I made this place so we could chat about the rovers and share a few pictures with one another and share ideas and techniques.

I didnt make it to be a file repository for images to be posted elsewhere. Believe it or not, it costs money to run this place - and frankly - and when it's the active and entertaining forum that we've all enjoyed - I dont begrudge the cost one iota. But when people take advantage and use it like some sort of storage to link to elsewhere, then I begrudge it quite a bit. Get your own webspace.

I've spoted quite a few direct links to images, instead of to a thread.

I'll be monitoring bandwidth very carefully and if it gets out of hand, members-only will be turned on and all those links will simply vanish unless you're signed in.

You have been warned.

Doug

Doug, I'm guessing I'm one of the guilty parties. Certainly never knew I was doing wrong. My only webspace is my AOL area and that is not accessible from work when I get most of my posting time. I'll stop doing the image downloads here and see if I can find another area. Have another web area that used to be used for my band info but since the band is no more I should be able to rebuild it. Thanks for the great area.

Hi djellison,

just to say Remcook has posted a link to your comment (The protocol) on the New Mars forums.
Some of us linkt to this site, sometimes.

You're absolutly right, though. These (pictures) are big filesizes, and this is a casee of stealing bandwidth...
But not everybody knows that's against the netiquette... I'm sure no ill intent was meant.

You have a great- no marvellous!- site, it would be a shame to see it going down through things like this. You could block external links, with a friendly explanation you can't cough up all that money... Everyone will understand.

Keep up the splendid work, all, we luv'ya for what you're doing here!


(Another Marsnut...)

The bandwidth stats are there for all to see ( http://www.rlproject.com/globat/webstats/ ) and at the moment - it's nowhere NEAR my total monthly budget - but if it gets up to the 6 gig mark - then I'll just go members only and the problem's solved

To be honest - I've been thinking of moving servers - and I'm investigating the involvement of backing up the whole forum and reinstalling it elsewhere - but really - it's been FAIRLY reliable and there's quite a bit of work involved, so it's unlikely

Whats the URL for the forum you mentioned

Cheers

Doug

http://www.newmars.com That's the official Mars Society site (You know: Dr. Zubrin, Mars Direct, the Mars Analog stations... ) But it runs independant of the Society, lots of 'heretics' i.e. anti-Mars Direct and stuff like that...

And occasional links to your site are made in the section 'unmanned probes' topic: 'Spirit and Opportunity #X'

(forgot the number, there's a policy to cap topics at 300 posts, and in the beginning of the mission, there were *lots* of comments... I think it's 6...)

I think a lot of people visiting New Mars lurk here, too... You people have a really amazing collection of pictures... Sigh...

Oh, and the kind Remcook, who pointed out the protocol to 'us,' is a moderator
of http://www.everything-science.com , a really nice site with lots of professional astronomers etc. who started visiting NewMars for our semi-maniacal coverage of every single sigh of life from the rovers (in the early days of their missions...)

Oh - it's no problem - lots of praise from the NM group I'll pop my head around the door - no one's spoted the big 5 x 3 mosaic I just did yet

Doug