Too many attachments

[Kbrasmodeler]

I’d consider an increase in storage costs of around $100 per 250gb per year a reasonable, and sustainable business cost. It doesn’t take many paid memberships to cover an increase like that.

If the cost of storage was considerably higher than that, I would be shopping around, or would considering making the investment in hosting the forum with my own hardware.

But again, this isn’t my area of expertise and could very well be missing something significant. That’s why I asked.

Kevin has said, over and over, that he's working on a fix. Maybe we can all be patient and wait for an announcement. We can speculate all we want, and still not find the answer. If it was simple and cheap, as many seem to believe, then it would never have been a problem. Kevin knows his business.

 

[scdub]

Kevin has said, over and over, that he's working on a fix. Maybe we can all be patient and wait for an announcement.

He did say (quote below) that essentially every long-time member that likes to post pics is going to be out of luck, forever.

To some (myself included) that’s not ideal. I don’t see the problem with folks trying to come up with better solutions. I hope someone does.

there will still be a quota system in place and if you are way over your image limits you'll need to find alternative image hosting

 

[ScarFoot]

Just a few thoughts/ideas as I’ve been watching this unfold. I’m nowhere near my limits so I don’t have much heartburn over any of it yet but this site is a great resource for me and many others largely because of its “historical” content.

1. I hope that this can be resolved in a manner that allows longtime users to keep their content.
2. Since memberships are bought annually I’ve been under the assumption the limits were annual. Perhaps some wording can be added to the membership level descriptions that they are cumulative and state that members are responsible to self-manage and purge their own content if that’s the way it’s going to be moving forward.
3. Explore a way for the user to “close” sales posts and set them and some of the non-knife related content to auto delete after 30-60-90 days? I don’t really see the need for some of the “social” stuff to stay forever.
4. Possibly add a membership level with unlimited photo posting or make the limits annual.
5. If the limits are going to be hard and cumulative moving forward look for a way to keep what currently exists and establish a new “day one” that the limits apply too for existing members.

Hopefully everyone can be patient and give this time to get worked out.

 

[RayseM]

Well said ScarFoot - good thoughts, re: #s1 & 2 & 4 & 5 though I don't know how practical for management. As for # 3 - I do know that a seller can close /lock his/her thread at their discretion with the EDIT THREAD option but that does not delete images. Which maybe that is what you meant to say - DELETE a sales thread with all info. I agree that 30 to 60 days would be a decent time frame after which a sale thread could be deleted without much of a downside. There will be those who like to use the old sale threads to provide some pricing guidelines for future sales - this being the “don't delete sale prices” crowd - who won't like this idea. Any solution will cause some person or another some angst. The“social stuff” would be more complicated.

 

[Hyesouljah]

I’ve been posting a lot less because of how annoying it is having to host my photos elsewhere and how inconsistent the orientation is when pasting the photos here in a thread when it’s multiple photos. Hopefully there can be a viable fix for long time members with high uploads and we won’t be totally out of luck without having to delete so many attachments. It would be easier if the deleting part was easier like delete all attachments for specific threads I’m in

 

[ScarFoot]

Well said ScarFoot - good thoughts, re: #s1 & 2 & 4 & 5 though I don't know how practical for management. As for # 3 - I do know that a seller can close /lock his/her thread at their discretion with the EDIT THREAD option but that does not delete images. Which maybe that is what you meant to say - DELETE a sales thread with all info. I agree that 30 to 60 days would be a decent time frame after which a sale thread could be deleted without much of a downside. There will be those who like to use the old sale threads to provide some pricing guidelines for future sales - this being the “don't delete sale prices” crowd. Any solution will cause some person or another some angst. The“social stuff” would be more complicated.

I know it’s all easier said than done but just thinking through some stuff I’ve seen done elsewhere. Most larger companies delete emails after 90-180 days and several have common/shared storage drives that clear on frequency. Thanks for the info on the sales threads. I’ve never done one so wasn’t sure if there was a way to officially signal that it’s closed so it could start the proposed auto delete timer. Certainly no solution will cause everyone to dance with joy in the streets. I just hope whatever they come up with protects the knife related content first and foremost. The other stuff can easily be found elsewhere.

 

[karnaknives]

There needs to be a way then to differentiate between "social" posts and posts with "historical value".
The easiest way would be by only allowing pics to persist in certain sub-forums, and be deleted in others, or only being hosted on-site in certain subforums, and hosted externally in other subforums.
The site could probably free up Terabytes of valuable space by deleting threads named "Let's see pics of knives with your______" for starters...

 

[jmh33]

Going on 6 weeks with no end in sight..
John

 

[eveled]

There needs to be a way then to differentiate between "social" posts and posts with "historical value".
The easiest way would be by only allowing pics to persist in certain sub-forums, and be deleted in others, or only being hosted on-site in certain subforums, and hosted externally in other subforums.
The site could probably free up Terabytes of valuable space by deleting threads named "Let's see pics of knives with your______" for starters...

I was thinking maybe a ranking system. Similar to the like button. Have a historical button. Only paying membership sees.

Get enough historical likes and the picture stays.

 

[Kettleman]

There needs to be a way then to differentiate between "social" posts and posts with "historical value".
The easiest way would be by only allowing pics to persist in certain sub-forums, and be deleted in others, or only being hosted on-site in certain subforums, and hosted externally in other subforums.
The site could probably free up Terabytes of valuable space by deleting threads named "Let's see pics of knives with your______" for starters...

I can't help but wonder who you think should have the power to decide whats important and whats not? You? Delete threads you don't agree with but keep others that you feel are " historical"? That sure reminds me of something.....

Im not sure how to break this to you but this is Social Media. People gather here to be social and to communicate with like minded people. That communication includes pictures of their knives on a social media knife forum.

 

[Will Power]

Modest Proposal: All sales threads auotomatically deleted after 8 weeks, all Whine& cheese , Pirates' Cove deleted after 8 weeks, plus any other essentially non knife areas deleted after 8 weeks.

Historical stickies with lot of knife content& pictures, not personal anecdotes or rambling , approved by 2 Mods kept as archives .

Every paid member has a yearly limit renewable with each membership renewal. Non paying members have no allocation, they must either buy membership or use the hosting sites. As it is now, but this of course can discourage membership....

Deleting images seems tedious, if done haphazardly threads will be broken or rendered incomprehensible. But if not done then the problem increases, using hosting sites will also eventually lead to destruction of threads as image hosts may disappear.

 

[Chronovore]

Modest Proposal: All sales threads auotomatically deleted after 8 weeks, all Whine& cheese , Pirates' Cove deleted after 8 weeks, plus any other essentially non knife areas deleted after 8 weeks.

Historical stickies with lot of knife content& pictures, not personal anecdotes or rambling , approved by 2 Mods kept as archives .

Every paid member has a yearly limit renewable with each membership renewal. Non paying members have no allocation, they must either buy membership or use the hosting sites. As it is now, but this of course can discourage membership....

Deleting images seems tedious, if done haphazardly threads will be broken or rendered incomprehensible. But if not done then the problem increases, using hosting sites will also eventually lead to destruction of threads as image hosts may disappear.

At the very least, it doesn't make sense to keep sales threads. Once the transaction is done and enough time has gone by that everyone is happy, why keep them? My only interest might have been in getting ideas about value, but sale prices are typically edited away after the sale anyway. (Maybe also segregate image hosting for the exchange?)

While some people might see historic value in the more controversial areas you mentioned, I still question the value of indefinitely retaining locked threads.

Of course, spitballin' on our parts may or may not have value to management. Plus, Kettleman might already suspect our secret ulterior motives in altering history.

 

[EngrSorenson]

Theres two complaints, and one is a genuine concern and the other inconvenient. The genuine concern is, how to we make sure we keep the important documentation and make it so people can still contribute important stuff? The other is essentially that people can’t be inconvenienced to host pictures elsewhere, or that they’re concerned anthropologists won’t be able to analyze what everyone’s cats had on them on April 16th, 2024 when Imgur goes belly up.

Just a thought- for things that are truly significant (I.E documents on knife history and how-to’s), we might consider pulling that stuff out of individual contributor storage and having a spot set aside for general site storage unaffiliated with any individual. It’d all become the property of BF. As people generate significant content, we petition Spark to add it to the archive. Sounds like a reasonable fix to the part of the problem that is most significant.

The other thing is… well, you have my thoughts.

 

[Kettleman]

I completely agree that there are areas where server space can be saved. The sales threads are a great example, closed / locked threads also offer an opportunity. My only issue is the “ it’s just a garbage thread and holds no historic value” BS. We all know what that is.

Listen its all a moot point anyway as spark has said the limits will not be going away so folks will have to decide to keep old posts and move to 3rd party for future posts or delete their attachments and start over. Deciding what stays or goes will have no effect on this.

 

[joeradza]

I’ve been using the Imgur uploader since my attachment count has been overloaded. The main problem I have with it is the decreased resolution.

 

[karnaknives]

I can't help but wonder who you think should have the power to decide whats important and whats not? You? Delete threads you don't agree with but keep others that you feel are " historical"? That sure reminds me of something.....

No I never said it should be me. How about the owner of the forum? How about the Mods? How about coming up with some sensible rules where any reasonable person could tell the difference between something of "historical" value versus more "social" pictures of the same knives over and over.
What does it remind you of? Common sense? Ya I agree.

Im not sure how to break this to you but this is Social Media. People gather here to be social and to communicate with like minded people. That communication includes pictures of their knives on a social media knife forum.

And I'm not sure how to break it to you but this is a forum with limited storage space that is either paid for or not and is subject to the rules of the forum owner.
Calling it "Social Media" doesnt somehow mean that you have special rights to post unlimited amounts of pictures that should be kept forever and anothers expense.

Some of you need to move your "social media" to Instagram if you ask me.

 

[karnaknives]

My current usage of forum resources:

68 / 500 (13%)
18 / 200 MB (9%)

I guess I’m not being social enough.
I’ll post some historical pics of my knife with my TV remote shortly

 

[Kettleman]

No I never said it should be me. How about the owner of the forum? How about the Mods? How about coming up with some sensible rules where any reasonable person could tell the difference between something of "historical" value versus more "social" pictures of the same knives over and over.
What does it remind you of? Common sense? Ya I agree.

And I'm not sure how to break it to you but this is a forum with limited storage space that is either paid for or not and is subject to the rules of the forum owner.
Calling it "Social Media" doesnt somehow mean that you have special rights to post unlimited amounts of pictures that should be kept forever and anothers expense.

Some of you need to move your "social media" to Instagram if you ask me.

Are you being intentionally obtuse or do you have an actual learning disability that prevents you from basic comprehension?

The rules of the forum owner are that we paid members are allowed a limited amount of storage space to fill with whatever we choose and you do not get to decide what’s to be allowed. No one is saying a damn thing about anything being deleted by anyone other than the people that posted it. The servers are not full and we are not looking at a failure of the forum. If you would just ask someone to explain the issue to you than perhaps you would understand when to be quiet and let the adults talk.

 

[Kettleman]

My current usage of forum resources:

68 / 500 (13%)
18 / 200 MB (9%)

I guess I’m not being social enough.
I’ll post some historical pics of my knife with my TV remote shortly

Congratulations. Mine is

16/1000
18/400

Do I win something?

 

[karnaknives]

Are you being intentionally obtuse or do you have an actual learning disability that prevents you from basic comprehension?

The rules of the forum owner are that we paid members are allowed a limited amount of storage space to fill with whatever we choose and you do not get to decide what’s to be allowed. No one is saying a damn thing about anything being deleted by anyone other than the people that posted it. The servers are not full and we are not looking at a failure of the forum. If you would just ask someone to explain the issue to you than perhaps you would understand when to be quiet and let the adults talk.

How very social of you.