As far as duplicates go, it's common practice to use hashing of files to check whether exact duplicates exists... (as in, after the upload, take the md5 hash (or a cheaper hash first and then a stronger hash to prevent collisions) and either change the filename to the hash or lookup the relevant file in a database table and save that as the relevant image). It's really pretty simple, even if you have to add it afterwards.
Now, the other thing is
Suggests that the "It arrived" forum is meant for unpolished and unfinished photos of the product the second it arrives. Whilst "Feature this!" is the place to go to once you have more of a 'story'... Which is different from what you're saying. So allow me to ask? Where would a post like
this belong (compare to <a href="https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=7798&start=0&" target="_blank"></a>)? From the "it arrived" guidelines I would say it belongs in the "feature this" section, whilst by your comment it seems it doesn't belong on the shapeways forums at all and he should have written a blog post on his own blog and then linked it from the feature this forum... that just doesn't make sense... and the 'pity' of him posting that in the 'it arrived' section is that I had trouble finding it now as there are just a lot more 'random photo' threads in the 'it arrived' section than in the 'feature this' section.
So, if you won't mind me taking the liberty to make a suggestion:
- First of all do implement that first thing I mentioned, it's pretty easy to do and it can potentially save quite a lot of space.
- Reorganize the forum a bit in the direction where it's really clear that unfinished "out of the printer" shots belong in one place, "stories" in another place and the "feature this!" section really is only meant to link to the other sections and not as a place to share stories like it has become now. And btw, I *do* think it's a good thing not to mix quick pics and stories/finished products, as those things are pretty different.
Ach, this bad habit of mine is going to kill me one day, I just wanted to write a single line reply on here and ended up writing an entire essay
sorry for wasting your time a bit O