Please upgrade site so you can upload images

xtedmanzie

Hosting images elsewhere is a pain, and it’s difficult, and I’m fed up looking as imigur ads and nonsense from other people’s links.
 Please upgrade the site so it’s possible to just attach images to posts. I’m a member of Basschat and it works very nicely on there, don’t know what they use.
 Thanks 

drofluf

I'm sure that someone who knows better will be along soon but I don't think that it's as easy as it sounds.

For starters hosting images will need more storage space and that comes at a cost. This place is free/donation funded so who's going to pickup the cost? Disk space is relatively cheaper over time but it's not free. Plus there's potential copyright issues with images.

And it's not really that hard to host images elsewhere is it? If it is you're probably using the wrong host!

guitarfishbay

Basschat run advertising and also charge for classifieds use. This site has no paywalls and no adverts. Hosting images on the site would cost money so it’s not as easy as just upgrading the site, the money would have to come from somewhere which would mean some part of the site experience would change

WiresDreamDisasters

Just use Imgur Ted.

xtedmanzie

This appears to be one of the biggest guitarist forums but it is in need of a few updates- image hosting is the main issue, search facility is another. If they can make it work on Basschat / Gearslutz etc, then I’m sure it can work here - image hosting elsewhere is not working properly, take a look at many of the posts on the site - most are links rather than embedded. It would be an extremely popular update and I’m sure would improve the quality of posts.

TTony

1. The fact that this site does NOT host images is a deliberate decision.  It has given, and continues to give the site owner (ie @digitalscream) ; protection against the - sometimes frivolous - complaints that arise.
2.  Upgrading the site is not an easy task and isn't one that I can see happening anytime soon given Lee's other life priorities.    Whether or not any upgrade would include inbuilt hosting would be subject to difficult debate given point (1) and point (3).
3. As drofluf also says, storage is cheap, but not free.  This site is free!
4.  Although a pain at times, there are help-threads on here that take you through how to embed images from the main hosting sites.   
5. Embedding images is a pain on less functional devices/OSes (ie mobiles) and is also exposed to changes in the functionality of the hosting sites (eg what photobucket did).  The former is generally overcome, but people have to remember how to, the latter is nothing that we can do anything about.

FWIW, I agree  that ...

tedmanzie said:

 I’m fed up looking as imigur ads and nonsense from other people’s links.

... to which I'd add being invited to sign-up/log-in to some sites before being able to view linked images.  I generally don't bother with those posts.  If the poster can't be bothered to make a little effort in making their post easily readable, then I can't be bothered to clink on links to see what they're posting.

Interestingly, there's a divergence in behaviour across different sections of the forum.  In the Making & Modding section, pretty much *every* image is embedded.  In the Classifieds section, I'd guess that around half the images are now just linked.    

It's no easy to embed images in one section that it is in another!

xtedmanzie

guitarfishbay said:

Basschat run advertising and also charge for classifieds use. This site has no paywalls and no adverts. Hosting images on the site would cost money so it’s not as easy as just upgrading the site, the money would have to come from somewhere which would mean some part of the site experience would change

Gearslutz is free and ad lite. Basschat charge a small fee to sell stuff. There are presumably a number of ways to monetise the site without it becoming ad-hell (!) .

TTony

tedmanzie said:

 take a look at many of the posts on the site - most are links rather than embedded. 

I  agree that the apparently growing habit of using links rather than embedded photos detracts from the UEx of the site.  *However* that's primarily a consequence of user (lazy) behaviour rather than a lack of site functionality - accepting that it's harder to achieve on some devices/OSes because of the restricted functionality  provided by the form of those devices/OSes.

GoldenEraGuitars

With all due respect, the vast majority of your posts and discussions are based around the classifieds. I’m guessing you want to be able to sell stuff here, easily, for free? 

Using Imgur is a small price to pay, no?

digitalscream

tedmanzie said:

guitarfishbay said:

Basschat run advertising and also charge for classifieds use. This site has no paywalls and no adverts. Hosting images on the site would cost money so it’s not as easy as just upgrading the site, the money would have to come from somewhere which would mean some part of the site experience would change

Gearslutz is free and ad lite. Basschat charge a small fee to sell stuff. There are presumably a number of ways to monetise the site without it becoming ad-hell (!) .

Gearslutz has significantly more traffic than we do, and thus has far more opportunity for funding; adverts there are much more lucrative. Not only that, but everything on either has an ad or is sponsored...and that's something we don't want to do. Not being beholden to third party interests is an important part of this forum's identity. Largely-speaking, that's a compromise that most of our members are happy to accept.

On top of all of that, there's a significant management overhead in terms of image copyrights. It can kind of be solved with money, but...see above.

With that said, I have an idea of how we might be able to do it, but it can't be done with any of the main forum software providers out there. I'm still pondering the possibilities.

xtedmanzie

GoldenEraGuitars said:

With all due respect, the vast majority of your posts and discussions are based around the classifieds. I’m guessing you want to be able to sell stuff here, easily, for free? 

Using Imgur is a small price to pay, no?

What’s that got to do with anything? I raise a genuine issue with the site (look how many people can’t work out how to host images) and now it’s my problem because I’ve bought and sold items in the classifieds? I’d really not rather have anything to do with Imgur. The point here is the UX of the site. If the priority is to create the best guitarists’ forum then imo the image attaching would be a huge plus point.

stickyfiddle

digitalscream said:

On top of all of that, there's a significant management overhead in terms of image copyrights. It can kind of be solved with money, but...see above.

Ding ding ding!

This is the biggie for me. If this site isn't hosting anything the liability stays largely with whoever is hosting. If people upload here there will quickly be a bazillion images that posters don't have the right to use and that has the potential to cause huge problems. I'm honestly not sure how the likes of facebook & Imgur get round it, but I'd wager we don't have the resources to fight that sort of fight if someone lie Disney wanted to start it.

robinbowes

It's simply not hard to embed images.

Click on the "Attach image/file" widget on the toolbar, and paste the URL of the image.

Like this:



R,

digitalscream

tedmanzie said:

GoldenEraGuitars said:

With all due respect, the vast majority of your posts and discussions are based around the classifieds. I’m guessing you want to be able to sell stuff here, easily, for free? 

Using Imgur is a small price to pay, no?

What’s that got to do with anything? I raise a genuine issue with the site (look how many people can’t work out how to host images) and now it’s my problem because I’ve bought and sold items in the classifieds? I’d really not rather have anything to do with Imgur. The point here is the UX of the site. If the priority is to create the best guitarists’ forum then imo the image attaching would be a huge plus point.

His point - which has come up many times on here - is that yes, I could easily fund the image upload development and implementation by charging for access to the classifieds. Many people think I should do this.

Why target the classifieds specifically? Well, there are a significant number of people who are just using this site as a free alternative to eBay. Coincidentally, they also form the main bulk (like, 99%) of the people who complain that we don't offer image uploads.

At that point, we're forced to consider whether it's worth it to expose the site to the legal and financial implications of that, in order to provide people who don't contribute in any meaningful way to the site with a way to use the site as a free alternative to eBay/Reverb/etc.

The result of that consideration is "It's not a priority".

drofluf

robinbowes said:

It's simply not hard to embed images.

Click on the "Attach image/file" widget on the toolbar, and paste the URL of the image.

Like this:



R,

Just to add if you do this from a mobile device you need to add a space after the url.

xtedmanzie

digitalscream said:

tedmanzie said:

GoldenEraGuitars said:

With all due respect, the vast majority of your posts and discussions are based around the classifieds. I’m guessing you want to be able to sell stuff here, easily, for free? 

Using Imgur is a small price to pay, no?

What’s that got to do with anything? I raise a genuine issue with the site (look how many people can’t work out how to host images) and now it’s my problem because I’ve bought and sold items in the classifieds? I’d really not rather have anything to do with Imgur. The point here is the UX of the site. If the priority is to create the best guitarists’ forum then imo the image attaching would be a huge plus point.

His point - which has come up many times on here - is that yes, I could easily fund the image upload development and implementation by charging for access to the classifieds. Many people think I should do this.

Why target the classifieds specifically? Well, there are a significant number of people who are just using this site as a free alternative to eBay. Coincidentally, they also form the main bulk (like, 99%) of the people who complain that we don't offer image uploads.

At that point, we're forced to consider whether it's worth it to expose the site to the legal and financial implications of that, in order to provide people who don't contribute in any meaningful way to the site with a way to use the site as a free alternative to eBay/Reverb/etc.

The result of that consideration is "It's not a priority".

Ok let me give you my point of view on this because I'm a reasonably long time member here and I'm starting to slightly resent the implication that I'm some kind of cheap salesman using the site as a free eBay

Firstly classifieds usually form a healthy part of most successful music related forums - they certainly do on Basschat where I've met loads of nice musicians usually in petrol stations on the M25 as part of some 'collect for cash' deal involving a 4x10 cab (!).  Basschat in the last few years implemented a subscription fee but only to sell items (ie you can still upload images direct even if you don't subscribe).  

Classifieds are particularly good if they involve discussion (as Fretboard / Basschat do) as opposed to 'listings' (eg soundonsound) - they form a busy part of the site and everyone likes to shop

The classifieds are guitarists/musicians selling guitar/music kit to other guitarist/musicians - which is a good thing of course! I think to describe this as 'people just using this site a free alternative to eBay' is a bit insulting actually, and surprising coming from the owner - I expect you'll find that nearly all people selling here are musicians of one kind or another who are selling here because it makes sense to sell direct to other musicians in a more friendly environment. ie. It's a choice, and Fretboard should see this as a plus.

I am primarily a bass player and professional producer (and crap guitarist) so I don't contribute too much to other parts of this forum but I do read it quite a lot. i buy and sell studio gear here sometimes and I find it a bit disappointing to say the least that this seems to have me marked down as somewhat less of a forum member. If "people who don't contribute in any meaningful way" is supposed to include me in that part of the venn diagram then I strongly disagree.

The fact that image upload "has come up many times here" is not because people want a free eBay, it's because forum members would really value and appreciate that facility. It's pretty obvious by the large amount of 'how to link to imgur' posts that many members find it awkward. If the goal is to make the best guitarists' forum then image upload would be a great feature imo. (and many others). There is a similar issue on pinkfish (hifi site) where there is no image upload, and it makes for a much less engaging forum (because again lots of members struggle with it)

As for charging for classifieds - I would happily pay a small sum per listing. In my opinion Basschat hasn't quite got it right, I think it's £7 for a one off £20 for a year of unlimited sales. The one off fee is too high. I don't know how much income a couple of pounds per listing here would bring in but I'd have no problem paying that.  I pay loads of fees to Reverb & eBay but only whwn the item sells.  

I don't understand why image hosting would incur legal implications, but that's not to deny it's an issue.

And just to clarify here - I'm not looking for instructions on how to host images elsewhere, I have done it previously on Photobucket. 

Cheers
Ted

[edited]

axisus

We have run fine all these years without the need to post images directly. It's not exactly hard to dump them in Imgur first if they aren't hosted elsewhere. 

"Hey people, I'm mildly inconvenienced by your website which is free to join and use, please spend money and make your life more difficult to improve my experience"

digitalscream

tedmanzie said:

The classifieds are guitarists/musicians selling guitar/music kit to other guitarist/musicians - which is a good thing of course! I think to describe this as 'people just using this site a free alternative to eBay' is a bit insulting actually, and surprising coming from the owner 

Would it surprise you to know that I (and the modmin team) have a vastly different view of the general makeup of our membership compared with yourself? We see everybody who signs up. So yeah...when I describe a certain section of our membership as folk who are freeloading so they don't have to pay seller fees...it's not a throwaway insult, it's actually the truth.

tedmanzie said:

I am primarily a bass player and professional producer (and crap guitarist) so I don't contribute too much to other parts of this forum but I do read it quite a lot. i buy and sell studio gear here sometimes and I find it a bit disappointing to say the least that this seems to have me marked down as somewhat less of a forum member. If "people who don't contribute in any meaningful way" is supposed to include me in that part of the venn diagram then I suggest you re-asses how members interact with the forum and what a successful forum is.

Thank you for telling me how to run a forum. Would it also surprise you to know that we might have a bit more experience in it than a bassist/professional producer?

For example, the experience of people with a grudge repeatedly trying to sue us out of existence because of images on the site that they supposedly hold the copyright to? Literally the only defence we had was that the images weren't actually hosted here, because we don't provide that facility. Since I am the sole owner of the forum and the hosting facility, that makes me personally liable. Had that not been the case, I'd have ended up in court.

So no...I'm not going to take that risk so that people who can't be bothered to put in a little extra effort find it easier to put up images of the stuff they want to sell fee-free. People who contribute regularly outside of the classifieds don't have much of a problem with it, and there are plenty of instructions available.

To be absolutely clear: the classifieds are provided as a handy side-benefit of membership. I absolutely don't care about the members on here whose only contribution to the site is using the classifieds, because we didn't build this place for those people.

BeardyAndy

I tend to do most "onliney" things outside of work on my phone so admit it's a bit of a faff, for pic uploads i put them on the imgur app and then upload them later at a PC. Wish there was an easier way for that.

Cirrus

Well, this is quite entertaining. Lee, can't you just do what Ted tells you to do? Give him image hosting! HE WANTS IT!

Philtre

This site rocks and I for one appreciate it greatly, warts and all. The current system of image linking is a small price to pay. If you don't like it, go and run your own forum.