Posts Gone; Wondering Why

[Findcandor]

Hello,

I joined to give back after appreciating this thread:

http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/t11...era-miles.html

I prepared two screen shots apiece from two television shows of the actress (for a total of four photos and two posts), using Postimage (postimg.cc) as the image host, adding one text line for each post to identify the programs the photos were from.

I was surprised that none of the text box functions worked (bold, italic, etc.), but figured perhaps there were restrictions for new members. (Some forums, I know from experience, require a little time to pass before allowing for some privileges.) At any rate, the photos appeared through the BB "IMG" codes, and the posts went through.

I returned to the thread a day later only to discover the posts had disappeared.

I belatedly read the "Sticky: Forum Rules / Banned content / Posting guideline" thread, and didn't come upon any rule that was broken. I'm now reading:

Posting Rules
You may post new threads
You may post replies
You may not post attachments
You may edit your posts

Is the third one the reason why these posts were removed?

If so, I have to express my disappointment. What I prepared took a little time and effort, I acted entirely out of good intentions for the benefit of others, and it's not as though a member can be expected to have awareness of everything (unless one takes the trouble to comb through every regulation, which probably no one would).

At any event, since there was no notice preventing the posting of my photos through the BB method (that is, when I hit the "Submit" button for the posts), the third rule could have been interpreted as the disallowance of attachments in the form of the "insert image" function (that is, by virtue of uploads through the V-E forum, assuming the site permits uploads; I'm too new to know whether it does). The "insert image" function was not available for me, so perhaps that was what "You may not post attachments" was getting at.

Or was there some other reason?

Is it possible to reinstate my posts? They were totally innocuous, and I can't see how they did not perfectly serve the spirit of what the site appears to be about.

Thanks.


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[BCFC_1982]

Best bet is to ask one of the moderators in the section you posted in.

In this case it looks like you posted images directly to VEF i.e. you did not upload them to an imagehost first. If you did upload to an imagehost then you have not inserted the BBCode from the imagehost.

It should look like this:


Which in post text should look like this:
[URL=http://pimpandhost.com/image/48777171-original.html][IMG]http://ist3-1.filesor.com/pimpandhost.com/1/_/_/_/1/3/i/F/a/3iFaz/0249%20AMANDA-1_0.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
with a thumbnail no larger than 200x200

VEF does not allow images to be directly uploaded, i.e. we do not host images.

So if you used the [IMG] method then this will be why the post was removed.

It's usually a good idea to try your first posts in the test forum where people can help you if you are having issues similar to this:
http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/f55-test-forum.html

[Jenny48549]

It appears that the pics were hotlinked in the post which shows them as full size. The reason that we generally do not allow hotlinking is that it pulls more bandwidth at the host and some hosts will disable hotlinked images if they get a lot of views from a forum as large as this.

For that reason, you must post using a thumbnail that is a maximum size of 200 x 200 pixels.

[buttsie]

Always smart to take small steps when you start on a new forum
as in my experience no 2 are ever the same

You have the forum rules followed by additional usually unique rules
in each section that can change over night.

To that end you have the test forum where you can make all the mistakes , get instant feedback
and avoid the on forum section deletions

Test Forum
http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/f55-test-forum.html

with stickys like - Hints on posting pictures / Common mistakes
http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/t13...-mistakes.html

[Findcandor]

.
Thank you, one and all, for your responses. All three of you were most kind.

(By the way, I am noticing while I am in the text box and preparing for this post, all of the functions — bold, italic, etc. — are still oddly inaccessible. I changed browsers, from Chrome to Firefox, and now the functions are working.)

BCFC_1982 figured I had hotlinked (I understood that to mean taking a photo off a site rather than using an image host), but as I had written in my third paragraph (with "Postimage"), I indeed did use an image host.

(Thanks, BCFC_1982, for letting me know, "VEF does not allow images to be directly uploaded.")

(Yet the latter point raises another question. If images are permitted only through image hosters, with their own ready-to-copy-and-paste BB codes, what would be the purpose of the "Insert Image" function atop the post-text window? Now that I am getting the function to work, I noticed it allows for the hotlinking of image URLs. Given the following paragraph, such full-sized images appear to be disallowed at VEF, so this is confusing.)

It looks like Jenny48549 had the best theory as to why my posts were removed. I used the full-sized image and not the thumbnail.

(EDIT: Upon rereading, I see BCFC was wise, as well: "If you did upload to an imagehost then you have not inserted the BBCode from the imagehost.")

Who would have thought this could have been the reason. I can understand the merit of thumbnails when there are a good many photographs, but especially when there are only one or two, frankly, using the full-sized version makes more sense. It saves the user the trouble of clicking on thumbnails.

The explanation was this: "It pulls more bandwidth at the host and some hosts will disable hotlinked images if they get a lot of views." That makes sense as I think about it, but how ironic; I had imagined hosts disable images when the images lie dormant and DO NOT get views.

(In any event, I can't imagine most pages in a forum, even in "a forum as large as this," would be getting so many views that the image hoster would start getting antsy.)

Thank you, Buttsie, for letting me know about this "test forum" (as did BCFC_1982); naturally, I had no idea such a forum was in existence. Regardless, let's put ourselves in the mindset of one such as me.

I had occasionally run into the VEF forum in the past, and thought it to be very nice. At the time of my last visit, all that ran across my mind was, well, I sure appreciated viewing the photos of an actress I got to be temporarily curious about, and perhaps I can put on my Mother Teresa hat and contribute a few shots of my own.

When one gets that little passing "yen," it is not as though one is going to spend more time than is necessary; it was already going to take time to fetch the photos, go through the image hoster, and prepare the posts themselves. Perhaps there are users who may devote an hour or more to seek and learn about the idiosyncrasies of a forum, but when it comes to a seemingly innocuous post conducted for unselfish reasons, I would guess such users would fall into a nearly nonexistent minority. (It does appear there are a good many contributors to the VEF forum who are very dedicated, but I'm guessing they may have come to be that way after the passage of time.)

Unfortunately, the end result of my experience is going to be I won't be in a hurry to prepare my next "giving" post.




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[BCFC_1982]

In fairness, all of these points are covered in the forum and section rules.

All forums have rules, guides and helpers. If you don't follow them, posts are liable to be removed.

[buttsie]

Lesson no 1 of posting which you wont find mentioned in any rules

If you put a lot of time and effort into a post - in other words you value it

Always back it up / save it - I use a simple text message stored with every post that includes a direct link to the post number , the imagehost bbcode & gallery link , the title , the text etc


Deletions dont feel great but consider this

A few years ago due to something called a cluster crash this forum lost 2 weeks of postings in January...thousands of posts were lost

[Norman Stanley Fletcher]

I've just noticed some posts I made recently got pulled (picked this up from the 'latest reputation received' and the thread showing there as N/A), they were all pic posts

No reason given so I've been hunting round the help section and this might be the reason, it's weird because I posted the same way I always have (this may of course be the problem)

Very reluctant to post anything further because I don't know why the posts were pulled I'm only guessing so likely to end up a lurker, if I visit at all. It's been fun, VEF, but it's hard work figuring out what I did wrong so... good luck! The future looks bleak for fandom online, forums will become a fond memory, this was one of my favourite haunts.

[Norman Stanley Fletcher]

This a test post, posting an image as I've done before, image size says mini (180px), I've not changed that, that's the option that came up, I stick to that everytime I post

Let me know where I went wrong

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by Norman Stanley Fletcher

I've just noticed some posts I made recently got pulled (picked this up from the 'latest reputation received' and the thread showing there as N/A), they were all pic posts

There is a current problem we are aware of and effecting not just yourself, It's nothing you've done wrong