Some unknown but probably large fraction of the database is screenshots of the tutorials. We need to keep science puzzle screen shots because something somewhere might link to them. But the tutorial screenshots can all go. You should get an undergrad to go through and find them all so that you can delete them. It shouldn't be too hard, there's a pretty reliable pixel pattern in the corner.
Great insight brow42.
One way to automatically deal with this would be to "tag" the screenshot name when in a tutorial puzzle and regularly run a cleanup script for those more than ~5 days old.
Great insight brow42.
One way to automatically deal with this would be to "tag" the screenshot name when in a tutorial puzzle and regularly run a cleanup script for those more than ~5 days old.
How did you find these files?
Using Windows 8 commands, I got in my C:/foldit.dev directory and searched for files of the type *.png.
I found a lot with pictures of beakers, right-arrows, etc.
I could not find any screen shots.
I think screenshots you make get put on your desktop and also get sent to the Foldit site with addresses like http://fold.it/portal/files/chatimg/irc_703220_1412546291.png
Another database filler could be identical structures shared with self, group, and scientists. I know sometimes I have wanted to change with whom I shared a particular structure, but it seems that you have to make a copy of the structure to change how you share it. I would guess that even after we delete the original shared structure, it still exists in the database somewhere, taking up space.
Perhaps a better way would be to just save the structure once to the database but have 3 flags associated with it: shared with self, shared with group, and shared with scientists, sort of like read, write, and execute permissions (rwxr-xr-x) for files in Unix/Linux. Then you can change the values of these flags to change who has access to the structure. You could also combine into one the duplicate listings for each structure in each column of the "Open/Share Solutions" menu and change the lines that say "self", "group", or "scientists" to have appropriate combinations like "group & scientists".
Perhaps storing shared structures in the above way would let you allow more shares with self, group, or scientists per player than you allow right now.