General question about this site's ownership

Just sittin' and thinkin'. I've used all the forums (7,8,10,11) for years and there's something I've never known and am very curious about. Who sponsors them all? Someone has to pay for the servers and maintenance. I know a lot of folks just want to share their knowledge to help others, but does anyone get paid? Not even Brink???? He lives on here. With the wealth of info here, MS should be issuing some paychecks. Inquiring minds want to know.

The site is owned by John [@z3r010] and is funded by adverts, members do not see ads but visitors do

Thanks, Nigel. That's something I've wondered about, too.

You guys do a fabulous job!

I think it was John who posted the other day when someone suggested (in the huge icons thread) to say that he was trying to cut back on the stored data, not increase it. (The proposal was to bank all of the icons in Resources.)

I see members every day replying to posts that contain huge graphics by including the huge graphics (again) in their replies. Isn't there a way to automatically reduce a repeated graphic to an index, so that it really only appears in the database once?

Dan

It's not as bad as it looks as we do use some storage options for images to keep things under control but sometimes items inside posts can build up - as an example if a member quotes a post that contains an image the same image is used to display on the original and follow-up post. but if a thread contains a lot of unique images they can build up and then be slow to load for those with slower connections

Interesting. Thanks.

What I was thinking about just now is the Show Us Your Desktop thread, where I've often seen half a dozen posts replying to (commenting on) the original grand display, all of them showing the same huge graphic over and over.

That's the very thread, I think, that drove the choice to start using image caching to improve display speed

Excellent site. ^^

barman58 said:

The site is owned by John [@z3r010]

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Well, I don't know who this John is, but I am forever in his debt as well as to everyone who has helped me all the way back to the early 7 days. These forums are so unlike a lot of others where you get partial answers to questions from posters who try to showboat their knowledge rather than just giving straightforward answers. I don't even go anywhere else for answers anymore. It's a truly amazing thing to have so many folks in one place who really know their stuff and go out of their way to help strangers. And everyone's patience is awesome.

Wisewiz said:

I see members every day replying to posts that contain huge graphics by including the huge graphics (again) in their replies. Isn't there a way to automatically reduce a repeated graphic to an index, so that it really only appears in the database once?

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We do automatically optimize images on upload which does save a hell of a lot of space, but for things like the icon thread 100's of images are being uploaded that I will be backing up forever and they may only be downloaded once or twice and then forgotten about.

This shows the savings made to the last few images uploaded, as you can see it's considerable.

John, Thank you for that information. Dan

z3r010 said:

We do automatically optimize images on upload which does save a hell of a lot of space....

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I've occasionally uploaded an animated .gif to illustrate a point in a post. I've had to go through trial and error steps to resize and optimise the animation to make them small enough to avoid the site re-optimising them and breaking the animation. For future reference, how small do I need to make them so they'll not hit the site optimisation and will display correctly?

@z3r010 John, I try to use cloud links whenever I can. That way if someone is interested or wants to help they can download the image. Can you give a few suggestions. Maybe make a sticky in posting rules. I can only imagine how bloated your server gets over time so we all need to do our part to utilize your space efficiently. Also, is there a rule against posting an outside link to a solution? There have been times I knew an answer to someone's question because I had found it elsewhere. I wasn't sure if posting an outside link was allowed so I just PMed the link instead of posting it. Now that I know who is responsible for this and 7-8-10 forums, I would like to thank you personally. It is truly an invaluable service you provide.

Bree said:

I've occasionally uploaded an animated .gif to illustrate a point in a post. I've had to go through trial and error steps to resize and optimise the animation to make them small enough to avoid the site re-optimising them and breaking the animation. For future reference, how small do I need to make them so they'll not hit the site optimisation and will display correctly?

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The site only optimizes the file size it doesn't touch the image size or animation.

The animation may break if the image is bigger than the post width and has to be thumbnailed, I think that size is around 800px wide.

glasskuter said:

Also, is there a rule against posting an outside link to a solution?

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Not really, unless you are spamming a certain site or pointing people to Google - then you get a slap!!!!

Hi,
Think one of the main issues with file sharing sites like onedrive/... is the content/ links usually expire and leaves gaps of content.

@z3r010 and @barman58 Thanks for all the info and of course all the hard work you do along with the other staff member. This is by far the best forum site I have ever seen. I will certainly think before I post lots of images again. A very interesting thread thanks @glasskuter

You all do a great job

I have never been a fan of forums (at least not an active member).
But guess what... some guys named John, Nigel, Shawn changed the way I participate in forums!

So a great thanks to you and the great members of these excellent forums is appropriate, along with our gratitude for the level of professionalism you guys keep!