Hi Shirley ... as you probably know, the two sites are operated independently of each other and we are only members of that site, just like yourself. But as a member, I am not aware of alfiesaint having visited Media Galleries since last year and as he never visited or posted on the forums at any time, none of the Mod team here had any contact with him on this site and so we can only assume that he has moved on.

As you say, Van has other priorities at the moment which is probably why photos have not been approved nor any of the spam removed.

As for the future, the current uncertainty about the forums presumably also applies to Media Galleries, as Van has said that he is "looking for someone to take over the whole of HT".

David

thanks David, I just assumed that Alfie was still in charge of the media gallery as nothing has been announced to the contrary. A very sad time indeed for HT then. It's a shame that no announcement has been made to save people wasting time uploading pics.

I hope Sanji knows about it because I know she spends lots of time making videos and uploading them to the gallery. I do understand it's nothing to do with the mods so I'm not having a go or anything

Yes I wouldn't waste time trying to upload photos just now. The only active people on there are spammers. Sanji has 3 lots on one of her videos which she tried to upload in the middle of January and are still waiting to be approved.
I've actually deleted my photos now as I can't see this going anywhere as its never really taken off due to the ongoing problems ( from almost the beginning) of no one dedicated person there and I dont want to see my photos used to spam.

I hope Sanji knows about it because I know she spends lots of time making videos and uploading them to the gallery.

Yes, I'd sussed it out a while back that Alfie was not around anymore and it would have been nice for a quick goodbye from him in a PM, but maybe that's my fault for expecting too much from people again, but there was no point in posting about it in this thread because nobody looked in it, even when he was around, apart from the mods and they couldn't do anything about it.

I stopped uploading directly to HT and opened a YT account and the last two videos I brought over from YT in early January, and some of the other photos, they have been a sitting target for the spammers to leave lengthy messages in the comment section....and THAT annoys me a lot especially when I have blocked any comments being posted in YT.....last week in the early hours there was just me on-line and 14 spammers.!

If I could turn back time, I would have uploaded all my videos to YT and link them back on my website to YT, but I guess I always thought HT would be here forever and long after I've gone, and I wanted to support the TV project. So now I think I will close my website too because I just haven't got the heart to try and rescue some of the older videos and have the quality greatly reduced re-loading them to link back to YT. Some of the original footage has now gone anyway when I went over from tape to memory card.

What's sooooo bluddy annoying is the fact that all the hard work had been done with the programming and coding, and then it was made even more detached from the board becaue the person running it, he didn't visit the board, so annoying when it had the potential to be a hell of a lot better, and imo, it could have really taken off......
Jaysus, I'd have run it before seeing it end up like it has.

Sanji x

Upsetting enough for the ordinary member not to be able to upload their pics, must be maddening for the likes of you Sanji who I know has spent hours and hours trying to keep the media galleries alive

It would have been courteous of the person who was in charge over there just to inform members not to bother uploading any more.

I can understand the frustration and disappointment. Modding of the old Photo Galleries site seemed to work very well under the control of Allmen, followed by Dazbo when Allmen sadly passed away. Both of them did a brilliant job and they also liaised with members here on the forums to resolve any upload issues. It's understandable that members would expect that same level of support and communication to continue when Media Galleries was introduced as a replacement for Photo Galleries. But with a new mod also brought in as replacement, that sadly wasn't to be. He did things his way and perhaps with being completely new to HTs and having no contact with the existing team or members here on the forums, he might not have been aware of either how or how well things previously worked. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and perhaps introducing the new site under the control of the existing mod with a proven record might have been a better way forward.

Spamming has obviously been a particular problem on Media Galleries since the very beginning, perhaps due to the presence of a sign up function which wasn't required by our genuine members, as they only needed the log in function. It is sad to see that the site has now largely been abandoned to the Chinese spammers.

We don't know the circumstances of alfiesaint's departure or whether any notice was given to Van. That's assuming of course that he has actually departed, but he certainly hasn't been around in a good while.

David

David
It was thinking about Allmen that made me sad about the state of the galleries now. Dazbo must also be so fed up seeing all the time he spent on photos and helping members go to waste now.

Thank you mods for clarifying the position as much as you can. I won't be wasting any more time over there but will definitely be faithful to the forums and the Holiday review section which will hopefully get back on track after the last fiasco.

must be maddening for the likes of you Sanji who I know has spent hours and hours trying to keep the media galleries alive

No point in getting mad anymore because it won't achieve anything, apart from making me appear as a ranting old woman, and if anything I feel sad not mad.
I know some of you didn't like the new Media Galleries because of niggling ‘obstacles' like the way photos had to be uploaded and the spammers, but all these problems could have been sorted out with the commitment, but (for me) it was the lack of communication on the main board which helped to kill off the enthusiasm which I saw when the Media Galleries was first launched.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and nobody is perfect, but I do/did like the Media Galleries, I saw the potential it had"¦.uploading photos, videos, photo slide shows, writing a blog and making your own personal album to share exclusively with friends.
To be perfectly truthful I never bothered with the old gallery until I started making videos and I know I'm being biased here, but personally I think a good video will always be more beneficial than ploughing through hundreds of photos, but the old system just couldn't cope with videos and I think Van had to make a decision on whether or not we (HT) stayed in the dark ages or move forward like every other site and revamp the dated software.
Many of the other commercial sites not only let you upload photos, they even have the software to make a slide show or video for you, but we must be fair and mention, that those sites have plenty of money behind them to pay programmers who charge thousands of pounds in double figures to create the software in matter of days, whereas Van was spending months doing it on his own in the background.

I saw none of the problems between locating photos on one system and the other, because in the old gallery you had to alphabetically find the page/country, then the region and then the resort, and the principle was just the same in the Media Galleries, except with one click of the mouse you could view all the recent uploads on one page in the new Media Galleries, whereas in the past, the photos may be moved quickly out of the ‘upload' album by Allmen or Darren and into their respective albums, so you had to go through the process again of relocating the new photos..... I remember all those posts asking "Where's my photo gone"?

Imo: In principle the Media Galleries was no more detached from the main board as the old photo gallery used to be, but I think the major downfall was having someone in charge who never communicated on the board to answer member's questions, and as Alfie proved, you don't have to be appointed as a mod, it just needed someone with the commitment to post in the specific Media Galleries thread, even if they were not interest in all the rest of HT and didn't participate in any other posts, and of course if they have some tekkie expertise that's even better, otherwise you need two people behind the scenes, one to communicate on the board and able to pass on the tekkie problems to someone with the capability of sorting the problem out.

That's what (imo) made it seem more detached and it was frustrating trying to get into contact with someone whose inbox always seemed to be full.
I hope it can be saved, but I wouldn't cherish the task of deleting all the spammer's comments now, and the spammers have to be locked out, one way or another.
I have given this a lot of thought and of course this is just my opinion, I may be right or I may be wrong, and it doesn't make any difference to me where I upload any photos or video, just as long as links to other sites are allowed in a post and people can easily view them, otherwise what's the point of spending time taking a photo, creating a slide show or a video?

Sanji

Each to their own Sanji but I prefered the old gallery. I can understand how you would far prefer the new one given that it has the capability to host better videos. I'm not technical at all so don't understand bandwidth etc but do remember you saying in the past that the holidaytruths.tv section was superior to the old way of hosting videos.

My main priority was uploading pictures which was easier and quicker to do in the old gallery. I think one of the reasons not as many pics were being uploaded to the new section was due to how time consuming it was.

I also enjoyed looking at videos in their various forums here on HT

I can understand how you would far prefer the new one given that it has the capability to host better videos

Shirley, it wasn't just that, and as I pointed out, the new Media Galleries had the potential for other things, I enjoyed writing my blog and I assume you did too?
We've been through this before about uploading photos, which like I said in my previous post...I can understand the frustration about the niggling problems when uploading photos, which could, should and would have been sorted out by now, if there'd been the same amount of interest/ commitment today, as there was at the launch.

Back to square one!

Sanji

Hadnt realised that HTTV was initsdeath throes

Hadnt realised that HTTV was initsdeath throes

neither had I either Nick until I seemed to be waiting ages for my last lot of pics to be approved and I queried it. The worse thing is there will be other members in the same situ- uploading pics that will never be seen, since nobody in charge over there thought to make an announcement.

Hopefully they'll read this topic now and save themselves some time.

Sanji, yes there were some good aspects to the media site- as you said I did enjoy writing my holiday blogs there. I'll have to start thinking about where I can write my blog now as I used it as a diary and have enjoyed reading them from time to time to bring back all the lovely memories.

Any suggestions where I can put my blogs in the future anybody?

Its all a bit of a shame really, as it did have a lot of potential. Blogs dont really sit well in the main forum so the Galleries were a good place for them. Can't beleive the amount of spam over there now.

The way it stands at the moment with photos not being approved and some photos being deleted because of the spammers, I think it's dead, it's just not buried yet, but it's the right time of the year for a ressurection.
The busiest I've seen it for months (on line members ) was recently when the forums section of HT went down and now it seems like there's just me and my Chinese friends again.

Sanji

I pop in there now and again Sanji but since there are no recent pictures or videos to view I can't see the point of hanging about in there

I don't hang about in there
But sometimes I wander around the site looking at photos and watching the videos that I never clicked on previously.

PS: Those two latest videos that I uploaded (Hong Kong & Thailand) can be viewed, they just haven't had a switch flicked to create a thumbnail picture.

Sanji

I thought you might have been hanging around in there Sanji, on the off chance you'd meet some of thos chinese friends. I'm sure you'd have plenty to say to them

Are you now implying that I'm gobby?
I'd have plenty to say to iqa01816 for planting spam in the comment section in just about every one of my videos.

Sanji