Posting photos on UKCaving.com

[Mike Hopley]

Oh heck, I hardly understand any of your post Mike! 

Don't worry, it would probably turn out to be a load of nonsense if I actually sat down and tried to do it. And for the love of God don't go investing a load of effort/money because I rattled off some ideas. 

(And you can completely ignore the latter half, which has nothing to do with the problem at hand.)

 

[Bottlebank]

I understood enough of Mike's post to realise I suffer from the same problem, although he's got a lot further with it than we have with our site.

Another, free and easy option would be set up a UK Caving Facebook page. It's obvious from some recent photo's appearing on there that a few people find it easy enough to post on there, and link from here and no experts required, even Luddites manage to set up a page there.

 

[Pegasus]

Bottlebank - brilliant idea!

Ironically I am planning to start a UK Caving Facebook page but never thought people could use it to post photos onto the forum, thank you for connecting the dots for me 

 

[Mike Hopley]

I should just make clear one thing:

I'm not advocating that "more technical / fancy" = "better". Indeed it may be far more practical to do things like Bottlebank suggested, and use a Facebook page. I really like that idea -- it could be 80% plus of the benefit, for about 1% of the effort of a "perfect" solution.

The main reason I learned this techy nonsense is that I have a business need for it, and lacked the funds to pay someone else. And to be honest, I'm not even sure it was a sane thing for me to do. The rabbit hole just gets deeper and deeper.

 

[Pegasus]

The rabbit hole just gets deeper and deeper.

Ha, for me it's the black hole of doom that gets deeper and deeper, pity Bubba and Outsrc having to deal with Luddite me   

 

[Mike Hopley]

Ha, for me it's the black hole of doom that gets deeper and deeper, pity Bubba and Outsrc having to deal with Luddite me   

I hear this a lot from normal people (I feel programmers are not entirely right in the head ).

A lot of these people are expressing a feeling that they don't "get it". Computers & stuff make them feel a bit dim or alienated.

I often tell them something that seems to make them feel better: it's the same for everyone. No, really. Honestly. It's the same for me and it always has been.

No matter how good you get with computers, you will always have moments where they make you feel stupid. Computers are good at making you feel stupid. It happens to me all the time, because I am constantly needing to learn new computer stuff.

There aren't people who "get it" and people who "just don't get it". There are only people with different levels of experience / knowledge / interest / whatever.

And there's always going to be somebody who is just frighteningly good at it and makes it look easy. I use the Laracasts forum to help me learn programming, and there are people there who just blow my mind with their expertise. They seem like wizards to me. They just click their fingers and the computer sits up and begs, and then fetches their slippers and pipe.

 

[paul]

Re the FaceBook suggestion: I know quite a few cavers who will have nothing to do with FaceBook and refuse to sign up to it (I have though ).

 

[Mike Hopley]

Re the FaceBook suggestion: I know quite a few cavers who will have nothing to do with FaceBook and refuse to sign up to it (I have though ).

Yes, it's definitely not going to work for everyone. It might be worth canvassing the membership to find out, of the people who find posting images frustrating, how many would use Facebook.

 

[Bottlebank]

Re the FaceBook suggestion: I know quite a few cavers who will have nothing to do with FaceBook and refuse to sign up to it (I have though ).

That's true, but simply means they'll have to use the present system.

I know from the number of cavers I'm friendly with on Facebook with that there are many who are happy with it.

It would be an easy way for those who want to use it to post. Given the page would only take about five minutes to create and provide a free solution it seemed an obvious partial solution.

 

[Cookie]

You cannot make it easier, even if you host pictures on this site.

I disagree.

Yes, the process of linking to photos is the same wherever they are hosted but if, like me, you don't have a Facebook, Flikr, (or whatever) account to host them on then the ability to host them at UKCaving will make the difference between posting photos and not posting photos.

It is possible to upload images to the BCA Forum since phpBB has this functionality out of the box. I'm slightly surprised SMF doesn't.

 

[droid]

A Facebook page would be a very good idea. Not only easier to publish photos (even a complete numpty like me can do that) but on a personal level you would have some idea who it is you are speaking to.

It would improve manners on here, I am sure.

 

[Inferus]

I thought SMF had a simple photo (or is it attachment) upload option? Either way I'm sure an add on/plugin would be available to integrate it.

Facebook; all well and good if people have an account, not everyone wants one and that's a personal choice. Same applies to Flickr, bucket and any number of other options. An option to upload photos to the forum would be useful for those less computer minded (and just generally handy), although how much space is available on the server and what the cost of extra space is might be a limiting factor.

I am on fb, have access to two Flickr accounts and can easily use other options if needs be, so not an issue for me but worth considering for those that don't have or want hassle. All comes down to cost I reckon.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

I am as thick as two short planks and have overcome the technicalities of Photobucket. It just takes a bit of practice like anything else. Personally I dont like links or forum attachments. Both are messy in their own way. Photobucket offers you bags of storage and high res. uploads. I now have 8 albums most with the maximum of 2,500 hosted images. that makes er umm . Well lots of hosted images across several hobby related forums.There may be issues with copyright snatching or other things and Photobucket has pages on such things if you bother to read it. For the forum it does mean the photographer has the upper hand as he can delete the hosted image and destroy any thread it is in. Mods may not like that idea. I asked Photobucket what would happen if I expired and they said that my images would continue to be hosted. Take care with Facebook as some folk see that as a detriment to forums. Certainly its easier but has no search facility and like a newspaper tomorrows fish and chip paper. It comes then goes.The images are lower res. too. For all the forums I use this one seems to struggle with the concept of posting images.I cannot understand why. We set up a new collectors forum two weeks ago. It must have a thousand images on it now. The image is the life blood of a collectors forum but so little used here. It comes down to the fact that anything worth doing must be worth doing well. Taking time to get around a few easy steps on Photobucket has to be worth the effort.

Create an Account.
Upload your image to your stated album.
Click the uploaded image then copy and paste the IMG box code over on the right. Its the bottom code box. That code is pasted on to the forum and will show as an image when the page is refreshed.
Remember if you ever delete your Photobucket image it will also disappear from the forum.

Once you get the hang of it you can easily add 50 photos in an hour.

 

[cavermark]

If hosting photos on the forum could they be automatically compressed to a lowish resolution? This would do for many of the practical uses people post them for (eg the Clapham shop sign, identifying entrances etc). Photographers wanting to show off higher res stuff can still link to Flickr etc.  I'm still not convinced that plastering the forum with photos O.R. style is the best way to do it - I'd prefer "here's a couple of my photos of...... please follow this link to my website/photobucket/Facebook site if you want to see more...." making the conversations in threads easier to follow. Just my preference

 

[Inferus]

Take care with Facebook as some folk see that as a detriment to forums. Certainly its easier but has no search facility and like a newspaper tomorrows fish and chip paper. It comes then goes.The images are lower res. too.

Facebook can be a detriment to forums, very true. There are numerous general or club groups on fb, some work better than others, from what I can gather they usually start well and then fade away.
I do like the here today gone tomorrow aspect, it's fluid, it moves, it's fresh. Some forums get bogged down with the same crap, a bit like the over the top CRoW situation on here a while back - it became stale and boring after the nth thread..

If hosting photos on the forum could they be automatically compressed to a lowish resolution? This would do for many of the practical uses people post them for (eg the Clapham shop sign, identifying entrances etc). Photographers wanting to show off higher res stuff can still link to Flickr etc.  I'm still not convinced that plastering the forum with photos O.R. style is the best way to do it - I'd prefer "here's a couple of my photos of...... please follow this link to my website/photobucket/Facebook site if you want to see more...." making the conversations in threads easier to follow. Just my preference

Thoroughly agree. Compressing is essential in my eyes, as is being selective with images - a few in a post is fine but sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.. I do view the forum on my mobile (via 3g) half the time and clicking on a thread loaded with images will just instantly put me off and I'll not bother waiting (or wasting data).

 

[droid]

Facebook has a place. It needs monitoring, clearly and that's another Admin task. Moderation really does need to be spot-on because 'situations' can develop in minutes, usually late on a Saturday night when the participents are well lubricated....

But it takes a lot of the antagonistic crap away from the Forum, and that's an advantage.

 

[ah147]

The photo moderator is a good idea.

Step 1: Person A wants to post a picture, can't.
Step 2: sends email to photo mod
Step 3: photo mod posts photo on correct thread.

I'd volunteer to do this. Wouldn't even need moderator privileges or anything.


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[SamT]

I think you vastly under estimate  the time and effort involved with something like that ash.  I cant see it working.  I don't want to have to wait several hours until you've finished your caving trip/shopping/woken up until I can see my photos on here and comment on them.

 

[ah147]

True. I appreciate how long it may take for the individual trying to post images.

It's not a perfect solution, it's a bodge.

One that I don't mind putting a bit of time and effort into trying.

A better solution would be, as you say, direct uploading. But this is a free site, I take what's available and am happy with it!


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[Sid]

The MCRA Flickr site is available to all to submit caving related photos too.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mendipcaveregistryarchive/sets

Once I have uploaded them you could then copy the URL of the photos or album into your UKC posting. Only low res reqd and photo copyright remains with the owner.

A useful link on the possibilities, and im sure there are more!

https://www.flickr.com/services/api/misc.urls.html

Cheers

p.stillman ( @ ) mcra.org.uk