Quote:
Originally Posted by GO FURTHER
I've given this some deep thought, and come to the conclusion that many of the large threads in say the "Show N Shine" sub forum can never ever be restored to their full former glory with all the photos.
Most people have not thought of the following...
Even if RussellW and his team find a way to replace all the links of photos you have uploaded to the new photo hoist (keeping the same file names) or even if space was made available here on the AFF servers...
Even if you were allowed for a limited period to edit only your build thread and replace links, etc....
Even if you pay the ransom of AUD$520 per year... Here's why it will never be the same...
The threads may also contain photos from other users in replies in your build thread which add valuable contributions and meaning.
Some of these users, may no longer be active members, or may not upload their photos to a new host (or can't be bothered, etc).
You won't be able to replace photos / links of all the contributors to your thread... So your build thread will always have the annoying bad Photobucket links!
If you delete their Photobucket links all together instead... You have words in a reply that may have less meaning without the pics.
Show N Shine threads like "Show us your FGX" or "Show us your Mustang" complied from many many members, will never be restored completely.
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Almost right. One of the things we will do after a period of time is remove all image links that reference photobucket so that there won't be any broken links. We'll have to make allowances for anyone who chooses to pay the photobucket ransom but that's a smaller scenario that the other.
You are correct in saying that the 'show us your' threads are going to be the worst hit but we are investigating the possibility of moving them into a new forum and providing 'edit post' permissions for everyone for a specific time period. Some will never be fixed but that's well beyond our control.
All the Tech Portal images are safe as they are hosted by us as are all user attachments and gallery images so it's not the absolute worst it could have been. We've moved a lot of technical posts from other areas into the Tech Portal for just that reason and the offer is always open for anyone with a tech thread to have it (and associated images) moved to that portal.
We are currently adding a substantial amount of storage to the new server and once this is in place we will migrate to that server. We are also currently running tests on that server with a number of different photo hosting applications to find one that suits best. Our existing Gallery software (PhotoPost) is old anyway; not https compliant and as it is no longer supported needs to get the flick. We have the option of migrating the existing 22,485 images (80% of which are in the brochure scans) to the new image hosting server or adding them to the native Vbulletin user gallery which became available from v3.8 and which we've never bothered to turn on.
**Warning - Logical Discussion Ahead**
Taking the emotion out of this for a moment, let's look at some background on why this has happened and why it is likely to continue happening to currently 'free' internet services that use an advertising revenue business model.
The world of online advertising (in case you've been living under a rock) is basically owned by Google Ads. They determine how, where and for what ads are placed and use some pretty clever tech to track user activity and send them targeted ads. Likewise (and more importantly) they absolutely control the impression and click rates that are paid to sites hosting Google ads and these rates have been gradually reducing over time and, more importantly, have fallen significantly over the last 6 months.
It doesn't matter much to us. We display ads for guests so that they help pay for their own bandwidth use but the revenue from that has reduced substantially in that time despite similar activity levels from guests.
Put your self in the shoes of a Photobucket (or Facebook) for a moment. We have 3 TB of outbound data allowance per month in our hosting plan and rarely ever trouble that limit. Typical data costs in the USA are in the order of 8-20 cents per Gb of outbound data dependant on where that data is being delivered - for example, data to the continental US will cost 8 cents per Gb while Australia is 15 cents. As a global service PB is no doubt paying less but they also have little control over where the data is being pulled from so even if we assume they get a global rate for anywhere at 5 cents per Gb, that's an awful lot of money every month without counting the cost of physical storage and facilities to host it. PB also can't generate the same level of ad revenue (impressions) that a Facebook can and that's especially so when 3rd party linking is done as then they get none.
The drop in revenues from online advertising will be hurting Facebook (and others too) and they will have to look closely at how they provide their particular service and the business model that supports it.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending the action taken by PB as it is largely reprehensible but what I am saying is that we are probably heading toward the end of the free ride as the litany of failed on-line 'free' storage providers testifies to. It's going to become a user pays model in the near future and the only thing that should be under discussion is how much is
reasonable for any particular service. Perhaps if PB had taken that approach, we wouldn't be where we are now.
**end of logical discussion **
We currently provide storage for hosted images but with the same restrictions as PB - in other words they can't be used externally to this site and even then we run about 2.5TB a month of outbound data.
We don't charge users for this forum or the wealth of information it contains because we have sponsors who help us meet the running costs and all the actual work that a commercial venture would have to pay for is provided by volunteers who share our passion. We also have a small group of donating members who voluntarily support this community because they want to and for both those groups we are extremely grateful.
We will probably be implementing a small annual charge for data storage for those who have more than x storage (x is yet to be determined) but it will only be on a cost recovery basis and most likely (as noted in an earlier post) in 5 Gb increments - enough to store ~3,000 images suitable for web viewing at 200 kb each. Hi resolution images (like the brochure scans) are much larger but they need to be so that the detail can be read but the images we use elsewhere range from 150 kb - 350 kb which is ample.
I'm open to thoughts as to:
1. Where 'x' should be set but as a guide the current gallery allows each user 500 Mb with a maximum file size of 500 kb.
2. Whether $10 per annum is considered a reasonable cost for 5 Gb of hosted storage.
Cheers
Russ