Why I went with Multisite and Why I need help right now! – Upload Path Headache!

Hello there…

My name is Nathan Cowlishaw and I started my WordPress Network here:

https://talkingtree.org/ –

With the following Subdomains:

iblog.talkingtree.org/ – Photoblog
ufo.talkingtree.org/ – UFO Festival coming up in my hometown
journal.talkingtree.org/ – West Desert Journal
desertrat.talkingtree.org/ – Desert Rat Executive

All of these sites were separate installations before I moved them into a multi site! The big problem here is I deleted the original files (online) but didn’t have a backup online any where because I’m using the same directories in the multi-site the were the same directories when these sites were separate WordPress installations. it has now become a headache trying to manually transfer all the photos over manually to the multisite.

Simply trying to find the root of each site in the /uploads/ folder when it’s numbered /1/, /2/, /3/ is stressful enough and then to find out all the folders are set up in a month-year format is even more aggravating. So here’s what I need to do…

My biggest headache is coming from one specific photoblog that I’m trying to migrate: https://iblog.talkingtree.org/ which has over 900 entries that imported just fine but all attempted image attachment transfers failed and I knew this would happen. Usually I manually FTP them over after an import is complete. This is NOT SO easy with multisite.

Also, I located the SuperAdmin settings in the network dashboard that controls the functionality of where the media goes and determines the year-month format…

Can I ask with a big “WHY!” that the year-month format is the set DEFAULT!? This seems really complicated and the WordPress Codex warns me not to mess with these settings as the super admin unless I totally understand inside-and-out on HOWTO do this correctly….

I feel this shouldn’t have to be rocket science. Here’s what I’m trying to accomplish… which is VERY simple.

#1). Locate each root folder for each subdomain.

#2). Manually transfer images via FTP as to fix broken image links.

3.) Setup the WordPress uploads path to have a simple media folder instead of the year-month folders which over-complicate things to every degree! What’s wrong with a simple and separate /images/ or /media/ folder for every blog…? Doesn’t more folders complicate EVERYTHING!?!? :/

Please help me with this if it’s possible. Any and all advice is appreciated and I’m learning as I go along.