Upgrades to ATS Infrastructure in the works! Important question for members.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Not an issue for me. Great work.

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord

Are any of you using your upload service here as a means for image-sharing on other websites? And if so, would it kill you if we stopped?

Am all for saving the pennies but since the question has been asked then I do post threads I've authored on ATS on to other UFO websites - when it comes to threads like this one would the existing images I've already posted elsewhere be saved or would they all go down?

(am a big fan of the free image upload service on ATS and do agree with the general consensus about saving money)

Cheers.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Not an issue here

purp.

I havent leached from ATS but I have cross posted occasional images from ID servers.

Doesnt effect me, and if it saves ATS bandwidth, I am good with it.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

never used images hosted here outside of ATS.

imho, kill it with fire. why should you pay for someone's bandwidth?

also, reconfigure the whole image hosting - images should be recompressed as jpeg with some reasonable high quality, high enough to prevent blurring of the details but at the same time, saving as much bandwidth as possible. and as much as some are gonna hate this - no png, no gif - so no animated avatars. that alone should save you TONS of bandwidth.

recompressing the whole existing media library may be tough (cpu time-wise, it's just a matter of a script and imagemagick after all), but it's worth it. and you may leave the support for png and gif as is for images <1kB, so transparent avatars used as overlays for profile backgrounds will still work, and there's no point in recompressing so small images anyway.

i know what some may think - that leaving some images completely untouched is the only way to be able to decide if they were tampered with, or if they're real and can be considered a proof of something. in the current form though, it's a huge waste of bandwidth and there's a solution to do it better.

let everyone have a 'source' folder in their media library, where everything uploaded will be left untouched - no recompression of images, but at the same time allow only special link access to those files - so people may link to them in their posts, but it'll be displayed as a link, and it'll be impossible to use anything from such folder as a direct image to be displayed inside a post, as an avatar or anything like it.

with some work, you may be able to save far more than 40% of your bandwidth.

To be honest, and not likely well received, leech protection ought to be considered.
It is a harsh name for it, but you know as well as I images are a huge bandwidth consumer.

a reply to: jedi_hamster

While there are not too many of us who do that.. I would actually leave ATS over that.. the art experience is one of the main reasons I am here these days..

not too many use those features here.. I would think not enough to say it would save enough space.. but if it did and that was implemented, I would simply take my work and my practice elsewhere...

Although, I may be the only one who cares about it so much.. but it is what it is..at least for me.

Playing around in all the formats on ATS to create avatars and join in the contests, is the reason I have gotten as good as I am today at photomanipulation.. if that stops, I wont stop learning, but I wont be learning on ATS anymore..

files.abovetopsecret.com...

files.abovetopsecret.com...

For some images that have no obvious copyright, I would just save onto my computer and then upload a copy to ATS. If it has a copyright, then ask the rightfull owner for permission to post on ATS. It's a little bit more effort but it's not a big problem....only for the lazy.

Kratos

a reply to: OpinionatedB

as for the avatars and mini profile pics, everything would work as usual - transparent overlay png/gif images take less than 1kB so those would work, only animated gif wouldn't.

and the links you've provided clearly prove that what i'm proposing will save TONS of bandwidth, because most people - sorry, but including you - have absolutely no idea what kind of strain those few extra kBs are when everyone does exactly the same and uses a picture that uses up few times more bandwidth than it should.

first of your pics - gif. for a photo? seriously? half a megabyte?
second of your pics - jpg, fine, but with such low resolution it would probably look as good while using few times less than those 252kB.

you may think it's nothing, but imagine what happens when 100 users visits a thread full of avatars, photos and other stuff - and that's just a tiny fraction of what's going on on ATS constantly, all the time.

i'll repeat it - limiting users to jpeg format for photos/pictures would change absolutely NOTHING except throwing out animated gifs - and i guess i'm not the only one considering those distracting. leaving ATS over animated gifs? give me a break.

Save your money. I like my ATS healthy, lean, and growing.

An update and preview of some of the additional changes coming.


The new hardware is running well, and "Thor's Hammer" is being prepared to host ATS now. Since there are many changes in the core hosting tech, it may take some (unknown amount of) time to make sure all runs well. While this is going on, there will be no code updates to ATS… however, much is in the planning stages.


New Global Forums

Several new forums will be added for a more global flavor to ATS, including Canadian Politics, UK Politics, EU Politics, Australian Politics, and Asia.


New Social Log-in

Yeah, we can't avoid it any more. We're going to be allowing new ATS accounts to be created using authorization via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, and OpenID. Accounts created in this manner will also be able to log-in via authorization through the social network they used to register.

There's currently no plans to allow existing members to switch to this option, as the additional work is surprisingly complex, but it might be something to consider if there's a demand for it.


New WYSIWYG Post Editor

The rest of the web, both desktop and mobile, has evolved to a more simplified means of posting content than what we have here on ATS. As a result, we've been seeing increasing formatting issues in posts and opening posts.

I've been working on modifications to a popular WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor to use the many unique BBcode options we have here on ATS. When finished, creating new posts will be much more streamlined, and there will be no need for a preview function as the post you're authoring will look exactly as it will (smilies, formatting, etc.) when posted.


New Smilies

Yeah, okay. Looking at some better options.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Thanks so much for the update and thanks for all of the hard work, time, and money that you guys put towards this!!!

a reply to: SkepticOverlord


on the changes

New Global Forums Several new forums will be added for a more global flavor to ATS, including Canadian Politics, UK Politics, EU Politics, Australian Politics, and Asia.

Mixed emotions on that one. I can understand the reasoning behind it, but I also like the intermingle among the numerous users around the world when it comes to issues. I'm sure the separation won't stop it , but could also decrease the chances of it happening. On the other hand it would also be nice to see hot topics around regions.

Maybe also a world or international political issues forum?

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord


New Smilies

Yeah, okay. Looking at some better options.

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
New Global Forums

Several new forums will be added for a more global flavor to ATS, including Canadian Politics, UK Politics, EU Politics, Australian Politics, and Asia.

I've seen this on a couple of other forums and it sometimes just highlights the disparity between populations on boards when you see that say the Australian board has only a handful of posts, and the American one is spilling over. It also results in some cross posting where news which includes say both America and Australia gets posted in multiple forums, but people intentionally ignore the lesser trafficked forum.

Suggestion: Can we add metatags to posts instead? It's maybe not the cleanest suggestion, but if we could mark a post as 'EU Politics' or 'US Politics' or whatever and then view lists of tagged data maybe this would get us the best of both worlds?

I won't be constantly reminded that no one cares about my country when I login, but at the same time I can list all the pages related to whatever type of politics I'm curious about?

Just a thought.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord
When you proposed changes in 2010, I was one of the "If It's not broken don't fix it!" peeps. But these new changes sound very exciting. The new forums seem to be a great idea too. And need I comment on 'new smilies'? Thank you in the name of everything that is not hideous. (Like our current smilies.) I hope they will be uniquely expressive, unlike the current ones which look too much alike.
I suppose the new (and very liberal and inviting) log-in will bring swarms and swarms of new members. I will keep my fingers crossed that there will be a minimum of zombies as well as people who can levitate and have built time-travel machines in their garage.

But this time, I look forward to the new changes, and the additional new forums.

Just a quick update.

Everything is finally running smoothly on the new infrastructure. After some final tests, we're going to be coordinating a cut-over in the next few days. This will involve making ATS "write-locked," meaning no new threads/posts/etc. for 2-3 hours will the data is migrated and tested, then we transition to the new hardware.

And just a few hours ago we transitioned the hosting of all site artwork (including uploads) to a new distributed content delivery network -- and you didn't even notice.

So we're getting close.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Awesome news, SO!!!!

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Those are going to be a tense few hours when nothing can be posted. No new material! I don't know if my heart can take it. Just kidding. I'm glad that things are going smoothly. Thanks for keeping us updated and for the work that you (meaning site owners and everyone) do.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I never share images from ATS. I have zero problem with this.


I've done big migrations like this and it can be stressful. Just breath easy.