How do I get rid of photos so I can add more

[Eddy67716]

I am trying to post a photo of my organ power supply, but I can't make room for it because I have almost used up my allocated 47MB. I tried deleting old photoes and documents from my old posts, but I still can't upload a new photo.
What should I do?

[Admin]

Registered users of the Forum are currently allotted 50 MB for attachments and uploads. This limit exists because disk space costs money and this a free Forum. The file size limits imposed by the Forum are in place to help ensure that each user has enough space to upload a reasonable number of files. Ideally, it would be my choice to have no limits, but the shear number of registered users and declining ad revenue prevent that. It should also be noted that the quota applies to attachments in private messages as well as forum posts.

Unfortunately, there is no way for users to remove attachments and uploads once the post editing time limit has expired. This policy is in place to protect the integrity of the Forum. Removing an attachment from an existing post or the post itself basically renders the post useless and frustrating to users. But more to the point, the forum software provides no mechanism for user removal of attachments.

Rather than uploading files as attachments, you can embed them in your posts by linking to their external URLs. The preferred way of doing this is to use the link option button in the text editor toolbar specific to the file type. External images, videos, and audio files can all be embedded in your post with this method. Mouseover the editor toolbar buttons to see their functions. You can also link to external data using the link button in the post toolbar (the one above the editor toolbar), but this limits you to one link per post and the embedded information will appear at the bottom of the post rather than inline with the text.

The downside of linking is of course that the linked content is not stored on the forum so it's availability is dependent upon the site that it is stored on.

[Nutball]

Can a person buy more space from you, or even buy the ability to post larger images? Back when I posted images of a Conn 717 I was working on, I prepared the images to be viewed as full size (to see much in great detail), but found that they were resized.

[Admin]

From time-to-time I've considered offering premium paid memberships that would provide increased attachment and private message storage space, as well as other yet-to-be determined benefits over the free membership, but I've always decided it against it. First, because I doubt that there'd be enough interest to make it worth the effort, but more importantly, because I'd prefer to keep the Forum playing field level for all. Also, while I can allocate different amounts of storage for users, file sizes and image dimensions are global settings.

Maximum dimensions for images are currently 4096 x 4096, provided that the maximum file size is not exceeded, which should be large enough for most purposes.

[AllenAnalog]

Admin, how about setting up a poll about voluntary user financial support of this forum? I get a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment (and sometimes downright entertainment) with my daily visits. I've learned so much from experts on here and have been happy to share my knowledge when I think it would help others. That's worth something to me, just like my support for other services I enjoy.

I have no problem with it being like public radio and TV, where the contributions are voluntary. I'm not suggesting tiers of membership with increasing privileges, just an opportunity for those of us who want to support your efforts to do so. My Christmas lighting forums do that and supporters are acknowledged in the way their profile name is displayed (a nice gesture) but access and features are equal for all. My mechanical music forum has twice a year requests for voluntary support.

PayPal would be my donation method of choice since Patreon is more geared to custom content and privileges.

[Admin]

Thanks for the kind words and suggestions. Placing a donation button on the site is also something I've considered doing in the past, but never decided to implement. Perhaps it's a generational thing, or maybe that Radical Self-Reliance principle of community I belong to, but I've never been comfortable asking people for money. The cost of the operating the Forum is still being covered advertising revenue and I'm not sure that increasing the available disk storage is really necessary. This is the first instance in the Forum's history where a user has maxed out their quota.

The Forum already has a paid subscription framework that could be pressed into service. I'll give all of this some additional thought in the coming weeks and thank you for all the support and information your participation here has provided.

[Nutball]

I think my images were resized to just over 1000px in that thread. I wasn't talking about a premium membership, but just an account upgrade that no one else can see: add xxMB of storage for $$.

[Admin]

Although the image may be resized to fit on the page, the file is stored at its original resolution, provided that it doesn't exceed the maximum dimensions in effect at that time, and may be downloaded at that size.