Category concept

[taylorpiano]

I have somewhat of a handle on how these work, but me always being the one to try to find others ways to make options work for me, I came up with another question.
Say users upload a picture, and select categories [Member Gallery] and [contest gallery]

At the end of each week I create an archive gallery and also a finalist gallery.
Since as an admin, I can edit users pictures, does this mean I can choose to edit and copy their picture to the finalist gallery? I dont want to test it because I'm afraid I will end up losing all the comments made on the members photos.
The other question is, if I copy it to the Finalist Gallery, can I also change the user name at the bottom and have it copy to the finalist gallery under the user name I created called "Contest Finalist" ?
I know I can upload pictures to users galleries for them if they have a problem and type in their name so it will go into their gallery and not mine.

I wanted to be sure that if I do this process to place the same picture within the finalist gallery under "Contest Finalist" user name, will the original poster of the picture be able to access the Finalist gallery to delete the picture just by seeing it associated to the Finalist category?

In the past, I used to re upload all the finalists for the week into the finalist gallery so they dont break the links I create for voting polls and contest winners by deleting their picture. This has happened many times for the previous owner of the website.

Sorry for all the questions, my mind is always thinking.

Signed,
Not Steve

[Chuck S]

well simply put why not remove the ability for users to move delete there images under admin options in admin. You can even remove edit photo permissions in edit usergroups in admin.

You then dont have to worry about people trying to edit or delete things.

You could change the photo ownership as admin sure but that seems like alot of work.

[taylorpiano]

I thought about that but there are many times users upload an image and realize they either uploaded the wrong one or uploaded a degraded version of the photo. I'd be getting private messages all the time to delete them.
The other problem would fall is we only give each user designated file storage. Some of these members have been with the website since 2003 and start to run out of space and/or just want to delete old pictures.

But....guess what After resting my brain last night I just tried it this morning on one of my images with 2 of my separate user name and it works. YEAH!!!
No more right click to save their image and reupload it into the Finalist User name and Category.
They can click around at the different categories to see where its placed but can't delete it from Archives category or the Finalist Category.
And.... They can delete the picture from their Member Gallery to give them more space but that will not automatically delete it from the Archives or Finalist Category.
I think this might be because I set those 2 categories as users not allowed to upload to, edit, or delete
I always think outside the box

The one question, I and the users have is Why is it that if a user uploads a picture that goes into the Member Gallery category and at the same time of upload place it into the Contest, but if people start to make comments on their photo in the contest, they only see the comments in the Contest category and not in their Member Gallery.
In the past it always used to show in both places, so a lot of long time members are confused.

Thanks,
R

[taylorpiano]

PS: RE: You could change the photo ownership as admin sure but that seems like alot of work.

That's easy at the time I copy the photo to another category I scroll down to where their user name is in the field box is and replace it by either typing or pasting POTW Finalist before I hit submit.
POTW Finalist is the user name I created to have it work kind of like a category so I can immediately find all POTW Finalists in one spot.

[Chuck S]

No I know its easy to change it I just meant alot of actual work you need to do

[taylorpiano]

Its actually a lot easier than the process we had to do before. I used to have only 6 finalists to vote on each week.
Now with the deluge of new users the contest has tripled with participants with 2 photos each week, so I now changed my structure to have 12 Finalists in 3 categories with 4 choices in each category. So the knew system will cut down my time of setting it all up.
First time was a pain just to think out the back end process, but in the future it will be easier.
I think too much eh!

[Chuck S]

yeah I am all about how much less work I can do as a site admin.

[taylorpiano]

The one question, I and the users have is Why is it that if a user uploads a picture that goes into the Member Gallery category and at the same time of upload place it into the Contest, but if people start to make comments on their photo in the contest, they only see the comments in the Contest category and not in their Member Gallery.
In the past it always used to show in both places, so a lot of long time members are confused.

Thanks,
R

[Chuck S]

Because your allowing additional categories to be selected which means while we only save the file in one location each representation in each separate category is treated as its own photo. This is how that feature works and always has.

[taylorpiano]

thanks for the clarification. That was my other question is the file only there once or does it create duplicate files for each category. I looked at one of our new users profiles the other day and it said they had 4 photos. I clicked on their gallery and at the time they only had 1 photo uploaded. I was a bit confused at this then thought that its counting the photo each time its placed in another category.

1. Contest placed by the user
2. Landscape placed by the user
3. Contest Archives placed by the admin
4. Contest Finalists placed by the admin

and of course if the finalist wins POTW or later POTM, then its placed in the POTW winners category and will jump the count of uploaded photos for that user to 5-6 for only the one picture they uploaded.

Shouldn't the count only be 1 as far as the user is concerned?

Thing is with the previous version if someone uploaded to the contest, it automatically kept a copy of the photo in their gallery and the members always saw the comments on the picture both in their gallery and while viewing the contest category.
Thats why all of us are confused.

[Chuck S]

If you upload to additional categories the photo count is multiplied. The only thing that is 1 is the actual physical photo. As noted additional photos are treated as new complete photos.

[taylorpiano]

but why, if its only 1 photo? We set the limit on how many photos each user can upload to 300 photos so we don't get masses of photos taking up our server space. People usually upload 2 photos each week, so if they happen to participate each week then that is 100 photos per year. If the count goes up for each category, some of these images could be in up to 6 categories That leaves them only 6 months to fill up 300 photos. instead of the 3 years it used to take before.

[Chuck S]

It is one photo stored on disk but as previously explained if you allow copy to additional categories each resulting entry is its own photo. we use only the one stored image to display for up to 3 images but those entries are all UNIQUE PHOTOS in there own category and comments made on those photos only appear on that specific entry being commented on.

You missed out running such an old version for so long you are being hit with new features you are having a little trouble comprehending when alot of them have been in the software for years now.

[taylorpiano]

New question on my concept of copying the now 36 finalists photos to a finalist category then changing the ownership to an admin user account so members can't delete photos and have all my voting within vBulletin pols with red x's

I figured it worked all year until i just did a test on a picture I uploaded a few months ago.
I used the first picture in the voting for testing and had copied it to a new finalists category. Only in the finalist category, I changed the user name from RTaylor to POTW Finalist.

I created a forum voting poll, see link
test voting - BytePhoto.com

Then went back to my RTaylor account and deleted the photo (1st in the voting list)

now looking at the voting link, I only see 3 thumbnails and not the first one.
The picture is still there, because if you click on the words, it shows up large.
See the other thumbnails and click and you can see how it worked on those photos not deleted.
you can also see the picture here in the finalist category
Happy Mother's Day to our Friends - RTaylor - BytePhoto Galleries


So what I want to know is, why does the thumbnail picture disappear but not the large version?
I need to also retain the thumbnail photos for voting.
Thanks again

[Chuck S]

Remember you would need to change ownership on all 3 photos. You only changed one photo when you allow multiple categories there are 3 photo entries sharing one actual photo. So if you want to have your concept work you need to change ownership on all 3 photos.

[taylorpiano]

thanks, guess it wont work then. I can't change ownership of all 3 since at least one of them with the comments needs to stay with the original photographer.

If I disable categories, is that disabling it just for the members? Will I as admin still be able to edit a photo and copy it to a new category like I can now?

[Chuck S]

Have you considered under admin options disabling move delete ability for users as that would prevent users from deleting photos

[taylorpiano]

I think I disabled the move, but not the delete yet.
Not sure how that will go over if I don't allow members to delete images except for those who enter into the contests

[Chuck S]

The move delete is ONE setting in admin options