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Important. Please Read

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The Fallen Angel

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Updated 24th Feb 2023
Dear members,

As staff, we have been concerned about our expanding monthly bills to keep our site going, and have been looking into how we are billed and what might be done to keep our rising costs under control. This is to share with you what we have learned and some remedies we’d like to to try.

Our monthly bill for keeping this site running basically consists of three parts:

Hosting.....A fixed monthly fee
Bandwidth......How much traffic we generate
Storage....The images, films, text and documents we have stored on our computer over the life of our site and continue to be added each day.

There are additional annual fees for upgrades etc.

The bandwidth and storage charges are increasing at a rate that means our monthly bill is likely soon to become unsustainable This seems to be due to a combination of factors such as the exponential growth in membership and the now widespread use of broadband which makes bulk uploading of images so much easier. We have been well in excess of our free limits for some time so action is required now before our C.F. bubble bursts.

The Admin team have put together the following proposed restrictions on future uploading of material:

1. A limit of 5 image posts per person per day per thread.
Exceptions:
Illustrated stories which can contain up to 10 images per post but only one such post per thread per day
Gifs: no more than 1 per thread per day.

2. Image sizes no larger than 400Kb.
(See below for helpful information on how to downsize large images to meet this standard)

Exceptions:
2.1 Any image hosted externally.
2,2 The following may be up to, but not more than, 2MB:
  • Artists' own original work.
  • Gifs.
  • PNGs in the CMCK thread (Crucifixion Manipulation Construction Kit).
AI-generated images:
The 400 KB limit applies to AI-generated images on open threads. However artists may incorporate AI generated elements into their original creations subject to the 2MB limit, and they may submit AI-generated work of good quality up to 2MB in the sections reserved for members' original work, where it will be subject to moderators' approval.

3.No videos to be uploaded.
Exceptions. Videos hosted externally on sites such as IMGUR.



How to downsize images.

Android phones. Visit the Playstore. There are lots of free resizing apps.

Iphone. Visit the App store and download “Image Resizer” and follow the simple instructions.

OnLine. Again there are lots to choose from. Eg https://imageresizer.com is one that does not need your email. Simply upload your image and select the % bar to reduce by say 50% or you can do it by pixel dimensions. Then click Resize and finally Download image.

Additional help and advice for those who need it on resizing pics can be sought from Admin.

At the moment staff are working on getting storage down by looking at old threads which go back many years. If people stick to these guidelines then in a couple of months we should be able to gauge the effects and keep you updated.
 
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I've received several PMs today all of which have been very supportive of the new guidelines. We are working on the old threads to create more storage space but "Delete" on the CF computer doesn't mean the same as a normal PC. We are looking at this. If anyone wants help with downsizing pics then please let the staff know.
Please report any pics which are clearly over our recommended limits so that we can amend them or simply post a link to this thread as many members who do post pics on a regular basis may not yet have seen it.

And now a great tip from Hornet1ba on downsizing images in Windows..
For those using a Windows PC "FastStone Image Viewer" https://www.faststone.org/index.htm
is not only a great free image viewer but also great at reducing image size with a preview of the
the image quality reduction of the compression helping you find the sweet spot between image quality
and size.
2022-09-29 16_41_05-.jpg
 
Remember that members who publish their high-quality work on their own websites can easily link them here, and present them in all their glory without incurring any costs for our site. The 'image' icon is at the top of the 'reply' box. Just click on this and paste in the link to the original image on your website.
 
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Remember that members who publish their high-quality work on their own websites can easily link them here, and present them in all their glory without incurring any costs for our site. The 'image' icon is at the top of the 'reply' box (between the 'link' and the 'smiley'). Just click on this and paste in the link to the original image on your website.
Image1.jpgthe right icon
 
How to upload images to Imgur and get a link. This is on a laptop running Windows 10

1. Open an account. It's free.Screen Shot 10-11-22 at 12.37 PM.PNG

2.Sign in.Screen Shot 10-11-22 at 12.39 PM.PNG

3.Click on Add Images. Screen Shot 10-11-22 at 12.44 PM.PNG

4. Select your pic and click on Direct Link COPY to get the URL for the pic. Use this URL to post your pic on this Forum.Screen Shot 10-11-22 at 12.jpg

For example
n5qNAxF.jpg
 
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The moderators recently had a meeting to discuss the results of the October experiment with regard the restrictions on posting. While it was good to see a drop in the size of the bill due to bandwidth we had hoped for and expected a bigger decrease. Bearing that in mind we agreed to continue with the present restrictions with the exception that artists can now upload files up to 2MB in size. My understanding is that this brings us in line with similar sites. It is also worth pointing out that artists can spend many hours on just one piece of work and over the course of a year do upload much less than members operating two or three "internet" threads. This weekend we asked ImageMaker to alter the settings to the new 2MB limit and he happily obliged. We also asked him to prevent the uploading of mp4 films. This is not because we don't want to see films but there is a bug in the settings which is allowing some folk to upload 100MB files which play havok with our bandwidth. As people have been discovering, there's more than one way to skin a cat and have been turning to GDrive and Imgur.
Finally, we are expecting a large bill in December as that I believe is the month when the XF licence is renewed so can we ask members to show restraint when it comes to uploading pics found on the internet, especially if you are running several threads.
 
The bill for November has just arrived. The amount we pay for Bandwidth overuse has fallen slightly again. It was $111.89 in October and now $104.14. Another modest decrease but last April the overuse was a whopping $140.66 and rising. Hosting costs, Bandwidth Commit and Storage (Which is mostly back ups) have remained the same so the overall bill is down from October by about $7. At least it's one of the few things these days that is going down. However as Madi has pointed out the licence fee for using XenForo will be on the December bill so that will be another $70 (?) to find. So please continue to show restraint especially with pics found on the web.
 
The bill for November has just arrived. The amount we pay for Bandwidth overuse has fallen slightly again. It was $111.89 in October and now $104.14. Another modest decrease but last April the overuse was a whopping $140.66 and rising. Hosting costs, Bandwidth Commit and Storage (Which is mostly back ups) have remained the same so the overall bill is down from October by about $7. At least it's one of the few things these days that is going down. However as Madi has pointed out the licence fee for using XenForo will be on the December bill so that will be another $70 (?) to find. So please continue to show restraint especially with pics found on the web.
153$ in May and 148$ in August. We reduced this costs successful!
 
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Some people may be surprised to hear that back in 2010 the upload limit was 3 pics and the maximum file size was 400KB. Back then there was no Fantasy or BDSM sections so crux was the main topic. But what is happening these days? I recently did a short survey to find out. Over the period 18th - 20th October I looked at 143 consecutive posts which contained pics. There were 465 pics which I split into two categories

A=Original work by artists=97 pics or 20.86%

I= Internet pics=368 or 79.14%


bar-graph.png
So the pics found on the internet outnumber the work by artists by 4 to 1 which is no real surprise. But what about those internet pics. What do they consist of?
I split the 368 pics into two categories

Random/Other=147 or 40%

Crux/BDSM=221 0r 60%
bar-graph (1).png

Next time I'll look at file size. (These graphs are under 17KB!)
 
AI-generated images

When AI-generated images first began to appear on the Forums, one or two members did post series of multiple images of no great merit and each image not much different from the last. We were already concerned about the excess usage costs such bulk uploads were incurring, and so we did decide to impose the same limits (of size and numbers per day) as on 'non-original' work, both to keep our costs under control and because, while we believe the Forums should welcome ‘non-original’ work of genuine relevance, interest and quality, we don’t want bulk uploading of repetitious material of indifferent quality.

But since then, we have in fact allowed some AI-generated images into the 'Original Work' section, and at least occasionally they've been in excess of the 400KB limit. We recognise that using an AI programme to produce images of good quality probably does take a good deal of time and thought, maybe comparable to producing high-quality manips.

So, having discussed with colleagues in the Staff Forum, I can confirm we’re agreed that AI-generated images of good quality are welcome, they are certainly the kind of material members hope to see on CF.

And so, if work of that standard is offered in the CF Members' Original Artwork, the BDSM Images and Videos, or the Fantasy Art and Images, sections of the Forums, we'll be happy to approve it. And we will allow images up to 2MB.

But:
  • please make it clear that the images are AI-generated;
  • please help us keep our excess usage charges under control,
  • so don't post byte-heavy images if they can be reduced without significant loss of quality;
  • always upload and insert images as thumbnails, not full-size;
  • observe the limit of 5 images per day in any one thread.
 
A reminder to everyone that we are trying to hold down costs: for this reason we have imposed daily posting limits per member on individual threads. We're grateful to the great majority of members who accept this and are helping us keep control of costs. However, we have to point out that uploading large numbers of images across multiple threads also drives up our costs We do not want to have to impose overall posting limits per member per day, so we ask members to please bear this in mind and use the Forums to share individual images, or small selections, chosen for their exceptional quality, relevance and erotic appeal, and not for mass-uploading of 5 images on each of several threads every single day!
 
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