=][= YOUR HELP REQUESTED IN THE GALLERY =][=

[Brother Tyler]

We are requesting assistance from the members in cleaning up the Gallery.

 

For background about the Gallery and why it is an essential feature supporting the community, see this tutorial.

 

We are looking for your help in three areas:

• Delete any of your albums that are empty.
• Consider breaking multi-(sub)faction/subject albums into multiple albums, each focusing on an individual (sub)faction/subject.
• Ensure that each of your albums is in the correct category.

Empty Albums

We are looking at ways to clean the database up, and one of the culprits is empty albums. Many members create albums with the intent of populating them with images of their miniatures, but then they don't upload images. These albums then reside on the database, taking up space (a very small amount of space, mind you, but the aggregate adds up). In addition, empty albums waste other members' time when they are poking around in the Gallery to look at images - they click on an album whose name piques their interest and then see that there's nothing there. Deleting empty albums, then, frees up space and frees up members' time.

 

Multi-(sub)Faction/Topic Albums

While most members think of their albums solely as a place for them to store images online so they can include them in their posts, there are actually members who enjoy browsing around directly in the Gallery to look at images. Often, their interest is focused on specific (sub)factions. For example, someone might want to look solely at images of the Blood Angels. Another member, meanwhile, might want to look at images of the Adeptus Titanicus game. To that end, the Gallery is organized by categories that allow members to focus on specific (sub)factions, games, and types of content. While it's easy for a member to just upload all their images into a single album, that adversely affects other members' ease of focusing on specific subjects when browsing images. By confining individual albums to individual subjects, you enhance members' browsing experience. Since members can move their images, it's relatively easy to create individual albums for specific subjects and then move images around in their albums.

 

Correct Category

As mentioned above, placing an album in the correct category helps members to focus their time on their desired subject matter. If someone wants to look at images of Necrons, they should be able to find those images in the Necrons category (which falls under the Xenos category). When an album is created, it defaults to the Miscellaneous category. While it's very easy to select the appropriate category, many members ignore this step. As a result, (a) the Miscellaneous category is filled with albums that should be in other categories, and (b) people searching for albums/images of specific subjects have to search through both the category for that subject (e.g., Blood Angels, Orks, Adeptus Titanicus) and the Miscellaneous category.

 

And on that note, if you think that the categories need to be adjusted, we are always open to suggestions. We don't want to have too large of a list (which would make things unwieldy), but we definitely want a selection of categories that allows for sufficient granularity and specificity. The + SUGGESTION BOX + is always a good place for this, but you are also free to post your suggestion(s) as replies to this topic (for as long as this topic remains on the front page of this forum).

 

Your assistance is appreciated.

[Lathe Biosas]

I have some failed projects and other miscellaneous nonsense it some galleries. Is it possible to remove images without deleting the whole gallery?

[Brother Tyler]

Yes, members can delete their own images.

[Heraclite]

Guilty as charged ! I've got a massive miscellaneous album, and organise it by year... I'll try to clean it up. Is it possible to move images from one album to another?

[Brother Tyler]

4 hours ago, Heraclite said:

Guilty as charged ! I've got a massive miscellaneous album, and organise it by year... I'll try to clean it up. Is it possible to move images from one album to another?

 

Yes (see the linked tutorial).

[N1SB]

Would deleting images help please, or is there difference actual pictures (vs. albums) so small it doesn't matter?

 

I've got an album with pics for when we couldn't just paste images straight into posts, so I had to link them.  If need be, I can identify and delete them.

[Brother Tyler]

I recommend against deleting images.

 

I also recommend against directly pasting images into posts unless those discussions are temporary in nature and serve no enduring purpose. When you directly paste an image into a post, it is uploaded into a temporary folder. That folder is emptied after a period of time (1 year?). So any images that are directly posted into content will disappear, removing important context. This is fine for things like news/rumor topics where the discussion will become moot once the product is released (or the rumor proves false). In more enduring hobby discussions, however, especially things like project logs and battle reports, images serve an important function in conveying information. I think it's especially important to preserve images of members' hobby participation (i.e., miniature assembly/painting, battle reports). There may be images such as memes and similar which don't really serve an enduring purpose, so deleting those aren't really an issue.

 

Ultimately, despite my personal recommendations, it's entirely up to you - you are free to delete any of the images that you've uploaded.