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Hi All,
I’ve just implemented a change in the way the archives work behind the scenes which allows me a lot more flexibility in how I schedule them.
I thought it would be better to make them appear every couple of days rather than all in a chunk every Saturday, so to get started they are set to appear every other day, and stay up for a week.
I realised that I have no idea what people think of the archives! Do you like having them? How do you think they should be scheduled? I can’t put too many sets up, or leave them up for too long, because I have limited disk space and the bandwidth requirements might get very expensive for me. They are meant to be a bit of a bonus for being loyal and staying on as members, so as well as the regular new sets you get to collect the back catalogue as well.
I’m considering either putting up one archive set a day leaving them on the site for a week, or putting them up less often (maybe every two or three days) but leaving them up longer (several weeks or a month) so that people don’t miss them if they go on vacation for a week or whatever.
What do you think?
Cheers, Hywel.
I vote for a new one every day up for a week – variety is good, the vast majority of people aren’t on holiday in any particular week.
I actually prefered having them as a chunk every Saturday, and then staying up a week.
If you’re going to stagger them, can you have them stay up a bit longer than one week each? Say, 8 or 10 days each?
Argh. Two replies, one for each choice! 🙂
I can do almost anything people want with the update schedule so long as the total demands on bandwidth and storage space stay reasonable.
What do other people think?
Cheers, Hywel.
Hi all
I’d have to agree with Lurker, kinda liked the original format.
Cheers
M
the old weekly update format is better,
and it ‘ll be better if you sometime post really old archieves suchas those of andreaneal or chrisma….Hi All – It’s the weekend!!!
I quite like the new system, and also quite like Hywels idea to have one Archive set put up each day and remaining up for a week. On the old system I used to check the archive on a Saturday or Sunday and download those sets that I didn’t have. Unless I am missing something by continuing my same routine, and checking once (maybe twice) a week, woud mean more archive sets per week and therefore more chance to catch up on missed/lost sets.
I am currently having a bit of a nightmare with CD-R’s and -RW’s, on which I burn sets, becomming corrupt (the computer is going out the window if I get too many more ‘cyclic redundancy check’ messages) and though I have had some success recovering these disks with CD recovery software, have found the Archive and Photo store (for real favorites) to be very useful.
A couple of comments/suggestions though.
1, would it be possible to have multi-set series posted in order and relatively close (in terms of time) to one another, as opposed to the current apparently random manner in which sets appear.
2, Could we occasionally have a video archive (or would this place to great a demand on bandwith??).
3, Final one (most cheeky). Would it be possible to have a members request form, or even just a strand within this forum, where we could make requests for favorite sets of old. We would understand that this would not happen immediately, but presumably Hywel has to decide what to put up and when – this would ensure that at least one person would be awaiting the post.
Does anyone else agree/disagree with any of these?
All the best.
CD
LOL really can’t please all the people all the time- I had people email me asking for more recent archives, so I just put some of those up!
I’ll schedule some really old archives for the next batch.
It is interesting that people seem to have a preference for four updates on a Saturday- why is that? Is it because you’ve got into the routine of downloading them once a week? I thought putting up one every other day made things feel a bit more active, and would shortly allow me to move to one per day which just felt nice. (“One brand new set and a bonus archive set EVERY DAY” had a nice sound for advertising too…)
If I put up one set a day and left them up for a week or eight days or something would that be better than four every Saturday?
Cheeys, Hywel.
1, would it be possible to have multi-set series posted in order and relatively close (in terms of time) to one another, as opposed to the current apparently random manner in which sets appear.
2, Could we occasionally have a video archive (or would this place to great a demand on bandwith??).
3, Final one (most cheeky). Would it be possible to have a members request form, or even just a strand within this forum, where we could make requests for favorite sets of old. We would understand that this would not happen immediately, but presumably Hywel has to decide what to put up and when – this would ensure that at least one person would be awaiting the post.
1. Yes. One of the benefits of the change I made behind the scenes is that the archives can be maintained by the same scheduling system that I use for the new updates. That makes it a lot easier to catch cockups like putting up part 2 weeks before part 3.
2. Maybe. The video bandwidth charges from the site are many thousands of dollars a month, as you can probably imagine with hundreds of people downloading 100 MB videos. Bandwidth is the single biggest expense I have- more even than paying all the models and paying for my studio- so I have to be really careful to weigh up these decisions.
I could see two ways of working in video archives- either putting up just the “small” version of the clip rather than the 100 MB monsters, or making it rather infrequent. Maybe once a month?
3. Not right now.
The trouble is that the archives have to be scheduled and uploaded in well in advance. The more in advance I can do it, the less overhead and hassle it is for me. It is one less job to eat up a day a month (I’ve found as a good rule of thumb that ANY job on the website takes a minimum of a day by the time you have done it, uploaded and tested it thoroughly). It is also one deadline I don’t have to worry about so often. I put in enough late nights to make sure I don’t miss the daily update deadlines without having a regular archive deadline too.
Spending one day every three or six months on the archives is fine, but I can’t spend a day a month doing it… I just don’t have enough days. Scheduling the archives for the next three or six months doesn’t actually take too much longer than doing it a month at a time.
If I took requests, I’d have to do the archives more regularly, and right now I just don’t think I actually can.
I don’t rule it out for the future- if I can automate even more of the process than I have already, I might be able to schedule things much more flexibly.
Thanks for letting me know what you think!
Cheers, Hywel.
If I put up one set a day and left them up for a week or eight days or something would that be better than four every Saturday?
Definitely, because:
1. its nice to have something new to look forward to each day
2. seven sets per week > four sets per week
Definitely, because:
1. its nice to have something new to look forward to each day
2. seven sets per week > four sets per week
Well that’s what I thought too which is why I was a bit surprised when people seemed to prefer four sets every Saturday. Maybe I didn’t make it clear that one set a day, staying up for a week = 7 sets a week instead of 4???
:oo :oops :crazy
Hywel.
I agree, one every day is far better. as for video archives, i would be more than happy with the small versions of the clips!
I’ve managed to negotiate a good new deal with my webhosts which means that the bandwidth charges may not be quite so crippling.
Hopefully that means I can improve the archives without it costing me a small fortune.
The first step is that archives now stay up for two weeks.
If that goes OK, the next change will be put up an archive a day, and start putting up occasion video archives and Belle’s Corner archives as well.
So hopefully a whole lot more stuff for you on the way!
Let me know if you have any problems or find things which aren’t working the way they should. I’m in the middle of a revamp as well (tell me whether you like it or not by voting over on the poll!)
Cheers, Hywel.
Hiya
I like the idea of regular updates up for a week or so so that you can save them.
That way you rotate the earlier stuff for your members who may have joined only recently (like me!)
Cheers TmTAs of 1st April, the archives have gone daily!!
They will stay up for 14 days at a time, and video archives are coming.
Hope everyone enjoys them!
Cheers, Hywel.
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