(Not sure if this belongs here or ATMB… please move if needed)
I was wondering… is there a reason we don’t allow direct image uploads? I know you can link to images hosted off-forum, but that’s quite a lot of hassle compared to just being able to copy & paste images into a post directly.
Images are natively supported by Discourse, and you can set reasonable limits on them (like a file size limit, and only accounts that have been around for longer than X months, or whatever).
At a casual search, the only relevant thread I could find was Uploading images and scrolling up jank, which doesn’t directly answer the “why” question. But there are a lot of “how to post images” threads like 1, 2, 3, 4, which wouldn’t be necessary if we could just allow image uploads here directly.
Is this a purely a cost consideration for storage and bandwidth? Is that something we might be able to, say, crowdsource funding for? I’d be happy to pay for a membership tier that allows image posting, for example (or just donate to a general fund to allow it for everyone).
It just seems like a unnecessary hurdle for otherwise basic functionality, and results in a bunch of broken image links scattered across the years.
I don’t think anybody would want paid viewing of images.
I’d prefer a solution (possibly donation-based) where everybody could also post images without cost, but failing that, it might be possible to limit posting to a only certain paid membership tier. (But everyone could still view them.). This would be no different than the way it is now; you could still use any other image hosting service if you prefer, but you would also have the option of just directly uploading images to your post.
I don’t have access to the visitation stats of the forum, but it’s something we could reasonably estimate costs for if the mod/admin team were willing to share them. (Or presumably, they’ve already run those calculations and that was part of the reason we don’t have images already…?)
Image hosting generally isn’t terribly expensive these days (either in storage or bandwidth), between cheap cloud storage and CDNs that cache everything for very low cost. I don’t know the technology stack that the forum uses though. Maybe there are some special considerations there. Maybe the new owners have special restrictions. Hard to say without more info.
I mean, I think so. Older threads have a bunch of broken image links. Linking to an external site often links to an interstitial page laden with ads, or direct linking to an image URL might only work until the access token expires, etc. I find it annoying, personally. And it’s at least a significant enough barrier that we frequently have questions about how to post them. It shouldn’t be that difficult…
Probably not. Nobody here has the authority to make any decisions involving financials, and the Powers that Be at whoever currently owns us have never shown any interest in any of the crowdfunding suggestions that come up. I expect that there’s a lot of red tape that they need to go through to allow it, and they’d need to be convinced that they’d raise enough that it’d be worth it.
Probably best to just maintain the current status quo, where the Powers that Be mostly just ignore us.
Ah, I didn’t realize there was a bureaucratic hurdle to this (but of course there is…).
I presume the Powers That Be would also be disinterested in paid membership tiers that could actually generate revenue…? Just not enough revenue vs the hassle it’d take to set up?
Edit: Or hell, could we just crowdsource enough money to outright buy the forum from TPTB and make it community-owned? I have no idea who even owns it right now, or why they want to keep the boards active (maybe they don’t know either, lol, so it’s best not to ask…?)
Are you suggesting that, if there is an image elsewhere on the internet that I want to display here on the SDMB, instead of linking to it I should copy it so that it would be stored here? Might that not run afoul of copyright?
No, that’s not the intent. If it’s somebody else’s image, you should just link to it. (It’s also just easier that way, since you don’t have to re-upload it).
I was more thinking about screenshots, pet photos, art projects, whatever – your own original content, the same kinda thing that’s easy to paste on any other forum, messenger, text message, social media, etc., but that’s a hassle to have to post on an external hosting service (they often require signups, and the ones that don’t usually disappear after a few years).
Given that they’ve found it too difficult the charge charter members for membership for the whole 4+ years on Discourse, I’ll suggest that anything involving them receiving income is too hard for them / us.
So this would be adding a real genuine ongoing expense with zero offsetting revenue. To a board that is a de facto hobby for whatever entity owns us.
My vote’s alongside @Chronos. We’re presently hiding in a pile of shit and should not encourage the predators hovering above to notice us and start digging. Better the shit we know than the glorious sunlight followed shortly by oblivion.
Yeah, I see what you are saying, and good point. But, I can’t remember the last time I came across a broken link around here - I’m not saying it can’t happen, tho. I agree it’s more steps than other apps I use, but I just question if it’s enough a pain point to initiate the change you are suggesting.
I tend to post images to Bluesky, then link to those. So far it’s worked. This is a problematic method, since Bluesky could disallow outgoing links at any time, or simply go out of business.
You see it a lot in older threads… but then again, a lot of those threads are from before the Discourse transition. Just as Imgur or whatever could go out of the photo-hosting business, so too could the board itself, or transition to another new platform (that, even if it also allows uploading images, might or might not carry over the old images correctly).
I would post images here if I could do it directly. I’m not going to figure out how to upload them somewhere else and link to it. But, then again, I have no urgent need to post any photos.
Heh, makes sense. Thanks for the context. I think I was on a SDMB break when this all happened (the owner and software change), so I didn’t know the whole background story.
I agree then… better not risk poking the bear. Presumably the SDMB only survives by virtue of being some long-forgotten line-item in some dusty spreadsheet in the basement.
I think there’s also an unfounded assumption being made with this request… That being able to upload images will suddenly make everything easy and seamless.
It’s probably just as likely that it would be no easier than putting a link to an image offsite, and I’d even guess that it would be more of a pain. Because honestly, uploading an image to Imgur is easy for me to do from anywhere then I can include a link in any post and it shows up. What kind of size restrictions, format restrictions, copyright restrictions (since this site will be a host), and weird Discourse mumbojumbo will we be faced with?
It may end up being a feature too troublesome to use once implemented.
