Slug, It Is TIME To Make Everyone Payup...

[trrsranch]

Looks like you and I are the guilty parties! LOL

[trrsranch]

Good points and I agree with each.

zevs point of showing appreciation to Slug is an excellent one!

[juliano]

I agree they do need to put a little more pressure on non-paying members. $23/year isn't even going to break the bank of a poor boy like me, so really if people like the site they should pay. It takes money to run a site like this.

[juliano]

OK...This outage is starting to bother me. I'll agree for now.

[juliano]

OK. Pbase being down is now officially messing with my judgement. I agree for now.

[procyon_g]

I was, and still am, attracted to PBase because of the ease of sharing photos. I don't know of another site that specializes in photography where I can easily view popular galleries, random photos, examples of photos taken by specific cameras, etc.

It would be too bad if those features went away. All of those features have to create a high bandwith useage and database load. All of those database queries and remote hot-linking have got to have a big impact on the PBase servers.

It seems kind of unbalanced to base the fee structure only on storage (which is the smallest expense of running a site, I think). Someone with 10 Mb of pictures that they stole from somewhere (an extreme example that probably never would happen ) could use 10 times the bandwidth and database load that I would with my 100 Mb of family photos and vacation pictures.

If we each are going to pay for our fair share, then bandwidth and database useage need to be considered in addition to space usage. $23 per year is a real bargain for what I have gotten. It would still be a bargain at twice the price.


My ideas:
1) Limit the free accounts and delete their galleries after a specified time.
2) Start actively logging IP addresses to discourage people from opening numerous free accounts.
3) Start looking at bandwidth usage for each gallery and account.
4) Encourage the posting of only original work and actively discourage (somehow) the posting of pictures that are not the property of the user.

[minoltaman]

Please do not mess with the direct linking process. It is one of pbases best features. Bandspace limitations would drive many to hosting their own galleries then. Surely this would not be good for pbase. By all means, kick the freeloaders out and discontinue their feature set before you restrict linking.Don't punish peeps who's picks are worthy of viewing elsewhere. I say keep the family albums on yahoo or aol or something. I don't come to pbase to look at other peoples family photo's.

[juliano]

minoltaman, LOL...OK, they can afford a camera and film and development and a computer and possibly a scanner, YET, they can't afford $23????????? C'mon, give me a break! That is weak!

Slug can decide on the time frame...whether 2 weeks or some other time frame. but, shutdowns like we're experiencing is not helping PBase out in the PR dept. of those of us who do pay. I had time available this past weekend to work on my albums but, now that time is lost. For some who have their PBase account on Google (like some Universities and web sites I've seen) long down time like this can actually cost a business or institution thousands of dollars.

IT IS ONLY FAIR THAT EACH AND EVERYONE OF US PAYS OUR FAIR SHARE!!! If one doesn't feel like paying, fine! They can move on and use Yahoo or MSN or someother site not nearly as professional as PBase is. This latest shutdown should be a wakeup call for all of us. Look at what has happened to Raging Bull. They've lost half of their posters since Rusty sold it to CMGI. And now it is a cess pool like Yahoo. Slug can give any new user a grace period BUT, at some point they MUST pay or leave. It really is very simple. If a user doesn't have much time to spend here like you say, then fine...once he decides he wants to use PBase, he can pay and he has a whole year to download photos on his timeframe. That has no bearing on paying within two weeks after trying PBase. And like I said, if they only have a few photos to post, then possibly Yahoo or MSN is the best place for them. PBase is suited for those of us who have a bunch of photos.

I think Slug should provide an easy way for people to backup the account before pbase deletes non paying accounts.

I've been trying to back them up but with no luck

[karen1109]

There are a whole lot of non-paying members on pbase who have THOUSANDS of images online. I can't help but think if they were forced to pay or get kicked off, it would free up a whole lotta server space and bandwidth, which costs money. These abusers have knowingly taken advantage of pbase for a very long time.

Free accounts should get a 30-day pass to review the service, with a limited number of images... say, 25 or 50, with a max storage limit. This gives them a fair chance to try before they buy. IP logging would be great to restrict serial free account signups. I'd also endorse other free account feature restrictions, which is pretty common at other photo-hosting sites.

I really don't have much of a problem with users that have only a few images maintaining their free accounts for as long as they possibly can. I get really irritated, though, at those occupying 100s of MBs of space with throusands of photos, blatantly exploiting slug's largesse. I don't believe they need to be cut any slack, or that a backup feature needs to be implemented before booting them off. They've received many notices that pbase is no longer a free site, and have chosen to ignore them. As a longtime supporter (who pays for more space than I actually occupy), I'm more than a little miffed at this inequity.

4) Encourage the posting of only original work and actively discourage (somehow) the posting of pictures that are not the property of the user.

I recently had 37 photos of mine stolen from pbase and posted elsewhere, so this is a hot issue for me. I believe that pbase should take a hard line against any copyright violations, and immediately delete any photos to which the user does not own the copyright. If it's the case of someone being too stupid to know any better (like posting those pass-around photos that get emailed across the internet), the photos should be deleted and the user warned. If it's the case of blatant copyright infringement, the photos should be deleted, and the user's account closed. (Which would also ensure that pbase does not get involved in a copyright infringement suit.) Pbase should have a forum specifically for the reporting of copyright infringement.

[liv12]

Very well stated. Thank you, Karen, I agree with your proposal 100%.

[jim_panzee]

I must agree, although I went a bit over the mark before I paid, basically because there are quite a few Photo programs on the net, and trying to find one that suits your needs exactly, is quite time consuming. Having said that I think that once you start using a program, you should know within 30 days whether you want to continue with it or not, if you decide after the trial is over, and you download the program a second time Payment must be made at once before access is allowed. nealy all share-wear programs operate in this way.

[juliano]

Case in point, user g**** (not a Pbase supporter) has 10,067 images online w/ 1,096,509 hits according to his profile! Can imagine the bandwidth cost for Slug (and us paying supporters) !

[thresholdprod]

It took me a little longer for me(than 30 days) but I had just come off of paying and getting burned by a site going belly up. At least I was in great company. So give them a chance to decide, there are to many bad expereinces out there to trust a web site from the get go.

I just wish there was a price break for larger memory blocks.

[sheila]

Ditto all the last posts! For the price of a couple of burger dinners (if you are really that way inclined!!), you can be a paid up member of one of the best gallery sites on the Net. I paid up when I joined 18 months ago, no worries - it was the full $60 which worked out at 120 Aussie bucks because I thought the site had great potential and to me, was great value. The more cash that's ploughed into the site, the more professional it is startng to look. Slug has worked very hard over the past couple of months and he should be rewarded for it. And its time for him to bite the bullet and advise the non-payers that they have seven days to decide.

Cheers
Sheila

[jim_panzee]

I can't believe that somebody has over 10,000 images on site and doesn't pay a penny for it. That's really taking the P**s, get them off now.