[FR] & [DE] are here ... www.ipernity.com/blog/team/4711574

SEE --- two addenda at the end with extra information

Dear members and friends of ipernity!

1) The restart of ipernity after the maintenance work was unfortunately somewhat rough. This was caused by one of two backup servers which have been additionally integrated. But from now on ipernity should run to our all advantage with enlarged security reserves.

2) For the announced cleanup of the ipernity database, all necessary tools are implemented now. The cleanup itself will take place in the background during the next days and can also be carried out by ourselves in the future, without external IT support.

3) As an economic result, we expect AWS storage costs to decrease by more than EUR 7,200 in 2019. Please refer to the following diagram for a detailed breakdown of the storage costs:

Storage Costs for ipernity

4) When evaluating the savings, please keep in mind that storage costs account for only 40% of the total cost. Another 40% is traffic that we don't monitor because we respect the privacy of all members. Of the remaining 20%, everything else has to be paid (map service, translation function, licenses, security certificates, IT service). Especially for the IT service, the budget is far too tight to be able to fulfil your various wishes promptly. This means that there can be no reductions in contributions and that even members with relatively little memory requirements cannot expect prices of 20 € or less when a new contribution model will be discussed soon.

5) On 1st of December, the front page images will be updated to the winter collection. These pictures serve to present ipernity in such an attractive way that accidental visitors from the web are more interested in us. But we still need your help to build up the winter collection! Check your hard disks for suitable pictures or take your camera and make some. You can find some motive ideas here:
www.ipernity.com/group/2341904/discuss/190110

6) 167 members have followed our appeal to rate ipernity on various ranking pages so far. This is a good start. With about 25,000 registered users and about 1,300 Club members, however, there is still a lot of potential. Please take part! It is important to improve the relevance of ipernity in search engines.

7) It is just as important to publish links to ipernity externally! Share selected ipernity images via Facebook, Twitter or other platforms, preferably those where photo enthusiasts are connected. Such backlinks may lead casual visitors, who do not know us yet, to our website. In this way, we can all contribute to making ipernity better known.

Your ima team

IMA replies to comments under the original ima article ...

Addenda 1 of 2 on 1st November 2018
[EN] Due to the database cleanups running in the background, high server loads can occur at times. Although the files to be deleted (images, videos, audio files) are invisible, up to a hundred files and entries (original images, thumbnails, comments, group and album assignments, ratings, etc.) have to be reprocessed at different physical locations for each file. However, we didn't expect that there would be noticeable impairments for you. Therefore, we will limit the cleanup processes to the low-capacity early morning hours (CET) and reduce the batch size. (Posts and Iper mails are not touched by the way.)

Addenda 2 0f 2 on 1st November 2018
[EN] A number of comments have already been made on this subject. But we will gladly repeat it again: Ipernity is NOT insecure. What you see is only the browser hint that ipernity is not completely encoded in https:! Five to eight years ago, when the software was written for ipernity, https: was not yet a general standard.

A simple upgrade is unfortunately not possible. The current mixed content (integration of unencrypted media data and stylesheets into the pages to be encrypted) would have to be neatly separated, the server architecture redesigned, SSL certificates for all subdomains included, etc. This is impossible while the program is running. You already notice which performance impairments cause even the simplest deletion processes that take place in the background. Moreover, such profound changes would probably cause so many subsequent problems that we would all no longer enjoy ipernity. "Never change a running system!"

In order to at least protect your sensitive personal data, we have upgraded the login page and the payment page to https:. At least nobody can steal your access data or penetrate your bank accounts.

Ultimately, however, we won't be able to avoid having ipernity re-encoded as soon as possible, also with a view to better operability on mobile devices. As soon as the community raises the necessary 50,000 to 100,000 EUR, work can begin immediately.