Everyone, I need your vote/advice.
Several people upload pictures to this forum and several link to other sites,
LL just posted a good method.
I misspoke in an earlier post about file storage space on this website's hosting service at
Hostgator.com as when I renewed, I upgraded the service from "Baby" to "Hatchling" and I/we now have unlimited storage, so large file attachments is not a problem. When I bought Baby plan 1 year agao I'm pretty sure it didn't include unlimited stoarage as it does now.
Frankly, I have had misgivings about leaving the forum format settings completely open to links to pictures on other websites. This is because CheeseForum.org is not a chat forum but a resource for all of us including Guests and if those files on other sites get moved or changed then those posts' links fail and this resource's effectiveness is reduced/lost. Thus I'd rather have forced everyone to upload their pictures directly onto CheeseForum.org, but probably too late now.
Options that I can see are:
- I switch the post attachment size and count to infinite, this could result in some very long and multipage posts with very long display times, especially for those of us in the world with slower internet connections (in January todate we had 2,652 visitors/viewers from 74 countries around the world), it could also open the door wider to forum security issues from spammers etc.
- I keep the post attachment size to infinite but display size to current 640x480 pixels or wider (to use up more screen space currently yellow to right of pictures) to reduce webpage load times (server still has to resize picture sent to the viewer) and switch count size to infinite, thus still have some very long post sizes. Note, for those who then wanted to see a bigger picture, they could just click on the small displayed 640x480 picture which would then take that User to the fullsize picture file, like happens on the website's pictures.
- I keep the post attachment size to say 5 MB each attachment but display size to current 640x480 pixels to reduce webpage load times and keep count size at 4, to constrain post display length.
- I leave as is to keep page load times quick.
- I cut off links to external images and force all of us to upload their pictures to this forum for more secure long term record keeping (I just renewed hosting service for 3 years).
Please vote on above or add other option I haven't thought of. Please keep in mind that 1) as said, many people do not have broadband, and 2) we have averaged 75 posts per day for the last 2 months, which means that 1 year from today this forum could be six times larger than today with ~33,000 posts, assuming post frequency stays unchanged.
I'd especially appreciate some advice from the few IT Professional Members . . . thanks all, John.