Important Information for All Members

[HeatherL]

The Phoenix by Ghirin is not available in the download section.

[Fern]

59 minutes ago, HeatherL said:

The Phoenix by Ghirin is not available in the download section.

Yes it is:

 

[HeatherL]

Thank you. I was looking for a single rather than a pack.

[Fern]

I don't think Jan combined them, just put them all in one zip.

[pukkie]

True so what you can do is just only take the Phoenix out and if you are never going to use any of the other 2 birds you can delete those and only keep the Phoenix

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

Thanks Pukkie and Fern.  I started this to try and save some space on our server.  We actually have a set limit of 'inodes', which for us means files.  Anything that is attached or uploaded is considered an inode, files, images and user accounts.  So each screenshot, signature image, graphics in posts, file we offer for download and registered member counts against our max.  This is a separate value from our total site 'size' in MB/GB.  

 

In order to help with these limits, Cricket went into the downloads and resized almost all of the screenshots of the item.  This saved valuable space.  We have gone through old posts that might have images and removed them, with the exception of Member Pics.   We did take out some pics that were duplicates or near duplicates.  Paul and I have both personally pared down our screenshots posted, and we have gone through other old topics of zoo visits by our members and cut down on excessive pics.  I hate, hate, hate to do this, those are valued memories of the early days of Tek, but unfortunately it is vital to our site getting backed up on a regular basis.  I've also gone in and removed some of the early images and sometimes posts from our fun and games topics where we post memes and funny pictures.   We can just do maintenance on these topics so we can continue to have fun with them.

 

The animal files in the download area are mostly single .ztds of individual animals.  Last year I went through them and picked out some that were variations of a particular animal, or that were within the same category and made by a single author.  Then I zipped them up together, and reposted them with all the names in the title.  This lets us post 2, or 3, or 4, or more animals in one listing, saving us 'inodes', since there is only one zipped file attached.

 

Finally, I have been kinda brutal with removing old accounts that are inactive.  If someone became a member, got the downloads and then never returned, they are given 6 months to a year to visit again.  If they don't, the account is deleted.  If and when they do come back, they can just register again.  If we had kept all of our member accounts from the last 20+ years, we would have well over 6K or 7K, maybe many more members.

 

We did some site clean-up about 10 years ago and one of our then staff deleted some things that never should have been removed.  Whole topics and pics are now gone, so we are really careful when deciding what goes away for ever.  

 

 

[pukkie]

Well we like to move forwards all together with our ZooTycoon adventures

And it is not like many would read all these old things

Most try to keep up with recent things

 

I have no idea about these technical things you admins encounter but what if a screenshot of the download is just posted in the link when you click on the image it then starts the download instead of putting one in each file

or does that make no difference?

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

To me, the image file in the zip is not necessary.  When you see the item in the download section, it is clear just what you are going to get.  When a user unzips the file, how often, if ever, is that small image ever looked at or saved?  I'm betting not. 

 

In some older files there are text files with notes from the author.  If it is a scenery item, these are not really necessary either, especially if the author is given credit in the file listing.   There has been discussion before about removing the images and text, but not everyone wants to do that.  

 

Thoughts?

[Fern]

If there is not an image in the file I save it. I store my zips with 3 parts - the zip, the image, the info. Plus I also keep spreadsheets which sadly are currently out of date.

I store them in files by Site with subfolders of type when I can. Arches, paths, fences, etc Mixed pack folders also have sub folders.

The info is a copy from the site along with the file size and the zip name and I embed a copy of the image in it. This I use at DD for the posts and also to provide info for reloading when a file has gone missing or as in the past something has happened to the site.

I use the images a lot. By having them loose in each folder I can look through them when looking for things I want for a particular zoo.

[Goosifer]

7 hours ago, Savannahjan said:

To me, the image file in the zip is not necessary.  When you see the item in the download section, it is clear just what you are going to get.  When a user unzips the file, how often, if ever, is that small image ever looked at or saved?  I'm betting not. 

 

In some older files there are text files with notes from the author.  If it is a scenery item, these are not really necessary either, especially if the author is given credit in the file listing.   There has been discussion before about removing the images and text, but not everyone wants to do that.  

 

Thoughts?

 

Decoupling the downloads and images from the forum using a CDN could help save a significant amount of server space and money. I use BunnyCDN for ZooBerry, but there's plenty of other options. IPB has a guide that shows how you can set one up: https://invisioncommunity.com/4guides/how-to-use-ips-community-suite/file-management/storage-configurations-r20/

 

Personally, I see a lot of value in keeping the pictures and text files the author bundled. It gives insight about the author, and (from archival point of view) serves as a backup in a worst case when there is no longer a ZooTek or a ZooBerry, especially for hack files. So many websites have gone down and their descriptions long gone, which makes it hard to know things like instructions, compatibility, permissions, etc.