Posting of images

[Excon]

Just a suggestion.
It seems to me that images could be required to be hosted at external sources such as Photobucket or Imageshack instead of allowing them to be attached.

This would reduced the amount of bandwidth your server uses (costs?) because of attached images, and basically eliminates any attachment problems.

 

[mbig]

Just a suggestion.
It seems to me that images could be required to be hosted at external sources such as Photobucket or Imageshack instead of allowing them to be attached.

This would reduced the amount of bandwidth your server uses (costs?) because of attached images, and basically eliminates any attachment problems.

I disagree completely.
People should be able to attach/link images that accompany articles.. of course.
But the image itself should Not be quotable, only the link should appear. That would save bandwidth without encumbering informative/illustrative material.

What's similarly horrendous practice we can't do much about (except to ask) is people quoting OP's or other long posts in their entirety just to add a 1 sentence comment.
So that you could have 3 or 4 posts following an OP saying little to nothing and have to scroll 2 feet.. and making the string unreadable.
Unless you're going to multiquote one need NOT quote in entirety.
This is especially egregious for, say, the First reply to a long OP, that it is understood it is referring to.

 

[Excon]

I disagree completely.
People should be able to attach/link images that accompany articles.. of course.

I am confused by your objection.
No one is saying that they shouldn't.


There is a difference between attached and linked images.

Attachments are a product of the attachment function (like "Insert Image") when posting, and are then hosted by the forum on it's server.
A simple linked image is not hosted by the server. Just the url.


This would be a linked image.

Same image, attached.



The difference is, that with an attached image, the forums server has the burden of using the extra bandwidth to host it.
Overtime, especially with the number of posts a forum this large can generate, this can add up.

But the image itself should Not be quotable, only the link should appear. That would save bandwidth without encumbering informative/illustrative material.

I have seen this with attachments. It does save on bandwidth.

But doesn't matter if the image is hosted elsewhere, such as the one in the article above. Which is what I am suggesting.

 

[Excon]

The "posts" table is more than 8 GB by itself. That doesn't include images, videos and other stuff. The entire database is more than 50 GB.

(I am replying to what you recently said in this thread because it is relevant and the suggestion never received a response from staff.)

If a large portion of that +42GB is attached images, you might want to consider what I suggested a few years ago.

Just a suggestion.
It seems to me that images could be required to be hosted at external sources such as Photobucket or Imageshack instead of allowing them to be attached.

This would reduced the amount of bandwidth your server uses (costs?) because of attached images, and basically eliminates any attachment problems.

 

[Schweddy]

(I am replying to what you recently said in this thread because it is relevant and the suggestion never received a response from staff.)

If a large portion of that +42GB is attached images, you might want to consider what I suggested a few years ago.

​

We store images in files, not the DB.

 

[faithful_servant]

We store images in files, not the DB.

:applaud
Storage is cheap compared to bandwidth. At work, we host our Exchange server online and we get a full terabyte of storage per mailbox.

 

[Schweddy]

:applaud
Storage is cheap compared to bandwidth. At work, we host our Exchange server online and we get a full terabyte of storage per mailbox.

We are only allowed '2G' per email + all our group emails. They claim bandwidth issues for syncing is the reason.

Edit: At work

 

[faithful_servant]

We are only allowed '2G' per email + all our group emails. They claim bandwidth issues for syncing is the reason.

Edit: At work

I'm not sure what the choke-point for an individual email is here. We try to push people to avoid sending large files (so many cases of people having multiple copies of a spdsht and wondering why they aren't the same). We use SharePoint for a lot of our file sharing, but it's a solution that I personally don't like (too much overhead and specialized training in multiple disciplines needed to get full value out of SP).

 

[Excon]

We store images in files, not the DB.

Okay.
So if I understand correctly, you are telling me that those images are not stored on a server, or require bandwidth, that either has to be paid for. Good to know.

Thank you for the answer.