# Should SDMB have a standard image hosting site?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [September 4, 2025, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753 "2025-09-04T17:05:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2025, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753/1 "2025-09-04T17:05:35Z")
While this might add some amount of burden to posters, there might be advantages: guaranteeing that images remain available indefinitely; possibly allowing cross-referencing by poster or what threads and posts an image appears in.
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### Author:  [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2025, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753/2 "2025-09-04T17:21:16Z")
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> guaranteeing that images remain available indefinitely;
This doesn’t exist, and even attempting to approach it will cost someone money.
That won’t be TPTB, and it won’t be most of the posters.
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> possibly allowing cross-referencing by poster or what threads and posts an image appears in.
This doesn’t seem like a standard feature of either Discourse or any of the open-access image hosting systems, except possibly in the case of using Discourse’s own internal storage, which (again) isn’t done because of money. (Both monthly forum service, and possibly administrator costs.)
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753/3 "2025-09-04T17:54:07Z")
Okay, just a thought…
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### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2025, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753/4 "2025-09-04T19:48:23Z")
> [@gnoitall](#):
>
> This doesn’t exist, and even attempting to approach it will cost someone money.
Yeah, planning for permanent image hosting is like saying you want to build a perpetual motion machine or some power-generating device that can provide its own power.
That does not and never will exist. Entropy is one of the fundamental laws of the universe. And the internet.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2025, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753/5 "2025-09-04T19:53:11Z")
Who even thinks the SDMB will be around indefinitely? It has the long-term viability of late night talk shows.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2025, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753/6 "2025-09-04T20:15:17Z")
But, it’s reasonable to assume that IF we hosted our images within Discourse, THEN those images would last about as long as SDMB did. So the links in threads will remain good until the threads themselves disappear.
Which isn’t perpetual like “Until the heat death of the universe”, but is “perpetual” in the sense of “Nobody will have an opportunity to see a thread, click an image link, and get an ‘It’s Dead, Jim’ message in return.”
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### Author:  [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2025, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753/7 "2025-09-04T20:31:34Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> Who even thinks the SDMB will be around indefinitely? It has the long-term viability of late night talk shows.
This is a very small message board, getting smaller all the time. No longer a real place where the best, brightest, and smartest post, if you are not fully Democrat there can be no discussion of anything. But that is what it has become.
It probably only costs a couple hundred dollars to keep running. Who knows how long that will last, but developing an image posting product is not going to happen. This is not the old days when this site was popular and mattered. How many older, long term posters do you still see here? Most have left.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2025, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753/8 "2025-09-04T20:38:40Z")
Discourse already has a fully integrated image hosting facility. All we need is a way to pay for it and for TPTB to switch it on.
Developing some sort of off-board solution to half-assedly integrate Discourse users & threads with e.g. Imgur media uploads would indeed be silly. For us specifically as you say, but also for all of Discourse in general.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2025, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753/9 "2025-09-04T21:53:56Z")
Yes, this is a solved problem. Images are large, so it costs actual money to implement it. (I’m on another small discourse board where the admin was recently asking where all those bits he was paying for come from. It’s images, of course.) The feature is intentionally disabled on this board to keep costs down.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2025, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753/10 "2025-09-05T14:33:34Z")
It would be entirely possible to create an SDMB account on an existing free service, and thus not costing any additional money.
But then it wouldn’t be any easier to use than any other service, unless changes were made in the software—changes that those in charge would not want to make to help us circumvent the paid image hosting option.
The closest we could do is to make an extension, which has already been done. And that extension uses an unofficial image server managed by its creator. (I unfortunately do not remember who did it or have a link to said extension currently.)
I considered adding such a feature to my extension, but have not done so. I might have my extension load that other extension as an option though, if I get around to updating it. I still haven’t fixed all the little bugs since the editor changed, as I don’t have nearly the free time I used to, and thus use this website a lot less.
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### Author:  [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2025, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753/11 "2025-09-05T15:52:42Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#):
>
> No longer a real place where the best, brightest, and smartest post, if you are not fully Democrat there can be no discussion of anything. But that is what it has become.
Yawn. This trope is so tired and lazy (and off-topic).
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### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2025, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753/12 "2025-09-06T04:15:09Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> It would be entirely possible to create an SDMB account on an existing free service, and thus not costing any additional money.
Most places that offer a free service to individuals don’t like it when an organization uses them, especially in a large volume. I’ve run into that issue with different organizations I’ve worked at that have tried.
I agree it’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2025, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sdmb-have-a-standard-image-hosting-site/1022753/13 "2025-09-06T13:12:14Z")
Yeah. That’ll work until they notice and then suddenly the entire collection of our posted images disappears.