Good to hear! Like your commitment to this. I was a member of the old headwize forums, so I’m showing my age. I’m glad to join. I hope that you’ll have some diy projects, like the old tangent amps years ago.
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Is there a link to Amazon to purchase items that don’t show in blue as hot link to Amazon? I know with Radio Paradise one can go to some type of generic link that embeds Radio Paradise as the referral. I’d like to buy things from Amazon but prefer it only if Headphone.com benefits from it.
The auto-created links in posts here, that link to Amazon, already include a reference so that “The HEADPHONE Community” benefits.
I knew that but thinking it might benefit the community, I thought there was a way to link from the community to Amazon and then purchase anything. I might have it wrong.
Are you talking about buying items that are not automatically linked?
Anything for which links are automatically generated will benefit the community if you buy them via that link.
I was going to just reply to you. I checked it out and it’s the way you say it. I hope more links will be listed soon. Too bad we could not get a database of links to Amazon of cds and albums.
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A lot has changed since I originally made this thread and our community has grown substantially.
When I wrote it, I knew that most of the community would see the rationale for our funding decision and those who were interested could weigh in. It also represented our best thinking at the time (on day 3 of this forum’s existence).
Since then, I think the thread has become buried behind all the wonderful information that has been shared here.
I also think that some people who haven’t had the chance to read it are surprised (and somewhat dubious) when they see an automatic Amazon affiliate link added to their post. I don’t blame them.
So, I wanted to see what your feelings are about various funding models a community like ours can pursue and if you foresee any negative (or positive) impacts from making a change to something else (potentially something that people are more accustomed to).
Whatever we chose, this is a special place, and protecting the atmosphere here is crucial. It’s also important that we avoid bias or perceived bias to the degree that we’re able to.
Interested in your thoughts.
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The current system is fantastic. It is extremely unobtrusive to the browsing experience. I also have used those links once or twice, so… Yeah. Good stuff.
I would encourage any future funding models keep this unobtrusive functionality in mind. I don’t mind the occasional ad, so long as it isn’t one of those that take over the whole browser window as you scroll kind of things, or is a pop up of any kind, or anything that unexpectedly and dynamically appears. These methods are horrendous, and it’s the reason I no longer frequent sites like Android Police, anything published by Vox Media (TheVerge, Polygon, etc), Yahoo, MSN, so on and so forth. When I can sit there and watch my browser make 37 calls to different ad hosting sites just to load one article, your crap is broken and someone needs to get fired.
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I agree with this.
If it’s an issue of increased cost to host this site, then I understand having to incorporate some other forms of funding/advertising.
If there aren’t issues such as increases in cost, then I’m fine with the current model.
I actually didn’t fully understand why when I posted a product name it would become a product link. I actually would edit and place a link to headphones.com for whatever product it was! 
But I understand now why the links are in place and I’m good with it.
(I’ll still ad my own links 
)
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I like the amazon affiliate links, but, I also understand the need for more advertising. Understanding that as the forum grows and costs go up for hosting etc… I would try and keep the ads as unobtrusive as possible, I think the way head-fi does ads can be obnoxious, but easily ignored.
Also, what types of ads if not affiliate amazon links would you be using? Because I wouldn’t want to see an ad by one of your rival online stores, that would irritate me…this is a tough position to be in… But, I think most regulars here would understand the need to fund this forum to keep it running smoothly 
I think you have the right approach and intention in this, based on conversations and this post.
In essence I’m all good with amazon affiliate links and even some less-intrusive ads.
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Another thought. We have a crap ton of images on this forum. One way to save money would be to resize images to a smaller pixel count, to save money on hosting and storage costs. Once an image in a thread is over 90 days old (or less), send it through the compactor.
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…
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Yeah, I’m guilty of posting a lot of images… maybe I can just post links to my Instagram account, but that feels kinda inappropriate, I’ve done it occasionally but usually when out and about, and I don’t have access to the pictures any other way…or I’ll post my reddit pictures…
Hey, as a sysadmin, I’m aware of storage costs. If they are self hosted, it’s probably less of a concern, but hosting companies probably rape you on that stuff.
Rape is bad, mmmm k?
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Testing Imgur…
Just pasting the URL to an Imgur album or pic will resolve it’s image.
Such as https://imgur.com/a/0QGXppL gives you this:
And doesn’t cost headphones.com anything.
Or this
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But it’s sooo easy to post direct from our fancy phones… 
how would we enforce this outside of deletion and request for people to create imgur accounts? Just to be clear I’m not against this, just playing devil’s advocate 
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It’s just something we, as courteous, appreciative, and responsible users of the forum can do to help them out.
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If people would just re-size pictures to 1024 pixels wide (and keep the standard aspect ratio), that’d reduce storage overhead to between 1/5th and 1/10th. These 12+ megapixel images that don’t show anything useful, detail wise, when you zoom in chew up space needlessly.
And that takes less time to do than fannying about with external image hosts (which, when they inevitably change something, or cease offering the service you’re using, then break all the posts that reference pictures there).
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How do we resize images?
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