Deleting Old Images Quoted In Previous Topics

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georgedingwall
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Deleting Old Images Quoted In Previous Topics

Post by georgedingwall »

Hi There,

This is a question for the forum moderators.

I'm cleaning up my website, and want to delete some images that are no longer required.

Is there any rule about how long images linked in forum topics have to be available for. I can't see anything in the posting guidlines.

I would appreciate some guidance.

Bye for now.
George Dingwall

Invergordon, Scotland

http://www.georgedingwall.co.uk/

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S. Alden
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Post by S. Alden »

We do not have any specific guidance. It is really up to you how long you want to have your images displayed. I would suggest to leave them up if they are on the first page of the forums. Once a topic leaves the first page, it is not viewed as much or commented on as often.
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Repost of my images are welcome

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

George,

My personal policy is to never delete an image once it has been made publicly visible.

It's not so bad for an image to disappear if it's just a "pretty picture" with a couple of casual comments.

But it's really frustrating, and a significant loss of value, to lose images that go along with discussions.

Perhaps I am the only one, but I find it very helpful to use old postings as sort of a "reference library".

The forum search facilities make it easy to find old postings from just a remembered keyword or two. Some of the topics probably even pop up in general purpose search engines.

Certainly I have a private stash of links that I send to people periodically because it's a lot quicker and more effective to say "go read this", rather than take time to wordsmith a new explanation of ideas that were already worked out at one point.

Links to these topics are likely to appear in other documents that the authors don't even know about. For example: As of today, if you ask Google about extended depth of field software, two of the top five pages turn out to be mine ( :-k ), and I know for sure that at least one of those pages links to a discussion from two years ago (May 2004) in a forum maintained by Max Lyons and a topic started by Lin Evans.

In the particular case of topics by georgedingwall, I distinctly recall extended discussions with me about stacking ("How many beetles can you get on the head of a match" and "Printed Circuit Board Vista") and with Charles Krebs about how set up a microscope ("How To Avoid Bright Spot In Middle Of Images").

I would be disappointed to lose any of the images associated with those discussions.

Sue, my recommendation is obviously a lot more conservative than yours.

The tradeoff, of course, is availability of the information versus the cost to keep it.

My feeling is that the cost is small and dropping. At the rates currently charged by my web site hosting service, the yearly maintenance cost for a 150KB image is a whopping $0.0103 -- that's right, a smidgeon over one penny.

Contrast that penny against the cost of posting the image in the first place and the time needed to make a reasonable decision about whether to throw it away, and you can see why my policy is to never throw away an image once it has been made publicly available.

--Rik

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georgedingwall
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Post by georgedingwall »

rjlittlefield wrote:George,

My personal policy is to never delete an image once it has been made publicly visible.


--Rik
Hi Rik,

I appreciate what you say, but I only have 10 MB of web space available to me for my personal website.

I'm afraid it is inevitable that images that are not on permanent display on the site will be thinned out from time to time.

I don't have a commercial hosting site, and the internet provider I use will not allow more than 10 MB for personal websites.

I apologise if removing these images causes any inconvenience, but in most cases the final versions of the images discussed on the forum are still on display on the site. Some images may still be linked from the site, it depends whether I linked to permanently displayed image, or uploaded one specifically for the forum discussion.

Bye for now.
George Dingwall

Invergordon, Scotland

http://www.georgedingwall.co.uk/

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

George, apologies accepted, of course.

But if you visit "How many beetles can you get on the head of a match", for which the pictures are now gone, and try to read it without your memories of what it used to look like, I think you'll agree that substantial value has been lost.

I appreciate the limitations of free personal web spaces, but they are not the only options.

The photomacrography site itself offers hosting services for members. I know that the forum encourages members to use their own web spaces if feasible, but I doubt that was intended to be at the cost of long-term usefulness of a resource created by community effort.

As Tom knows, I would be pleased to contribute funds to help keep the forum as useful as possible.

Admins: It may be a good idea to encourage members to use the forum hosting service if their personal web spaces are not able to provide long-term storage.

George, are the images for those threads still available, so they could be reloaded someplace else and the posts edited to match?

Thanks,
--Rik

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Post by twebster »

Hi ya' Rik, :D

I know you mean well but the forums/galleries aren't intended to be a permanent repository of images. The photographers own the copyrights to their images and have the right to do whatever they wish with their photographs. If photographers no longer wish to have their images displayed then we must respect those wishes regardless of why the photographer wishes to discontinue displaying their photographs. We are only borrowing those images for a short time. :D

It's not a matter of money, either. There is going to come a time when the forums/galleries may have to be pruned for the sake of server efficiency. I don't foresee this in the immediate future, however, there will come a time that pruning will need to be performed. :(

To all of our members...

Please, do not feel that you are obligated to permanently display images in our forums, especially if you use our image hosting. If there are any images you wish removed from our image hosting server, email us the file names and we will gladly remove the image files. These are your images and we are honored that you have posted them in our forums/galleries. They are, however, your images and we will always honor your wishes regarding displaying your images. :D

Best regards to all as always, :D
Last edited by twebster on Fri Apr 21, 2006 10:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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georgedingwall
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Post by georgedingwall »

rjlittlefield wrote:George, apologies accepted, of course.

But if you visit "How many beetles can you get on the head of a match", for which the pictures are now gone, and try to read it without your memories of what it used to look like, I think you'll agree that substantial value has been lost.

--Rik
Hi Rik,

I will accept defeat gracefully on this matter :D , I have re-instated the images which were deleted.

If I get desperate for web space, perhaps I can look more closely at some of my other images. I do have rather a lot of flowers on the site. I could probaly lose a few of them without detracting from the general content of the site.

I thank you for your comments. I haven't been doing much macro work recently as I have been busy with other things, but I'm feeling like getting back into the game. Keep an eye open for my next submission.

Bye for now.
George Dingwall

Invergordon, Scotland

http://www.georgedingwall.co.uk/

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

georgedingwall wrote:Hi Rik, I will accept defeat gracefully on this matter :D , I have re-instated the images which were deleted.
George,

Wow -- thank you!! :D :D

I just now went back to that thread and was astonished (and gratified!) to see how much more I got out of it, with the pictures restored. Apparently my visual memory is none too good either. (Along with all my other kinds of memory. And why does this no longer surprise me?)

It's been a good experience to have this issue raised.

Conceptually, it seems like there's a big difference between a gallery of transient images and an archive of reusable knowledge.

But as a matter of practice, having a quick and effective search facility blurs that distinction quite a bit.

Many of us in the information technology field are wrestling with how to think about the issue and how to deal with it.

It's characteristic of our confusion that I almost wrote "the problem", instead of "the issue" -- when in fact it may well be "the opportunity".

Again, thank you Very Much for restoring the images!

--Rik

PS. I don't think it's a matter of "defeat". What we're trying to figure out is how to make this "everybody wins"! :D

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Tom,

I understand and agree with your concerns. Certainly it is not my intention to infringe on anyone else's rights or dictate to anyone else how they handle their intellectual property or resources.

However, the appeal and value of reusable knowledge are issues that may not occur to many people until it is pointed out to them.

What I have found in other forums is that people are more eager to contribute if they feel their time and efforts will have long-term value. To what extent that appeal holds sway in this forum, I have no idea.

If my comments contribute to a wider discussion and better understanding of the tradeoffs, I will be well satisfied.

--Rik

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