Suggestion from the new guy

As a newbie here, and an amateur/beginner, I am doing more surfing than posting. One thing I am finding is that there are a ton of broken links in the older posts and without a reference photo, the comments that are still up are useless. "could use more fill light on the left" left of what, there is no image left anymore. And it is impossible to tell from the title which posts have broken links. It can be discouraging to look through 30 posts and find only 3 or 4 that are still useful anymore. I know it would take a ton of time for the Mods to go through and clean up the old stuff, but it would make surfing more productive and would probably save a ton of data space.

Jay Mcgillicudy wrote in post #19324017
I know it would take a ton of time for the Mods to go through and clean up the old stuff, but it would make surfing more productive and would probably save a ton of data space.

Do you mean delete those old posts? It seems to me the original posters might object. What they added to the forum is their work to make decisions about, as long as it complies with the forum rules. A post with a missing photo might still have value for what the poster wrote. The huge workload, which you mention, is another reason not to do it. Mods are volunteers, and there aren't a great number of active ones on board.

This is true of any forum, and no forum goes through a thread cleanup to purge posts that have missing or invalid links that I have ever seen. It costs annually to host your photos and reference materials and after a while, someone may just stop paying, creating the most common black hole of the internet: orphaned links.

Yeah that's the issue with older posts, however, it's really up to the admin to delete. Some advice in these old threads might be gold, so we can't really go deleting things in bulk.

WSYPhotography wrote in post #19324215
Yeah that's the issue with older posts, however, it's really up to the admin to delete. Some advice in these old threads might be gold, so we can't really go deleting things in bulk.

And that is exactly my point, that many of these posts would be golden, but the picture is long gone and the advice on how to improve it cannot be visualized without the reference. Just the People Forum alone, you probably can't find 10 pictures in the first 15 pages of threads. And to find those 10 pictures you have to wade through approximately 450 initial posts and all the subsequent replies (although there is not much point once you see the pic is gone). I dont know why the original author would object to taking down a message that no longer contains his image. But I understand that it won't be done because of the work involved, just saying...

Jay Mcgillicudy wrote in post #19324340
And that is exactly my point, that many of these posts would be golden, but the picture is long gone and the advice on how to improve it cannot be visualized without the reference. Just the People Forum alone, you probably can't find 10 pictures in the first 15 pages of threads. And to find those 10 pictures you have to wade through approximately 450 initial posts and all the subsequent replies (although there is not much point once you see the pic is gone). I dont know why the original author would object to taking down a message that no longer contains his image. But I understand that it won't be done because of the work involved, just saying...

The problem you describe is just a artifact of any forum. However, there is something you can do. Instead of going to the oldest posts first, work backwards starting with the newest. Some of the threads here are quite old and people change image server platforms often abandoning the old sites. When the admins from the image hosting sites delete the photos, they disappear everywhere.

gjl711 wrote in post #19324349
The problem you describe is just a artifact of any forum. However, there is something you can do. Instead of going to the oldest posts first, work backwards starting with the newest. Some of the threads here are quite old and people change image server platforms often abandoning the old sites. When the admins from the image hosting sites delete the photos, they disappear everywhere.

I agree that it is an issue to some degree with forums, but I am active in many forums where the issue is not so prevalent. For example, many automotive forums host the photos of the author and an old post for repair purposes is often as useful as a newer post that may not relate to your vehicle. I suspect that Photo forums, where the material that is being discussed is stored off site are much more prone to the broken link issue. Plus, I was only making an observation and it helps establish my post count.

Jay Mcgillicudy wrote in post #19324017
As a newbie here, and an amateur/beginner, I am doing more surfing than posting. One thing I am finding is that there are a ton of broken links in the older posts and without a reference photo, the comments that are still up are useless. "could use more fill light on the left" left of what, there is no image left anymore. And it is impossible to tell from the title which posts have broken links. It can be discouraging to look through 30 posts and find only 3 or 4 that are still useful anymore. I know it would take a ton of time for the Mods to go through and clean up the old stuff, but it would make surfing more productive and would probably save a ton of data space.

A way to shorten your search is to click on the text “xx photos loaded” (top and bottom right of a page). A small window will open where you can see the thumbnails of the images on the page and which loaded, which didn’t. The window stays open when you move to another page in a thread.

Deleting old posts seems like a bad idea to me. This site is a repository of photographic knowledge, built by all those contributors - POTN’s members - over many years. You don’t just throw that away. You keep it and cherish it. And even without images, text may still be informative.

And those of us who have been here a while, we sometimes look for an old post. I know I do. When I suddenly remember something someone said a long time ago e.g. A comment, some advice, anything. Or I look in old posts to find information about a forum member who has disappeared from the board, see if I can find a clue as to why s/he is gone. See, you don’t know this, having just arrived here, but POTN is a community and as such you don’t just delete stuff because pics are missing. Some missing pics may be in posts of members who have passed away. I know a few. So please, don’t be so eager to change a forum you have just joined.