About the Recent Outage + New Submission Guideline

News on the website and/or forum is posted here.

Moderators: freebrickproductions, mlgillson, TommyBNSF, Raco_GS

Post Reply
User avatar
freebrickproductions
Posts: 8443
Joined: Thu Jun 07, 2012 11:12 am
Location: Huntsville, AL
Contact:

About the Recent Outage + New Submission Guideline

Post by freebrickproductions » Thu Jan 09, 2020 11:54 am

So you may have noticed that the forum spent more time down than up over the past month or so.

This was because we ran out of space on the server when Tommy was uploading an update of his, so the forum went down as a result. The host gave us more space, but I immediately used it up trying to upload an update of mine put out (and this is why parts of the site are a bit messed-up, at the moment).

Unfortunately we weren't able to get the server freed-up as immediately as previously, partially due to the fact that the domain name was up for renewal ($142 for two years, for those who are curious), so we had to get that paid.

However, due to just how much stuff is on the site these days, the ISP noted that we were using a lot of space (as the server we're on is shared with others), and even sent Gillson this message about it:
GillsonEmail.jpg
GillsonEmail.jpg (48.04 KiB) Viewed 82114 times
As such, we're bringing back a submission guideline from Mike himself:
All pictures submitted to the site can't be any larger than 1600x1200px.

This was actually the last size increase Mike allowed before he died, but we had let it slack in recent years. However, due to the storage space issues, we're bringing it back.
We figured this was the best balance between a having smaller file-size while still having a nice large resolution. Tommy and I will probably eventually go through and get all of our above-size updates resized to fit the guidelines as well.

Thankfully, because this had been implemented by Mike before he died, there's an automatic image resizer. It's file name is 1600MIOH.exe and it should be up on my Google Drive where the rest of the submission-related files are, but I think it may be tucked-away in a .zip folder somewhere. If you need help finding it, just message me (on here or on Discord), and I'll send you a link.
It works the same way as the thumbnail generators do though, just drag and drop the files you want resized onto it (though, unlike the thumbnail generators, this one replaces the original files with the resized ones, rather than just making a copy).

Let me know below if y'all have any questions, thanks!
They/Them for me, please.

Click here if you want to submit crossing photos to the site!

Avatar by runesprite on Twitter.
User avatar
ZachL
Posts: 3029
Joined: Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:04 pm
Location: Hillsborough County/Tampa, FL

Re: About the Recent Outage + New Submission Guideline

Post by ZachL » Sat Jan 11, 2020 12:54 am

For content hosted on a website with no third-party CDN (like Amazon or CloudFlare), images larger than 1 MB should have never been allowed to be uploaded here. This is a good move for the future to ensure that we have enough space.
Crossing pictures from Plant City, FL are finally here! viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2538
User avatar
freebrickproductions
Posts: 8443
Joined: Thu Jun 07, 2012 11:12 am
Location: Huntsville, AL
Contact:

Re: About the Recent Outage + New Submission Guideline

Post by freebrickproductions » Sat Jan 11, 2020 2:27 am

ZachL wrote:
Sat Jan 11, 2020 12:54 am
For content hosted on a website with no third-party CDN (like Amazon or CloudFlare), images larger than 1 MB should have never been allowed to be uploaded here. This is a good move for the future to ensure that we have enough space.
Yea. Tommy's floated the idea of having the images themselves hosted off-site, but then you also run into the issue of making sure that the images are linked properly (among many other things), so this is what we're going to do moving forwards.
They/Them for me, please.

Click here if you want to submit crossing photos to the site!

Avatar by runesprite on Twitter.
User avatar
NSsignal
Posts: 61
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2022 10:15 pm
Location: Northern Illinois area

Re: About the Recent Outage + New Submission Guideline

Post by NSsignal » Thu Nov 16, 2023 1:06 pm

Yea I know this is three years later but it’s upsetting that data storage is what’s holding our creativity back. Cameras, Websites, Computers, and Phones all have this problem. Company’s think about money and not the fact we can have like 10 teribite devices easily. It’s all real upsetting.
Check out my Roblox group called Railroad Town Replicators. We have games based in real world towns and we primary make signals. And no I’m not asking for R$ or likes. The one who is too interested in railroad crossing signals but you can’t be too intrested.
Post Reply