Hey all,

Would anyone miss the ability to leech images from other servers inside posts? Simply put, images can be loaded into the middle of forum messages by using a modified HTML code (or link). This gives the user the ability to load an image from a different server every time someone reads the message.

The problem for the club is:

- Some images are very large in size and screw up the layout of the page.

- Some images take a long time to load.

- Images can be moved or deleted (from the host server) and the message left on our club shows red X's and benefit nobody in the long run.

Our alternate method to include an image in a message post is to use the ATTACHMENT feature. The attachment feature is nice because it resamples the image and displays it in a thumbnail. If a user wishes to view the image, they simply need to click on it.

With that said, you might be thinking that it's a pain in the butt to upload your images directly into the forum. However, I have to let you know about a new feature....

If you open the attachment portion of a message post, you'll see a feature that allows you to literally pull an image from another website directly to the message you're writing. It's called "Upload Image from a URL." You can find it when you compose a message by clicking on the "Manage Attachments" button.

Now all of this might sound too technical. So, I'm going to word it easier. I'm thinking about forcing everyone to use the image attachment feature rather than the image link ability. What do you think?

-- Mike

Jon,

Actually, I am considering removing the feature you just used.

The alternate is to use the "Manage Attachments" button. You can find the button near the bottom of the message you are writing.

The first image shows where you can find the Manage Attachments button. The second image shows where you can load a picture from a URL.

All of these ideas are related to FORUM ONLY images and do not relate to our gallery.

Mike, as someone who is forced to use dial-up (gasp!) on far too many an occasion, I say Go For It!

Anything that will help the pages load quicker is fine with me.

No moving is required, Jon. You can attach them from where they are now. That's kinda the point.

For example if I had a need to include something (like my site's logo) that lives nowhere else but on my site, instead of linking it directly to the post, I attach it directly by it's present URL.

Maybe I misread Mike's intent. I thought he wanted to change it so that this could no longer be done. So every picture posted on classiczcars.com would need to be hosted at classiczcars.com.

Isn't that what this says?

Would anyone miss the ability to leech images from other servers inside posts? Simply put, images can be loaded into the middle of forum messages by using a modified HTML code (or link). This gives the user the ability to load an image from a different server every time someone reads the message.

Sorry if I'm being dense here...

Maybe I misread Mike's intent. I thought he wanted to change it so that this could no longer be done. So every picture posted on classiczcars.com would need to be hosted at classiczcars.com.

Isn't that what this says?

Sorry if I'm being dense here...

You're right. I am asking if anyone would miss the ability to leech images from other sites in real-time. In other words, I am going to remove the feature and wanted to give a courtesy warning.

There are two ways to include images in a post:

1) Link to an image from another website.

- This option will display the actual image from another server INSIDE your message post. The image will display as it is shown on the host-server inside our forum. This is called 'leeching' and generates a lot of traffic.

- If I disable the option, images will no longer display in real-time. They will simply show up as a standard link and a user will need to click on it to view the image.

2) Attach an image inside the post.

- This option is similar to attaching a file to an email.

- The image can be uploaded from your computer, or, it can be pulled (sucked) directly from a web-page as an attachment to the message you are typing.

- The system will also create a small thumbnail image as a preview.

-- Mike

Hi Mike:

I don't know if you remember or not - but years ago the idea of images and articles disappearing over time, from linked URL's was an issue we addressed when we built the Z Car Home Page. For that reason, we decided that everything had to be "contributed" to the site... in effect we don't have many hyper-links to maintain outside the site. In that regard I completely understand your concerns, and with the cost of storage being about 1/100th of what it used to be, it makes even more sense to retain the reference images on your server.

The flip side of that however is the fact that the Internet Wold Wide Web and WAIS servers were intended to allow the linking of related documents/images without copying them - - In effect a method of sharing information/data without copyright violations becoming an issue.

One attempt to mitigate this situation related to lost/broken hyper-links was the Internet Archive effort (aka the Wayback Machine).

For the most part, a small group like ours, would be unlikely to run into copyright issues, from people borrowing images from other sites.... so that may not be a big issue. But then Google's Image Search Engine shows someone's copyrighted images being displayed on someone else's commercial site... it might turn a different corner.

Content is King - and getting eyeballs to a commercial site results in the value of advertising placed there increasing or decreasing... You do have commercial advertising on this site and other commercial sites might be expected to take issue with their copyrighted images being displayed/archived here - rather than having hyper-links to the their source.

Just some other issues/considerations....

For What It's Worth,

Carl B.

OK if I read that right then I would still take issue with having to move any picture that I want to share to this site's server first. It's a hassle and would make me far less likely to share images. I'm sure I'm not alone in that opinion, but how much that matters is really up to you.

Dead links to old pictures is a problem for sure, but I'd say not having the links in the first place is a bigger problem.

I'm just guessing, but my guess is that anyone who was claiming copyright infringement would look for deeper pockets than Mike's. I can't imagine that classiczcars.com is turning a huge profit. No offense meant to Mike of course...

OK if I read that right then I would still take issue with having to move any picture that I want to share to this site's server first.

No picture is moved, Jon. It's simply copied.

I agree that dead links and large images and slow remote connections are a problem. It seems to me that anyone trying to link to a picture is going to have to type the URL to the picture one way or another; either in the URL popup when you choose to link a picture or in the image upload screen. It really just comes down to which of those two is easier.

It seems to me like the ultimate solution would be automatic. Anytime someone links to an image the server software could go grab the remote image, store it locally, and replace the HTML reference to the (possibly resized) local copy. The image itself could then be made a link to the original.

No picture is moved, Jon. It's simply copied.

When you link to a picture on your website, the picture isn't copied. Your site "sends" that information to the thread on classiczcars.com. If 3 people open up that thread, then your server sends it 3 times. If 5,000,000 people open the thread, then it gets sent 5,000,000 times. That's why sometimes some web hosts don't allow their images to be posted into other websites, it's a drain on their resources.

What Mike is talking about is removing the capability for you to post from your webserver to his site, so if you wanted to post the title to your site you would have to go through the motions of copying that image here, then linking to the image that you uploaded to the classiczcars.com photo album.

It's still a one-step process, Jon. Instead of linking to the picture on your server, you copy that picture into the post. You are not copying to the regular gallery, the picture is only saved in the posting. No linking is needed, because the picture is already part of the post.

There are two potential downsides. One concerns disk space. If I have a picture of a part and I attach it to a post, it is there as part of that post. If I want to include it in a different post 90 days later, I attach it again. The file is now duplicated on the site, it takes up disk space twice. But disks are cheap.

The other is that when a picture is attached, it is not shown full size in the thread, you only see the thumbnail. Clicking the thumb loads the full size pic in a new window or tab. But that is not generally considered as a bad thing to those still on dial-up.

Oh, NOW I get it. That's not too big a hassle then. Still a couple steps more than the old way of just typing in the img tags and the URL, but not nearly as bad as I was thinking...

So, just to make sure, it's really just a

"Copy and Paste" sort of process (or at least the same results)

The original is in it's original place, and a copy has been made. The copy is what is shown in the thumbnail, and that copy is stored on the club server-forever.