Posting photos on UKCaving.com

[kay]

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

I use Flickr, and it works. But they are constantly improving it, so as an infrequent user, I find each time I want to post something to ukcaving, I have to learn again how to use flickr, and how to find the quoteable url of the picture in the size I want. It's not very good for someone who may use it only once or twice a year.

 

[Pegasus]

Still reading all your posts, still listening, still learning....thanks everyone for the contributions and ideas...

Hopefully we will come up with a solution - it's very much on the 'To do' list 

 

[Antwan]

There is a really easy way of posting from Flickr without using the img tag, I'll make an instruction leaflet over the weekend and post it up.

 

[Les W]

I would have thought the cost of hosting all these images would not be insignificant.
You would need to host them forever, or they would disappear from the posts.
Server space is not inconsequential and I would assume that was at least in part why the forum has never directly hosted images in the past.

 

[Rob]

One issue with using Facebook is in my experience the URLs change over time.

If you browse through old threads, many of the images "not available" are from old Facebook links. And i imagine other image hosting websites may also suffer from this over time. I doubt any of them are contractually obliged to keep links working.

This is a real shame as without the pictures the threads can become less useful. Having a dedicated resource would be a good way around this.

 

[Bottlebank]

One issue with using Facebook is in my experience the URLs change over time.

If you browse through old threads, many of the images "not available" are from old Facebook links. And i imagine other image hosting websites may also suffer from this over time. I doubt any of them are contractually obliged to keep links working.

This is a real shame as without the pictures the threads can become less useful. Having a dedicated resource would be a good way around this.

Is that a major problem - do people spend a lot of time browsing old threads?

I've never managed to make the search work well enough on here to find anything I was looking for, although I have hit a few from google when I've been searching there, but they very often seem to come up in a different format and I can't recall seeing any photo's on them?

 

[Rob]

Is that a major problem - do people spend a lot of time browsing old threads?

I personally think it's quite a big problem. Whilst UKC is fun and interesting in the short term, it's an incredibly useful resource for the long term.

For example Googling for surveys of caves often brings up UKC links, sometimes annotated or even scans from people's own logbooks, and it's a real shame to find when they are broken.

...I've never managed to make the search work well enough on here to find anything I was looking for, although I have hit a few from google when I've been searching there, but they very often seem to come up in a different format and I can't recall seeing any photo's on them?

I've also found the search occasionally comes up with a weird format, however clicking "Go to Full Version" at the bottom corrects this.

 

[Antwan]

I would have thought the cost of hosting all these images would not be insignificant.
You would need to host them forever, or they would disappear from the posts.
Server space is not inconsequential and I would assume that was at least in part why the forum has never directly hosted images in the past.

Over the 15 years I've been larkn about on the web the price of 10Mb of web space when I started can buy 15Gb so it has come down over the years

 

[SamT]

I'm finding this all a bit ironic...

Is there really such a big issue with posting photos.

I cant reconcile the fact that some folk claim to find it impossible to set up a photobucket/flickr account to host their photos, but seem perfectly willing to go the trouble of setting up a dedicated facebook page, uploading them to there, and then linking to here.


For those that use tapatalk on their phone/tablet to view the forum. Its worth knowing that you can just upload your photo straight into a UKc post (like on facebook).

I get the impression that the only 'vast' improvement to the current system would be for the owners of UKc to be willing to host the photo's (and bear the associated server/bandwidth costs) if an app/mod for SMF forums can be found to allow a direct upload.

 

[Inferus]

I would have thought the cost of hosting all these images would not be insignificant.
You would need to host them forever, or they would disappear from the posts.
Server space is not inconsequential and I would assume that was at least in part why the forum has never directly hosted images in the past.

Over the 15 years I've been larkn about on the web the price of 10Mb of web space when I started can buy 15Gb so it has come down over the years

..and the size of photos has also gone up quite a bit. 15Gb; O.R would have that filled in a week 

If ukc went for an image upload option then the ability to restrict size and allow uploads to be resized and or compressed would be essential to make best use of space and bandwidth. It would also make it easier for people who don't or can't resize images themselves. Even photos from mobiles can be a good few mb these days!

 

[Mike Hopley]

If ukc went for an image upload option then the ability to restrict size and allow uploads to be resized and or compressed would be essential to make best use of space and bandwidth. It would also make it easier for people who don't or can't resize images themselves. Even photos from mobiles can be a good few mb these days!

Exactly right.

However, this image processing can put a heavy load on the server, and also will delay the user who is posting the photo.

That's why the "best" solution is to offload the image processing to third-party infrastructure. But this is a very, very technical solution.

For reference, here is a tutorial from Iron.io for doing that.

 

[ah147]

Can O.Rs contributions to the forum stop being referenced negatively?

I for one really enjoy reading his posts and I'm sure many others do too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[graham]

Can O.Rs contributions to the forum stop being referenced negatively?

I for one really enjoy reading his posts and I'm sure many others do too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

They are undeniably of interest, but they're also very resource heavy. That's why they get mentioned here. They are,quite simply the best example of the type.

 

[Inferus]

Can O.Rs contributions to the forum stop being referenced negatively?

I for one really enjoy reading his posts and I'm sure many others do too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sheesh, can people not understand a bit of gentle humour. Dear owners, can we please have an injection of humour in to the forum, that would be a great addition!! 

Graham is spot on, no other user (that I'm aware of) has posted as many photos as O.R therefore he will be mentioned when it comes to large numbers of photos..
And yes they are resource heavy - from all ends. They take a lot of space, use more bandwidth and place demands on the person viewing the thread.

Despite my gentle humour I did (yes, I've been on this forum with a different name in the past, just giving it another chance) like to view O.Rs posts and photos, even though I'm not a Mendip caver. I did of course learn quickly that anything started by O.R was best avoided until I was at home and using my fibre-broadband and not the limited 3g data on my phone..

 

[The Old Ruminator]

You are all safe for a while as O.R is "resting ". 

 

[Pegasus]

Dear owners, can we please have an injection of humour in to the forum, that would be a great addition!! 

Read the 'Trifle' thread!!  It's bonkers but brilliant, plenty of humour there

..and there's the Friday jokes/video clips thread, often make me smile

However maybe I'll run a competition for something daft to raise a smile, leave it with me....

Cheers, Jane

 

[Fulk]

Well, I opened a 'flick'r' account specifically for posting photos on this forum, but now I can't access it. (They say that they don't recognize my e-mail address, which in point of fact hasn't changed for years.)

Any suggestions as to how I can post pictures? (It did work when I first set it up.)

 

[andys]

Hi Fulk, You can now attach images directly from your computer into your post, so no need for them to be hosted elsewhere. Just click the "Attachments and other Options" button below the post as per screen shot, follow the instructions and away you go.....

 

[Fulk]

Thanks, andys, I'll give it a go.

 

[Simon Wilson]

The drawback is that only people who are logged in can see photos posted that way.