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Post by Patti - S'cubie Cutie on Oct 13, 2003 18:15:03 GMT -5
This is the place to post those wonderful pictures of cast and characters of BtVS and Ats...and more!
Remember not to post pictures that are ENORMOUS....if you've found a wonderful background photo, just post the link.
If you are commenting on a picture, use the Reply function and reference the picture you are commenting on, instead of repeating the photo. This will save a lot of load time for people, and save our space too.
Thanks!!!
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Post by Labrynth on Oct 17, 2003 10:16:17 GMT -5
Actually, I prefer if people who only want to steal my images and are encouraging others to do so NOT bother linking back to my site. Not only have you tried to suck a hell of a lot of bandwidth from my site, but you also apparently completely ignored the fact that I specifically asked people NOT to take my images and post them in places like this. Direct linking to images the way that seems to run rampant thru this board is one of the fastest ways to get a sit eshut down. Most folks can't afford to pay for the tons of bandwidth sucked up by doing this, especially since with most hosting plans extra bandwidth costs a small fortune. And I also want to say thank you to there person on this thread scubiefan.proboards18.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1065935103 who swiped one of my images, never bothered to say where from so it mostly looks like they're trying to claim it as their own. I'm shocked and amazed that they managed to leave my name on the corner of it, which should be some consolation, but somehow isn't when I start to think of all the time and effort I have put into my sites. It's things like this that make me want to tear down everything completely just so people will stop stealing it and/or costing me a shitload of money by jacking up my server bill.
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Post by Sue on Oct 17, 2003 10:44:03 GMT -5
Actually, I prefer if people who only want to steal my images and are encouraging others to do so NOT bother linking back to my site. Not only have you tried to suck a hell of a lot of bandwidth from my site, but you also apparently completely ignored the fact that I specifically asked people NOT to take my images and post them in places like this. Direct linking to images the way that seems to run rampant thru this board is one of the fastest ways to get a sit eshut down. Most folks can't afford to pay for the tons of bandwidth sucked up by doing this, especially since with most hosting plans extra bandwidth costs a small fortune. And I also want to say thank you to there person on this thread scubiefan.proboards18.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1065935103 who swiped one of my images, never bothered to say where from so it mostly looks like they're trying to claim it as their own. I'm shocked and amazed that they managed to leave my name on the corner of it, which should be some consolation, but somehow isn't when I start to think of all the time and effort I have put into my sites. It's things like this that make me want to tear down everything completely just so people will stop stealing it and/or costing me a shitload of money by jacking up my server bill. Labrynth, I will repost this over on the main discussion thread where most of us congregate so everybody sees it. Being totally non-technical myself I haven't got the faintest idea what the problem is, but clearly there is a problem. I'm pretty sure members have tried very hard not to link directly, but to transfer images to personal sites before using them here. And, I've also seen them credit sites and sources carefully. But, obviously, somebodies goofed and stepped on toes big time and maybe we can clear this up. sue
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Post by raenstorm on Oct 17, 2003 12:42:15 GMT -5
Actually, I prefer if people who only want to steal my images and are encouraging others to do so NOT bother linking back to my site. Not only have you tried to suck a hell of a lot of bandwidth from my site, but you also apparently completely ignored the fact that I specifically asked people NOT to take my images and post them in places like this. Direct linking to images the way that seems to run rampant thru this board is one of the fastest ways to get a sit eshut down. Most folks can't afford to pay for the tons of bandwidth sucked up by doing this, especially since with most hosting plans extra bandwidth costs a small fortune. And I also want to say thank you to there person on this thread scubiefan.proboards18.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1065935103 who swiped one of my images, never bothered to say where from so it mostly looks like they're trying to claim it as their own. I'm shocked and amazed that they managed to leave my name on the corner of it, which should be some consolation, but somehow isn't when I start to think of all the time and effort I have put into my sites. It's things like this that make me want to tear down everything completely just so people will stop stealing it and/or costing me a shitload of money by jacking up my server bill. Edit by Rae: I'm reposting a few posts here so that Labrynth will see my response. Sorry for the duplication everyone. This was the response to Sue's message asking if anything could be done to rectify the situation. ---------------- Well, I don't know if it will help but I removed the stolen image. I can take responsibility for posting it albeit unintentionally. I followed the link the original S'cubie had for the picture and grabbed it for that S'cubie. I didn't read ( BUT I SHOULD HAVE) the site where the picture was located to see that they encouraged personal use for a desktop but asked very specifically for their pictures not to be used elsewhere. So, I do apologize for not paying better attention before grabbing it. For the record, though I am sure it is little consolation, I didn't clean it up at all. I just resized it so that it wasn't quite so large.
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Post by raenstorm on Oct 17, 2003 12:43:57 GMT -5
If you download a picture and place it in your own picture folder and then get one of you people to make a URL for it, is that still stealing her bandwith? Some pictures are available on many sites, most of the time I don't remember where I saved them from. The problem, or offense really, here is two-fold. One had to do with the swiping of the image and putting on one of our servers (in thsi case, mine). The originating site specifically requests that pictures not be posted elsewhere. They are happy if you take the pictures to be used on your desktop or your personal enjoyment on your own computer. HOWEVER, as I said, they don't want them lifted and distributed elsewhere. I understand that and, in fact, should have known better. They obviously spend precious time creating and posting the artwork for others to enjoy. Once it no longer comes from their site, there is no way anyone would know who created it, etc. The other problem, the bandwidth problem, is a separate issue. By taking the photo and putting it onto one of our sites, yes, we are no longer using up their bandwidth. However, there are pictures in the Pictures thread (and, to be fair, to other sites as well) that are (or were, at least) being pulled from that site. That is what would continue to eat up their bandwidth. Anytime someone views one of those Pictures in the Pictures area, it displays it using their bandwidth. For the record, yes, this can be avoided by just linking to the their site and not actually including the picture in the post. Actually, this is the reason some pictures don't show up when people try to include them in their posts from another site. The other site is blocking the ability to do that so that it doesn't lose bandwidth to anyone other than visitors to their actual site. As I said, I should have known better. I work in this industry, I know the rules and I should have thought before acting. All I can say is that I am truly sorry and that I've removed that picture and am making sure I haven't done it with others. Oh, and I do promise that I will make sure I never make this mistake in the future.
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Post by raenstorm on Oct 17, 2003 12:54:38 GMT -5
Labrynth,
As I said in the above posts, I truly am sorry and will work to make sure we are not repeating this offense in the future. I removed the picture you mentioned and will work on fixing the ones that were stealing your bandwidth.
I know it probably doesn't help but I am glad you brought this to our attention so that we could clear up the problem.
-Rae
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Post by Labrynth on Oct 17, 2003 18:52:18 GMT -5
Even tho the discussion has been moved to the main thread, I thought I would post my reply here as well since I did see some discussion about it on this thread.... First let me say thank you for the polite emails and PMs I recieved after posting. While I know that not everyone understands the problem, having dealt with it for many years leaves me incredibly frustrated. It's part of the reason I got out of the business professionally as well, and part of the reason Vamped was shut down for a time. I think the best explaination of bandwidth, and what the problem with it is, came from one of the Fan Forum boards by a poster named Cheryl. This is how she explained it: The term "bandwidth" generally refers to the amount of data that is transferred or downloaded from the website server to the end user, not the actual amount of data that is stored on the site.
For example, many people who post on this board have their own Fan Art or wallpaper websites. They may have 100 different wallpaper designs on their site, and let's say each wallpaper is 100 kb. That means their total data stored on their server is 10,000 kb or 10 mb. (Of course the total MB stored on the site would be more than that, with the html pages and thumbnails and banners, but I'm just using round numbers.)
The bandwidth, though, refers to how many wallpapers are actually viewed or downloaded by the site visitors, generally over a month's time. So if the site gets 100 visitors a day, and each person downloads (or views) 10 wallpapers per visit, then the bandwidth used per day is 100,000 kb or 100 mb. Then over a month, that would be approximately 30,000 mb or 30 GB per month. So that website uses 30 GB per month in bandwidth.
When you look at hosting plans offered by web hosts, the plan will usually have a storage limit AND a bandwidth limit. For example, a host may offer 100 mb storage and 20 GB of bandwidth transfer per month for a price of $19.95 per month or something like that. If your site uses more bandwidth than what your host allows, you can be socked with huge fees for exceeding your bandwidth allotment for the month.
When people use the term "stealing bandwidth," it means that you are sucking up a lot of extra bandwidth from that site. When somebody posts a picture on a FF message board, or any other site for that matter, you are basically forcing people to download that pic over and over, every time they load that thread, even if they don't want the pic or they've seen it a million times before. Imagine how many people view the "Cherishing" thread on the main Roswell board every day. Each person who downloads the thread is sucking up bandwidth from the website that is hosting all the pictures posted, because the picture is downloaded again and again and again by every person viewing the thread . . .
Does that make sense??
That is why posting pictures from a fansite, especially LARGE pictures like wallpaper, is very, very bad and can cost that website a lot of $$ in server fees. If the site is on a paid host, it really is stealing, and it's just not nice. Especially when the website specifically asks its visitors NOT to post the pictures anywhere else on the web. Whomever (Sorry, I read a lot of posts and thought I'd remember names by obviously didn't), said that the problem is twofold is correct. There is the bandwidth issue addressed above. One that my host helps deal with by blocking most off site linking, which is why the images in question did not show up when someone copied the URL and posted it so that the image should show up directly here. Like I said before, this causes problems for a LOT of sites. I remember when Buffy Cross & Stake shut down because of it, and that's a site that most of the older Buffy fans have been to a million times. The second issue is the image theft itself. Am I using images that *I* personally took? No. But for the most part I am using images that I spent a hell of a lot of money to obtain the source, not to mention the time and effort that gets put into scanning. Then there's the time it takes to actually make a wallpaper. Some of them are much simpler than others. After hearing from some people that all it looked like I ever did was crop well known images, I put up this page: vamped.darklabrynth.com/wallexample.htm to show how it was done a good portion of the time. So yes, you may find a smiliar picture on another site, but even if two people scan the same image, chances are there are going to be variations in the color tones, brightness, contrast, etc. Not to mention even if you crop the same image twice yourself, you most likely won't get the same dimensions both times. Not unless you're being way more precise than I am anyway! So when I ask not to post these images elsewhere it's because I've spent a great deal of time, effort and money into making them usable for Vamped visitors. Many people come to Vamped specifically BECAUSE of the quality of images I use, so when they are tossed around to every site, it pretty much makes Vamped pointless.
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Post by raenstorm on Oct 18, 2003 22:33:58 GMT -5
So... how bout some real pictures in this thread, eh? I got a new computer and have been playing. I don't have my graphics software just yet so the quality of these isn't the best but I'll repost 'em once I get that installed.
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Post by raenstorm on Oct 18, 2003 22:35:33 GMT -5
I've sat there!!! Now I've already told you that these are screen captures from HHH but... I have some personal shots that look very similar from when JM was here and we went to Universal together. Ahh, the memories.
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Post by raenstorm on Oct 21, 2003 14:01:47 GMT -5
I was going to post these the other day and forgot. Not long ago we were talking about the differences in Spike's vamped face makeup on AtS vs BtVS. Thought I'd put them side by side for us to examine.
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Post by raenstorm on Oct 21, 2003 14:02:13 GMT -5
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Post by Betsy on Nov 8, 2003 17:02:53 GMT -5
When I heard this quote on Episode #6, I just had to find a use for it, thus the next in Spikeisms. Of course I had to take some creative license with the quote to put a S'cubie spin on it (right girls?)
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Post by Nickim on Nov 8, 2003 18:07:47 GMT -5
When I heard this quote on Episode #6, I just had to find a use for it, thus the next in Spikeisms. Of course I had to take some creative license with the quote to put a S'cubie spin on it (right girls?) If I concentrate hard a lot. Thanks Betsy. For someone who prefers Angel, you sure give us Spikeaholics a lot of nummy treats.
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Post by Betsy on Nov 8, 2003 18:17:54 GMT -5
If I concentrate hard a lot. Thanks Betsy. For someone who prefers Angel, you sure give us Spikeaholics a lot of nummy treats. You're welcome Nicki. BTW, I like your avatar . . . very lickable he is.
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Post by Karen on Nov 8, 2003 22:12:58 GMT -5
When I heard this quote on Episode #6, I just had to find a use for it, thus the next in Spikeisms. Of course I had to take some creative license with the quote to put a S'cubie spin on it (right girls?) Betsy, OMG - that is a hoot! Am I gonna have some dreams tonight! Poor baby - he's gotta be goin' out of his mind. Between last season on Buffy and being a ghost, he's been out of action for quite a while. Bound to be trouble when he *is* able to, you know, to DHW. Great artwork in the lettering, too.
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