Is there such a thing as too many? [Archive] - USG-online - Men's Underwear and Swimwear Community

scootmanca

03-12-2007, 11:11 AM

I'm glad you brought this up.. sometimes I feel that people take a lot of pictures in the same pose or in the same underwear.. I don't mind when people take lots of pictures but, I've seen people share great collections and usually different colors and/or styles of underwear. The one thing I don't like to see is that a lot of the times, people take pictures of underwear by itself and not being worn, just on display! Sometimes, I think they are using too much space. People, also keep posting pictures in Panties.. I know in the past you have stated your opinion in regards this pictures.. There are lots of pictures also, that they post in the some galleries that appear to me that they are one-piece women's bathing suites and it has nothing to do with One pice suite like wrestling gear for example.. Anywhoo, this is just simply my opinion.. I don't know what others think.. I only feel we can somehow make better judgment as to what pictures we can post in general because sometimes pictures are fuzzy and they don't look all that great to begin with.. :confused:

TryTheseOn

03-12-2007, 12:18 PM

I am all for freedom of expression and show it if you got it, but not every picture should make it into the gallery that is submitted. I'm not sure what the solution to this is because most people don't tend to be self-policing on matters like these.

dikdekok

03-12-2007, 04:02 PM

I agree 15,000 is to much.
I also think that when we start judging the quality of the pics we will get a lot of trouble.
So my suggestion is to give the pics a lifetime: lets say 6 months. They can stay longer when they are still watched frequently (x times a day or week). I do not know the frequency of this, but the operator will know).

In this way we limit the amount of pics and space and keep a constan changing attractive set of pics.

Dik

bostonspdo

03-13-2007, 08:51 AM

I tend to think that there are too many pictures without much variety. A major problem is that some people post long series of virtually identical pictures. Maybe the suggestion in the above post is right. There should be a time limit on how long the posts are on the board. Another good suggestion above is to keep them longer if they're popular, but is that technically feasible? I don't see a problem with eventually deleting pictures, because if your pictures got deleted and you thought they were good, you could always repost them. Just the tediousness of having to repost long series of pictures might encourage posters to exercise a little editorial control the second or third time around and only post the best ones.

deusex

03-14-2007, 12:36 AM

The majority say "no" so far.

It would be technically impossible to moderate a 6 month rule with the exception of the popular posts unless it was done by hand. It's already hard enough trying to keep the pics in the right galleries, moving the x-rated pics out of the g-rated galleries, removing all the women's undrwear pics, and pics without underwear.

I personally like your thinking, bostonspeedo -cutting photos off at 6 months, and then active users can repost, but I think putting something like that into place with cause a bit of an uproar.

I personally love the galleries, but it does get a bit tedious at times having to moderate them.

Keep voting....

superdoc

03-14-2007, 02:50 AM

I helped out. I deleted all of mine. They were old shots. I may post a few new ones. :bath :bath :bath

Buldging_Briefs

04-07-2007, 05:55 AM

A lot of good advice here however variety is the spice of life different shaped cocks, pubic hair, underwear styles, colors, different body types etc... It's wonderful seeing all the interesting pics people post I think we all hate sensorship but realize some rules are needed an example of which is the rule on womens underwear I know I appreciate that one. I really enjoy the site and can always sort thru the pics i want to see and pass over the ones that don't interest me personally :D :moon

BAF

04-07-2007, 06:15 AM

I don't think it is too many. With the selection criteria in the galleries it is easy to select the pics of interest, so I do not bother about pics i don't like.
The Mb limitation forces me to clean up my own gallery before being able to post new pics, so I do not see any problem.

We posters must take care of posting in the right category, and to post pics of a certain quality level. I try to do so..

sseguin6

04-07-2007, 10:03 AM

I have enjoyed all the pictures posted!

RockHard

07-04-2008, 10:34 PM

With 24,403 photo's in the members galleries now. I don't think that you should delete any photo's of a active member. But if your not a active member, ie not logged in for a year or two, then maybe those should be deleted. And deusEx I did not vote on this poll. sseguin6 I know you like the pic's posted here, And I like your avatar!

SweatyAussie

07-05-2008, 03:56 AM

I didn't vote because I think more than a simple yes/no is required.

Certainly 15,000 photos is plenty, way more than enough. Whether it's TOO MANY though, depends on whether it's causing a problem. Is it? They all have to be moderated, it's true, but we only have to do that once per photo (unless a member moves it to the wrong category AFTER we have moved it to the correct one, and I doubt very much that this happens).

If the size of the database is a problem, for example because of server capacity or the cost of hosting, then simply cut down on the total space allocated to each member. It's then an encouragement for the members to (a) not post several near-identical shots, and (b) periodically remove some to make way for new ones, if they wish to do so.

If we do something like this, then we would need to:
- let everyone know well in advance what the new limit will be, to give people who are exceeding that limit a chance to decide for themselves which photos to remove and which ones to leave up,
- after that date, ruthlessly prune galleries that are over the limit.

I repeat, this is only if the size of the database is causing a problem. If it's not, I don't see the need for any action.

I also think that inactive members should be purged, (after being sent a couple of warnings first). After say 12 months of inactivity you can assume that the person has (a) died, (b) stopped using the Internet, (c) taken a long holiday or (d) simply lost interest in the site. Remove the whole account, not just the gallery.

Some people have mentioned the need to moderate the subject of the photos, but I see that as a totally separate issue.

deusex

07-05-2008, 10:00 AM

The size of the database isn't really a problem.....yet. But as each day goes by, the site gets busier and there's more photos to look through, the site's bandwidth goes up. There's two issues at hand - the speed of the computer that runs the server and the allocated bandwidth from my hosting company.

The computer was just upgraded 2 months ago and should do us for another year or two, but the monthly allocated bandwidth seems to be used up after 4 or 5 months after the last increase. Of course what most people don't understand except them moderators and members who have been with us for year, is that each time the bandwidth is maxed out it has to be increased which means it cost more money to run the site.

Those costs are offset by the few advertisers like Be-Brief, Vizeau, and Male Basics and of course my own store Jockstrap Central. They are also offset by the affiliate advertisers like DeadGoodUndies and Erogenos and the couple of porn sites that are scattered throughout, but they don't amount to much.

The next level of allocated bandwidth was just reached this week, so we need to upgrade it which always hits home how much this site is costing to maintain. I do not want to charge for any part of USG - it was never my intention, but that's how places like Flickr offset the huge costs of hosting photos.

There are things that we all can do though (some are mentioned already)....

1. buy more from the advertisers so they continue to support the site
2. Like Sweaty Aussie said, trim your photos, don't post photos that are practically duplicates.
3. purging of inactive members (a year sounds like a reasonable amount)- unfortunately, there's no easy way of doing this other than the moderators going through the member galleries one by one and picking out the ones that haven't been updated in a year.

...and the biggest one....

Don't use site downloaders. They are the largest cause of wasted bandwidth, especially when they're not used properly and end up downloading the same content over and over.

RockHard

07-05-2008, 10:28 AM

3. purging of inactive members (a year sounds like a reasonable amount)- unfortunately, there's no easy way of doing this other than the moderators going through the member galleries one by one and picking out the ones that haven't been updated in a year.

As allway's I'm more then willing too help out. I love this site and not going anywhere else. If you need a hand John just say the word. If it will help out, I'm up for it. I know it will be a long and very difficult task.

SweatyAussie

07-06-2008, 01:46 AM

...and the biggest one....

Don't use site downloaders. They are the largest cause of wasted bandwidth, especially when they're not used properly and end up downloading the same content over and over.
DeusEx, can you explain this last sentence please? I, and probably many members, don't know what you mean by "site downloaders". If you had asked me to say what a site downloader was, I would have guessed it was the same thing as a browser.

People might be using them without knowing it.

SweatyAussie

07-06-2008, 01:49 AM

As allway's I'm more then willing too help out. I love this site and not going anywhere else. If you need a hand John just say the word. If it will help out, I'm up for it. I know it will be a long and very difficult task.
Careful pal, you don't know what you're letting yourself in for. As one of the moderators, I can tell you it's a shit of a job looking at dozens, or hundreds, of photos of near-naked men every day. Still, if you're "up" for it...

The Bondsman

07-06-2008, 02:28 AM

It can, I'll admit. desensitise your fetish after a while.
When just plain porn was illegal and difficult to get, it seemed to have a far greater appeal just by it's prohibited status. Now with it freely available and reaching saturation point on the net, even I must admit to a feeling of overkill.
The galleries certainly need moderation, and I guess if the particular underwear style isn't your thing, then you can sort of glaze-over after a while, but every now and then someone puts a bit of thought, style or even humour into their pics and it stands out from the mass and gives you a thrill.

Moderating the galleries CAN become annoying when guys repeatedly just choose to ignore the rules and put prohibited pics on, or post about two dozen near identical pics. (There are SEVERAL repeat offenders I could name.)
Does an erotic fetish suffer when repeated too often?
Was my underwear fetish more exciting to me when I had to look very hard to find underwear-related pics at all?
Interesting thought, ......probably!

It's certainly great to know just how many other guys enjoy your fetish too, but does "familiarity breed contempt"?
That very topic may provide interesting discussion here in the forums!
This is why the thought of a damn good UNDERWEAR related video remains so exciting to me, ......there just aren't any, ......well not that I've cum across!
Boom, boom!

deusex

07-06-2008, 09:29 AM

Well, it may open up a can of worms....

Site downloaders are programs that basically go to a website and automatically download every image on a page. They follow every link as well. That in itself is ridiculous, lazy and shows no respect for the myself or the other users of this site, as it not only wastes my money on bandwidth but also tasks the system causing slowdowns.

What's even more ridiculous, is they'll download every image - including the little photos at the top of this page, the little smiley images, the banners, the thumbs, the mid size photos, etc...

Most of these programs have settings that can be set so the duplicate images don't get downloaded, but often they're not setup properly so every time the user sets it to hit a site, it will re-download the images again.

IE actually has a version of a Site Downloader built into it, but the more advanced ones have to be bought, but they're cheap.

I only found out about them when I was working on YouLoveJack a few years back and although the site was new and didn't have a lot of videos the stats program we had running was reporting members as downloading a gig worth of content in a session. That would mean they were downloading every photo - both thumbs and fullsize, every support graphic and every version of the videos (we had three sizes of quicktime and a flash version available)

deusex

07-06-2008, 09:41 AM

Does an erotic fetish suffer when repeated too often?

but does "familiarity breed contempt"?

Been doing this site for 6 (7?) years now and I can honestly say that a good artistic photos of a man in underwear still does it for me. I still love working on the blogs and even moderating the galleries most days, but all the sameness does get to me. for the 24,000+ photos, there's probably less than a quarter that does it for me. There's just so many completely anonymous shots of a close-up of of a guys crotch region. There's just nothing to get excited about.

My favorite thing to do these days is to go through the galleries and pick out the 30 "photos of the day" that change on the homepage of un-der-wear.com - it's my chance to put on display what I consider a successful underwear photo.

In fact, I'm thinking we should create a forum for just that. A place where members can choose their favorite 10 or 15 photos from the month on the galleries and post them into the forums. This would also be a good chance for us to see what makes other tick in their nether regions, and maybe also help others see what makes for an interesting creative photo.

just an idea...

RockHard

07-06-2008, 09:53 AM

Careful pal, you don't know what you're letting yourself in for. As one of the moderators, I can tell you it's a shit of a job looking at dozens, or hundreds, of photos of near-naked men every day. Still, if you're "up" for it...

I know it's a shit job! But why should you have all the fun? This site has gave me so much! Just want too give some back. :blowme
Enough said!

The Bondsman

07-06-2008, 08:54 PM

In fact, I'm thinking we should create a forum for just that. A place where members can choose their favorite 10 or 15 photos from the month on the galleries and post them into the forums. just an idea...
And a good idea too , ...in principle.
However I do have reservations that the gallery you set up could develop a hierarchy of those who make it, ...(often!), and the less attractive of us who never do, because we don't happen to be cover-boy material.
(Sadly I think, the more "gorgeous" will make it month after month. Nothing against them, but disheartening for the rest of us.)
Many guys post here for the very first time, ...and that takes a bit of courage, specially if you know you're not what is generally perceived as "hot" .
(Dammit, there are a few blokes here I wouldn't like my own shots to come up against for too close a scrutiny! :o )
I love the non-judgemental atmosphere on this site where the emphasis is on the garment and the shared fetish itself,and not whether you happen to have rock-hard abs, or a huge dick.
I know those qualities CAN be part of it, but many everyday ordinary guys work up the courage to post their UNDERWEAR fetish pics here for the very reason we DON'T post derogatory comments, make fun of their efforts or run a system of "who's hot and who's not". A couple of the other sites do fall into this category, and I feel it actively discourages the less attractive of us from putting up pics we know will suffer by comparison, and be judged NOT for the undies, but whether we have porn-star qualities or not.
You deleted the former Ratings component for a very similar reason, and I certainly supported your decision to do that.
Any gallery as suggested would need very careful setting up to avoid it becoming the elite.
I try to encourage guys to leave comments of something a bit more observant than just "Hot", ....."Great pic".

AZTanDan

07-06-2008, 09:48 PM

I voted no... I understand though the frustration of moderating 15K worth of photographs. That said, I appreciate the herculian efforts of the moderators, and feel that the site is managed extremely well.

I like the idea of a best pic forum as well. I personally am here for the opportunity of conversing with others who share my love of underwear, short shorts, brief swimwear, and the joys of exhibiting them publically and privately. In this respect I might be in the minority, but that doesn't sway me in the least.

deusex

07-07-2008, 12:01 AM

The whole personal best forum would be an experiment, but I would hope and expect it to be more than a "America's top model" beauty pageant. I know that I certainly don't pick guys that are body beautiful, but simply photos that are based on originality, good composition, good lighting, or something that just screams of sexy. My personal 30 top picks for the month cover briefs, boxers, 3d pouch, longjohns, mesh, wet underwear, and shorts and include both beefy hairy guys and slim smooth guys.

I would hope that people could see past their own ideals and if they can't, then hopefully simply the fact that we all have different tastes in men, underwear, levels of hirsuteness and presence or absence of foreskin and that the forum would be balanced.

... and I also hope for world peace.

The Bondsman

07-07-2008, 03:44 AM

.....levels of hirsuteness and presence or absence of foreskin etc... and I also hope for world peace.
And you have about as much chance of getting it! ;) :D :D :D ;)

SweatyAussie

07-07-2008, 04:03 PM

That said, I appreciate the herculian efforts of the moderators, and feel that the site is managed extremely well.

The eighth labour of Hercules was to complete the task of purging the underwear site of all duplicate or near-duplicate pics, all photos of women's underwear and moving all other photos to their correct category. Compared with that, shovelling the horse-shit from the Aegean Stables was a piece of cake.

SweatyAussie

07-07-2008, 04:36 PM

In fact, I'm thinking we should create a forum for just that. A place where members can choose their favorite 10 or 15 photos from the month on the galleries and post them into the forums. This would also be a good chance for us to see what makes other tick in their nether regions, and maybe also help others see what makes for an interesting creative photo.

just an idea...
I am a bit less than enthusiastic about this. We already have a forum where people can post pics and get others' reactions, we only need to read the comments to know what gives guys a fat.
Also if someone sees a particularly titillating pic in a gallery, there is nothing to stop them from posting the link to it in the forum and saying "Hey, look at this!"

I never even knew you had a "Member pic of the day"! I don't normally come in through the front door you see. I just have the forum and the Member Galleries both bookmarked.
I like that concept - maybe instead of just one there should be a row of thumbnails. Do you choose the photo from recent ones, or from anywhere in the database? Maybe you should have a system that select 10 or 15 pics at random each day and puts the thumbnails on the home page. You'd have to vet them first though, to make sure we were encouraging the right kind of photo. It's all extra work...

The subliminal message I am getting is that the size of the database IS a problem - not because of server capacity but because of issues like site downloaders and paying for bandwidth. Now consider... an extra gallery/forum containing 10 or 15 pics for every member who chooses to partipate... many of which will no doubt be duplicates... and all of which are already in the galleries. I'm not sure that it's necessary.

We have contests from time to time, and they're a good idea, but the whole thing doesn't need to be a contest.

The Bondsman

07-08-2008, 01:04 AM

I never even knew you had a "Member pic of the day"! I don't normally come in through the front door you see. I just have the forum and the Member Galleries both bookmarked.
Yeah, like SweatyAussie, I too cum in through the back ....door; ....er, that could have been more delicately phrased I'm sure, but true nevertheless on all levels! ;) ;)

You mean I may have "featured" and not even known about it? :rolleyes:

I reckon if we want to reduce the number of pics, the best way would to start would be by consciously eliminating ALL near duplicates. There are still blokes putting up ten or so of the virtual same pic in one session.. :mad:
I delete some but it's a long boring process.......

RockHard

07-08-2008, 02:47 AM

In fact, I'm thinking we should create a forum for just that. A place where members can choose their favorite 10 or 15 photos from the month on the galleries and post them into the forums. This would also be a good chance for us to see what makes other tick in their nether regions, and maybe also help others see what makes for an interesting creative photo.

just an idea...

I so have mixed feelings about doing this. But you know what! Go for it, let's see what happens! I just don't want a cock shoot out gallery, with the guy that has the biggest gun win's! After all this is a underwear/swimwear site, right? I think it has too stay on topic, BIG TIME!

sseguin6

07-08-2008, 06:10 AM

If it's a matter of the survival of this website. Then maybe its time to scale back on the oldest photos.

Is there a chance of setting up an archive site seperate from this one?

deusex

07-08-2008, 08:07 AM

Yeah, like SweatyAussie, I too cum in through the back ....door; ....er, that could have been more delicately phrased I'm sure, but true nevertheless on all levels! ;) ;)

You mean I may have "featured" and not even known about it? :rolleyes:

That's what you get for being lazy or sneaky by coming in the back door. In fact one of your photos is in the lineup for a pick of the day this month, and one of Sweaty Aussie's was in it last month.

I spend a lot of time on this and my other sites - mostly with the blog these days and although all four blogs have their following, I guess it's a separate audience from the users of this part of the site. The Jockstrapping.com blog is by far the most successful in terms of feedback (comments), although the un-der-where? Blog gets lots of viewers but little feedback.

deusex

07-08-2008, 08:18 AM

As for the Favorite Foto Forum, I'd still like to try it. The more I think about it, I don't think it'll work as it would require regular commitment from the users of the fourms, it's cumbersome to do, having to have to browser windows open to copy and past image addresses into the posts. There's really only a few of us who regularly participate in the board...

But... that's also the reason I don't think it would fail - because I feel the people who participate in the forums have a different view and a different level of commitment then the gallery people. With a few exceptions, they are two different worlds. Even myself, I'm guilty of browsing the galleries, but participating in the forums. I don't think the gallery people would bother with the new Forum.

I think it's worth a try, and if it's not working, then it gets nuked and life goes on.

Anyway, I have to get over this crazy house and office move and settle into our temporary summer residence before I can even entertain doing anything extra.