the pics using the upload tool. Like the turtle, I consistently keep plodding along. Cheers!

[snotmerchant]

Tho I'm sure some memebers use links because they're lazy, I'm sure most memebers use links just to try and share stuff they dont really have time to share by any other means, I was just saying that its just makes alot of peoples (mods and memebers) life a lil bit easier to just upload to this site rather than having to waste time on (loading or deleting) dead links.

I've used links a few times to post gallerys for threads that I might not really care about enough to justify spending the time to download all the pics then upload them to this site but then I noticed how fast some of these links can go dead so I just stopped using them.

Bottom line is that since there are no rules against using web hosting we can't tell you that you can't, so you're are free to use whatever means suit you best and like butler bill said we're happy with any new content for this site.

[lineback]

So it appears we have three main posting philosophies expressed here. I'm firmly in the collector camp and want complete sets of the fairly few girls I follow closely, posted with WinRAR for the 5-10% disk space it's compression saves but mostly for the large amount of disk space saved over posting 4 pics at a time resulting in many more posts. The pages are also easier to navigate with more content per page. Due to hard work by several people, the Christina thread now contains all 407 of her picture sets and that makes me happy. The thread is the largest in the Models forum at 119 pages and I can't imagine how huge it would be if all those pictures (4000+) were posted four to a post. I recognize some of the points raised by the link advocates but I still don't like the hour wait and lack of permanence of RapidShare uploads and the economic instabilty of link sites. The idea of putting these types of posts in separate threads is just not doable from an administrative standpoint - to split each of the threads into two on 45 pages and then finding a phpBB feature that would classify each post according to type of post and put it in the right place is certainly not possible. When I find a RapidShare upload of content that I know lots of people would want to see, I ask the poster if I can repost it with credit to them on the board - my way to cope with the problem of impermance. I wondered why mods like snotmerchant and jimmaxmed seemed to always post 4-picture posts and now I understand - thanks snotmerchant for explaing that. Just a philosophical difference. I also fully agree with gryphondo that if you have limited time but still find time to come here at all you have time to make at least one post a week - at least a post of four pictures. As Horsty said I really enjoy finding something good somewhere and downloading it and then I think about how many people will enjoy the upload and the reward is when you post something that gets a lot of downloads. It's a pride in contributing that you won't get from posting a link. Bottom line, as BB and snot have said - the rules allow links and if Mike hasn't changed the rules he thinks it's a manageable situation. If the mods can live with it, so can I. This has certainly been an interesting and rhetoric-free discussion of different points of view. This kind of intelligent discussion of differences wouldn't have taken place anywhere else. I learned some things and that's always good.

[Q]

... I had posted 149 pics in the kirstens room thread and it took me 38 posts and about an hour to get them all loaded...

I believe an hour to post 149 pictures is a tad long. I'm going to guess that most of the time was spent clicking browse, add attachment, waiting... as a side note, each one of your 39 posts has the text "next 4". Why? because phpbbs requires something in the body of the post.. phpbbs is senseless in this context.

Personally I think it would be great if we could attach all 149 to one post. Don't go nutz on me yet, please read on.

Lets imagin there was a means to bulk upload...

post-celebsdb --subject "Kristens super set from 2005-07-31" --source-dir "/tmp/kristen/"

The server would check each each file for a duplicate... One could improve on the file md5, by using a payload md5... i just hate it when folks add internal previews to jpeg files, or change the jpeg comment... it's harder to find dups...

now on the display end of things... currently each picture is on its own row with description, filesize, viewed to the right of it... I would prefer to see the three info items as mouse over higlights...

Now place all the thumbs in one row (user's screen would wrap them into multiple rows based on window width). as a Bonus, a link at the bottom to download all the objects attached to a post as a zip/tar/rar or what not...

It's just an idea....

[Q]

... I for one will continue to upload the pics using the upload tool.

wait, what upload tool? oh, do share please

[Q]

I'm firmly in the collector camp and want complete sets of the fairly few girls I follow closely...

As many of us are. Since most image viewers can not spy into rar/tar/zip files, I believe storing stuff in exploded form is more condusive to enjoying a collction. The question is now what is the easiest means to share these collections...

The pages are also easier to navigate with more content per page.

I agree, imagine if each post was an entire collection/set...

.. I can't imagine how huge it would be if all those pictures (4000+) were posted four to a post.

I agree given the current format of the site

I recognize some of the points raised by the link advocates but I still don't like the hour wait and lack of permanence of RapidShare uploads and the economic instabilty of link sites.

I agree, the content should be local to this site.

The idea of putting these types of posts in separate threads is just not doable from an administrative standpoint - to split each of the threads into two on 45 pages and then finding a phpBB feature that would classify each post according to type of post and put it in the right place is certainly not possible.

I'm not follwoing you here... can you illustrate it another way?

This has certainly been an interesting and rhetoric-free discussion of different points of view. This kind of intelligent discussion of differences wouldn't have taken place anywhere else. I learned some things and that's always good.

I agree.. =)

[lineback]

We were waiting for your reply since you started this discussion. Obviously you work in the computer business as I did for many years. You can be unhappy with the phpBBS software framework that we have to work with but unless you know of Perl scripting that is an unused feature of this board software this is wishfull thinking. I admit to being a Perl novice though I did do a fair amont of awk and shell scripting and even some minor Fortran so I'm not code stupid. We would all like things to work more efficiently, me most of all, but unless you have an insight into adding already existing phpBB functionality to this board I don't see us improving an already functional system. This board works well for me within it's stated limitations and I don't have a problem working with them. It could certainlly be more efficieint but it's pretty damn good! I welcome your reply to a great dicussion.