Image attachment system

[Richdog]

Just wondering if it would be possible to devise some sort of image attachment system, so instead of having to image screenshots (therefore taking up loads of space), we could have a process similar to this one http://forums.extremeoverclocking.co...d.php?t=121644 This would mean we could add a fair few JPEG screenies and conserve space at the same time, making it a lot easier to post comparisons or cards we have etc as you can just save the screenie to you HD then upload it onto the forum. Or is it not a possibility?

[Iain]

Just post a link to the image. Image attachment means that HEXUS has to dedicate filespace and bandwidth to support the process and we are not going to do that for free

[Richdog]

Fair enough, just thought i'd ask you stingy sods (j/k)

[Shogun]

I personally would be willing to pay for image hosting if its not alot

[r1zeek]

I personally would be willing to pay for image hosting if its not alot

Yeah, i wouldn't mind if it was like "Hexus certified" or something like that, would be reasuring

[PanzerKnight]

just use http://www.freeupload.net/upload.php

does exactly what is says on the tin

[DR]

How much would you be prepared to pay? £1 a month [payable in yearly] for 50MB?

[Richdog]

Yeah something like that would be OK I s'pose. It's just paying for the convenience of not having to hotlink everything, would make the forum a fair bit more user-friendly. Hmm i'll try and get some info on cost.

[r1zeek]

How much would you be prepared to pay? £1 a month [payable in yearly] for 50MB?

I would be prepared to pay a bit more than that, i personally would pay about £20 a year for 50mb, as long as there was good bandwidth. I dunno about everyone else but if you say £1 a month (£12 a year) thats fine by me

[Richdog]

Well, I asked the opinion of Jason who is the owner and admin of http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/index.php? and he said:

They don't allow users to attach any images to threads?!?! Errr... That's pretty odd IMO to not allow them, and to charge people for it.

If it was some massive forum and they had bandwidth issues, then yeah maybe some pay scheme would be in order, but they only have 4,000 registered members and currently < 100 people online?

They really need to upgrade to the latest vBulletin BTW, they are quite a few versions behind.

As for tips. When allowing attachments, you can limit the amount per person in vBulletin (though most forums set it to unlimited, since it would mean people would have to delete old attachments in order to post new ones). Also, I don't allow unregistered users to view images (that saves on a good amount of bandwidth), and also I have set in my robots.txt file for the google-imagebot to NOT index the site (it just indexes images, again a bandwidth hog). Lastly I don't allow hotlinking so that also prevents bandwidth leeching. (hotlinking is when site B directly links to some image on site A).

Lastly, if they are having that many problems with bandwidth, probably time to find a new hosting provider. (I never visit hexus.net so I don't know what their situation is).

Just thought id share what he had to say seeing as he can venture as good opinion as anyone.

[DR]

We don't have hosting issues, we are a commercial site, and bandwidth does cost money.

Richdog - thank you for the PM it won't change anything though, it is up to us how we run the site and forums.

[Richdog]

lol I think youre taking this the wrong way mate, I simply asked him for an opinion on image hosting and he gave it. How you run the forums is your business and I never suggested otherwise. The subject was image attachment, and I was just getting another view since it was up for discussion. No need to get all defensive.

[myth]

How much would you be prepared to pay? £1 a month [payable in yearly] for 50MB?

I myself would pay 5 (insert wierd symble here) a month!

[DR]

Well going to another site asking what they think about *us* hosting images really is your call - bit unreasonable.

I am not getting deffensive, personally for the sake of $30 a year I would be buying hosting if I wanted it...

[Richdog]

As I said, I was obviously asking him about an image attachment system simply because the one he has in place is so effective, and seeing as you don't have one I thought it might be useful for him to give some tips. If you can't see that as helpful advice, rather than a slight dent upon your pride then fair enough. I was just trying to help, hence I made the thread. People here said they would find it useful and would pay for it, I just thought you might listen to some constructive feedback. No offence intended, i'll withold the suggestions...

[Iain]

Richdog, whilst we appreciate the input let me just respond to the points

They don't allow users to attach any images to threads?!?! Errr... That's pretty odd IMO to not allow them, and to charge people for it.

It's not odd, the vast bulk of forums won't allow image upload as it is open to abuse and adds an extra level of monitoring. There is also the security risk inherent with uploading files to our server. If ExtremeOverclocking want to take that chance then good luck to them. Also, we didn't ask people to pay, the suggestion came from a member and we just asked how much people thought would be reasonable. As a business we're not going to turn down people offering us money

If it was some massive forum and they had bandwidth issues, then yeah maybe some pay scheme would be in order, but they only have 4,000 registered members and currently < 100 people online?

We also have the main site which generates far more bandwidth and also supplies functionality to a large number of other companies allowing them to link directly to our reviews and generate dynamic rating gifs against their products. The forums form a small part of the larger company that is HEXUS

They really need to upgrade to the latest vBulletin BTW, they are quite a few versions behind.

We are in the process of upgrading the site at the moment. Whilst we are aware that vBulletin has moved on a few versions we are still running version 3.x. However, performing an upgrade takes time and unless something is broken we have higher priorities

As for tips. When allowing attachments, you can limit the amount per person in vBulletin (though most forums set it to unlimited, since it would mean people would have to delete old attachments in order to post new ones). Also, I don't allow unregistered users to view images (that saves on a good amount of bandwidth), and also I have set in my robots.txt file for the google-imagebot to NOT index the site (it just indexes images, again a bandwidth hog). Lastly I don't allow hotlinking so that also prevents bandwidth leeching. (hotlinking is when site B directly links to some image on site A).

This is all useful information if we ever did allow image uploading so thanks

Lastly, if they are having that many problems with bandwidth, probably time to find a new hosting provider. (I never visit hexus.net so I don't know what their situation is).

As he/she has stated, ignorance is bliss

Whilst your feedback and suggestions and the proactive manner in which you tried to help us out is much appreciated (other members take note ); if you can see it from our point, the comments about what HEXUS is and how we run the forums and so on are bound to make us feel defensive. I know you're just quoting someone else, I'm just trying to point out why it wasn't really constructive

Please don't take this as us saying your input is not desired or valued, it is, just if you could maybe rethink the wording or even better ask us the direct questions in future it would be much appreciated

Any questions please don't hesitate to ask