Anybody else tired of links to picture albums

[RC10resto]

Not sure if it is just me but I am tired of clicking on a link and searching for the photo of the object discussed in the thread. If you can post a link I am sure that you can post an image?
Ok, I am done

[scr8p]

it's not just you..........

[Truckguy]

If you can post a link I am sure that you can post an image

I know I am new here, but I agree. I hate when I see that on any site I go on.

[Coelacanth]

I've hated that for years, for a number of reasons. Linked images on forums tend to die. The person linking the images lets their image hosting account die or they delete files/rename files and whaddya know, all you see on the forum months later is red X's. Nothing annoys me more than doing some research and finding a forum with screenshots of what I'm looking for, and all I see is red X "broken image" placeholders.

Secondly, they take longer to load than images uploaded directly to the forum as attachments.

Thirdly, sometimes those linked images require permission to view, so when you click on a link, you get "Access denied" errors.

Of course, it annoys me just as much when someone attaches a 3000 x 2000 resolution image from their digital camera with the picture-setting on "Ultra high" and it takes 10 seconds to appear on-screen.

[Bormac]

Me three. I have often wondered if the size of the pics I post are a little too big.....? Happy for people's honesty on this.

[RC10resto]

Secondly, they take longer to load than images uploaded directly to the forum as attachments.

Thirdly, sometimes those linked images require permission to view, so when you click on a link, you get "Access denied" errors.

Been there..................................

[reign79]

......................Yes!

[Lowgear]

There are image hosters out there that pay you when people click on a link to view your picture whatever it may be. I'm not saying anybody here is doing that but it could be the reason some only post links. I've seen it done many times on other non R/C related boards.

[fakiee]

Doesn't it cost more for RC10Talk if they are hosted in the site, bandwidth and storage both being factors? Embedded images are almost always linked to somewhere else anyway, so over time you are always going to get 'image not available'.

Can't see the problem if someone wants there RC collection showroom in one place (image shack, flickr, photo bucket, etc), this may not be the only forum they want to show their collection off too so could save them time with all of their pics in one place. All it takes is a click (right click open in new window so you don't want to track back).

Maybe if I pulled my finger out and donated to RC10Talk they could eventually add a gallery option......................... EXIT!

[Coelacanth]

If a forum is expected to have any longevity, uploading to the forum itself is the only way to go. I'm a member of the forum www.1970chargerregistry.com, which ONLY permits linked images, and let me tell you how annoying that forum is. If you want to do a search on what correct bumblebee striping is, or how to remove the front clip, and you get a thread which has nothing but red "X" placeholders, it'll make you want to tear your hair out.

All it takes is for some guy to reorganize their hosted image folders or filenames and everything breaks. When you upload to a forum, as long as that forum is alive, the images uploaded to it will live.

Also, I find it a much bigger PITA to upload my images to some image-hosting site, organize them as needed, then come to a forum and copy/paste the direct URLs, instead of simply uploading the files directly to the site and being done with it.

[Lowgear]

Heres my experence on the subject from running forums for the past decade or so.

Yes, pictures do take up a lot of storage space. It can easily double or triple the hosting costs on the really huge boards. Actually its about the biggest problem any board faces really, and if you're on a shared hosting account you can all but forget about it. Luckily since this place doesn't get an over abundance of traffic and is on a dedicated server, uploads can be allowed. But again its only a matter of time before Bill runs out of space and has to start paying more in hosting costs were if he didn't allow images to be uploaded it could conceivably take years longer.

A board of this size is also incredibly lucky to have members who donate. I've run/owned smaller boards and much larger ones and never has a member of any of them ever considered donating, and pay per click ads are a joke because everyone stays far away from them. Generally a boards owner has to pay for everything out of their own pocket. That means they want to keep costs as low as possible.

I'm just trying to show that theres another side to the story.

[Jay Dub]

I too am tired of the links. There is a recent member here who is making a lot of posts, and all the photos are linked to a bucket somewhere. It takes forever to download, and just generally pisses me off. I have stoped looking at his posts in general. -Jeff

[RC10resto]

Can't see the problem if someone wants there RC collection showroom in one place (image shack, flickr, photo bucket, etc), this may not be the only forum they want to show their collection off too so could save them time with all of their pics in one place. All it takes is a click (right click open in new window so you don't want to track back).

But you can still have your "Album"....................
Just use an "img" link from your album when you want to post a pic in your 10talk thread.

[Coelacanth]

I too am tired of the links. There is a recent member here who is making a lot of posts, and all the photos are linked to a bucket somewhere. It takes forever to download, and just generally pisses me off. I have stoped looking at his posts in general. -Jeff

Me too. And I understand also the challenges mentioned by Lowgear. Uploading pics that are a reasonable filesize seems to be an issue that most people never fully understood. My father being a perfect example. In the old days, digital cameras could only take 640x480 or 800x600 pictures, but nowadays, they take pics of such ridiculously high resolution that each picture can be well over 1 MB (instead of one-tenth of the size). In this day and age, it's surprising how many people haven't figured out how to resize pictures. Not only is this a major challenge for forum admins, it's an even worse problem for network & email administrators.

[tim.sanderson]

Personally, I like photobucket for it's bulk uploading. I can upload a bunch of pics, and set it to reduce the image size to a smaller, more web-friendly image size. Then, I generate 'img thumb' code so I can put clickable thumbnails into my post. However, I have a trick to keep it from opening up a photobucket page. Normally, you put this code in the forum:

Code: Select all

[url=http://s374.photobucket.com/albums/oo190/tsan_/?action=view&current=IMGP0912.jpg][img]http://i374.photobucket.com/albums/oo190/tsan_/th_IMGP0912.jpg[/img][/url]

to get this link:

CLICKY

If you clicked on that link, you see the photobucket page I was talking about. But, if you remove the part of the code that says ?action=view&current=, you can get a direct link to the photo, like this:

CLICKY


Also, I never move/delete any photos/gallerys, so I never get dead links.

*EDITED TO MAKE IT LESS CONFUSING*