RM Web

Alan

Western Thunderer
Just checked, a couple of posts I edit to put back photos and a fresh one I put on this morning on RMWeb have disappeared again. I'm beginning to think is it worth it especially with those annoying videos apparing on my tablet taking up nearly 20% of the screen.
 

Gismorail

Western Thunderer
Your spot on with your thoughts Alan, I have over the years contributed and enjoyed RMweb and it's a massive source of useful and informative browsing and it is a great shame the direction it is going. :thumbs:
 

adrian

Flying Squad
I've not really been following the rebuild but have just checked. It sounds like they are re-indexing the whole attachment database. Given the number of images involved I'd suggest patience as it will take considerable time to get it all sorted.

Personally I'd recommend leaving it at least till the weekend, maybe longer, before assessing the situation and making any further comments. By this time next week you'll be in a better position to assess what's been lost and what has been re-indexed.
 

simond

Western Thunderer
I’ve just been on, it’s working-ish, but it does seem that some recent photos have disappeared again.

I think it’s worth assuming it’s still down for a few days or weeks and see what transpires. I certainly wouldn’t be investing any time in trying to re-upload anything until it is sure that the site is stable and secure. I guess Andy and his colleagues are trying to establish that, hopefully they’ll succeed.

Regarding the adverts: I simply installed an ad-blocker, as the incessant and overwhelming adverts had made the site unusable in my opinion. If they were to implement a paywall, with no adverts, I’d consider it, reluctantly. I guess that’s a decision for each of the users.
 

Jordan

Mid-Western Thunderer
I'm pretty much the same as Simon, above. I haven't bothered to start reloading photos yet, in a sort of "see what happens" way, and I also use an ad blocker browser, otherwise it was totally unworkable on a phone screen in particular.
I know the Powers That Be at RMweb aren't happy with those of us that use ad blockers, but the adverts "testing" was getting way beyond a joke, with no other alternative than the full Gold membership thing that I don't want.
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
Just been on and the fresh photos I posted on the last few days have reappeared. So just some sort of indexing task going on in the background I presume.
 

Courtybella

Western Thunderer
I really do feel for the guys and gals who lost years worth of pictures, I only lost a years worth so I feel your pain.
However, the tone of moderation on RMWeb has always rubbed me up the wrong way bot that I’ve been subjected to much of it personally. If the admin spoke to most people in person the way they do online I think the local A&E would dedicated beds for Andy & Phil. Add to the shutting down any negative feedback to manufacturers and pop up ads invading every page I abandoned the site in favour of WT when the crash happened.
This forum seems to be much friendly and welcoming than RMW so far, I hope to keep coming back for many years to come.
 

John Duffy

Western Thunderer
I really do feel for the guys and gals who lost years worth of pictures, I only lost a years worth so I feel your pain.
However, the tone of moderation on RMWeb has always rubbed me up the wrong way bot that I’ve been subjected to much of it personally. If the admin spoke to most people in person the way they do online I think the local A&E would dedicated beds for Andy & Phil. Add to the shutting down any negative feedback to manufacturers and pop up ads invading every page I abandoned the site in favour of WT when the crash happened.
This forum seems to be much friendly and welcoming than RMW so far, I hope to keep coming back for many years to come.
100% agree.
 

Osgood

Western Thunderer
Not wishing to downplay any less than reasonable moderation experiences that anyone may have experienced on RMW, I have a feeling that scale of operation must inevitably have an impact in the style (not that it should in theory mind) and level of moderation input required to keep a site running between the white lines.
Ask yourself how you would cope if given the task of keeping such a large forum running smoothly?

Without a doubt RMW is huge by comparison with WT - there is a wealth of valuable information in it yet despite a reasonable search function it can be difficult to access the bits you’re looking for.
Also the scale of input makes it difficult to keep up to date with all that is posted on even just a handful of specific interests - I fell too far behind to keep up.

The big difference though is that I regard everyone on here, despite only having met a handful and conversered online with a few more, as a kind of friend even if maybe not in the traditional sense.
And whilst much of that might possibly be down to the scale of the operation, probably most of it could be attributed to the ethos of the originators and those who have carried WT forward?
 
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Jordan

Mid-Western Thunderer
I quoted from our "About" tab on page 1 of this thread. I feel it's worth doing again.
We fully recognize that there are other Model Railway forums and have no qualms about mentioning them directly particularly if you have a link to some good modelling. However this is not the place to bring any grievances or politics from those forums, we're here for the modelling not for having a moan about other forums.
(Bold added) There are plenty of us here who get along just fine on RMweb too. On the other hand I was told in a post over there that "Western Thunder comes with an attitude that not everyone finds welcoming." Really?
So people's personal perceptions & experiences of Forums can be very different, but I stand by my reply to that comment - that, as in many areas of life, the treatment & attitudes a person experiences from others is very much affected by their own attitude they take with them.

I've seen plenty of that, both on RMweb and when I was part of the moderation team on here.
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
I quoted from our "About" tab on page 1 of this thread. I feel it's worth doing again.

(Bold added) There are plenty of us here who get along just fine on RMweb too. On the other hand I was told in a post over there that "Western Thunder comes with an attitude that not everyone finds welcoming." Really?
So people's personal perceptions & experiences of Forums can be very different, but I stand by my reply to that comment - that, as in many areas of life, the treatment & attitudes a person experiences from others is very much affected by their own attitude they take with them.

I've seen plenty of that, both on RMweb and when I was part of the moderation team on here.

Thanks Jordan for posting that. The thread was heading towards "have a moan about RMweb" and, like I'm sure many others, I'm here to make stuff and broaden my knowledge base. Please leave all baggage of experiences of other forums at the door.

Given the volume of abuse and general unpleasantness that can be directed in a mods direction, I think a very thick skin would be essential. I'm not surprised at times that responses need to be robust. My view is that what you get out of a forum is linked to what you put in to it.

There's no way on earth I'd take a job as a forum moderator, particularly on a large forum, it's a thankless task. There's hardly an action you can take that won't upset someone. Add to that being held responsible for the actions of your employer and web hosts... Nope definitely not for me.
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
It keeps getting mentioned that folk have lost years of photo uploads in the recent RMweb server crisis. The reported situation (which for me appears at the top of every page) is as below:

rps20220411_080854.jpg

10 months is still a lot of images to lose but better than might have been the case.
 
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Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
The Britmodeller forum has a policy where you aren’t allowed to upload images to the site. This is partly because the forum is huge and busy and server space is limited. Instead, members are encouraged to use a third party host - Flickr in my case - and create links to images instead of direct uploads.

Apart from the occasional new member griping about the extra effort involved, it works well.

I have stayed out of commenting on RMWs woes. I used to be a member, but left a few years back. The place was just too noisy for my taste, and I really didn’t need to duplicate what I was doing here on WT. I certainly didn’t need it to attract business.
 
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Peter Cross

Western Thunderer
10 months is still a lot of images to lose but better might have been the case
I actually think it's worse than they are making out. Most of my threads are missing pictures even though some threads have not been updated for over a year.

As for the comfort feel of being here or on rmweb, I think rmweb have far more debaters rather than doers. Whereas here there seems at least to me a greater wealth of practical knowledge.
 

simond

Western Thunderer
Surely people haven't lost their photos, they will be stored on the hard drive of their computer. They are only lost from the thread to which they were attached.

atb
Tim

Tim, not so, at least in my case.

I typically used the “attach”-“take photo” option, specifically so I did not fill my phone with images that I was unlikely ever to need again, apart from within the story they were illustrating.

And why would I want to keep a copy? After all, they were uploaded on some server somewhere…

tant pis, as they say.

Simon
 

Mike Trice

Western Thunderer
I still have all my photos taken at full resolution. I copy them, edit and resize them then upload. I seriously doubt I could work out from the names which photo I used where. Either way it would be a lot of work and who is to say it won't happen again.
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
Since the Fotopics debacle a few years ago, I now treat anything posted online or in the cloud as temporary. Prompted by the RMweb goings on I've just bought an external 1tb SSD hard drive to back up my Google photos account. It could also fail in time but at least that's two copies I have.
 

Tim Humphreys ex Mudhen

Western Thunderer
Tim, not so, at least in my case.

I typically used the “attach”-“take photo” option, specifically so I did not fill my phone with images that I was unlikely ever to need again, apart from within the story they were illustrating.

And why would I want to keep a copy? After all, they were uploaded on some server somewhere…

tant pis, as they say.

Simon
Simon,
I've always backed up my photos onto my PC and a separate hard drive to ensure I never lose them. I tend to use a camera rather than a phone but all photos once downloaded to a safe place can then be deleted from the device.

Tim
 
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