deskthority

Would there be a reason to post pictures outside of posts and wiki articles? They both provide local image saving options.

Ease of upload is a big part of why I don't use the forum for uploading pics. With imgur I can bulk select an entire folder of pictures and upload whereas phpBB requires you to select each individual image separately.

Compgeke wrote: Ease of upload is a big part of why I don't use the forum for uploading pics. With imgur I can bulk select an entire folder of pictures and upload whereas phpBB requires you to select each individual image separately.

I do agree, it's not easy uploading for a post or the wiki but it is better to post here. I have a pet peeve about posts that refer to images that no longer exist so I take the extra time to post here even though I do have my own site I can post pictures too.

Maybe there's an upgrade or add-on for bulk posting?

I wonder if attachments on DT are visible for non registered users?
Some forums force you to login first to see pictures.

cookie wrote: I wonder if attachments on DT are visible for non registered users?
Some forums force you to login first to see pictures.

only images in PMs and in restricted areas are hidden to the outside world.

That makes perfect sense to me, but how hard is it to implement a more convenient way of uploading pictures and how would that affect DTs data storage?

cookie wrote: That makes perfect sense to me, but how hard is it to implement a more convenient way of uploading pictures and how would that affect DTs data storage?

you mean an imgur for DT? 20 minutes probably. Unless you want a deeper integration into phpbb (ie: a dnd replacement for the current "upload attachment" option)

I think that just enabling batch upload would be enough. (I mean selecting many images at once)

One of the things I like about our current attachment system: it limits the "here's a hundred pictures I just shot but I can't be bothered sifting through them for the good ones sooo you like keyboards right so you must like a wall full of bad pictures" effect. People can link to their imgur albums for that. As it's precisely what I see half the time when they do!

you can always limit the number of attachments

I'd rather leave them harder, individually, than slap a cap on them. Because the latter simply leads to multiple posts where people hit the cap on each one but keep going. The former, the way we already do it, makes picking photos carefully the user's responsibility; as it should be.

Plus a cap is annoying when writing reviews and workshop howtos. It punishes advanced users just to put a brake on the potential sloppy behaviour of lazy ones. Batch upload is the problem. Let them use imgur and leave us a link, as it is now.

make users behave making the software harder to use is an argument I do not agree much, anyway I don't feel there's an urgency about this.

I know. I feel dirty making my case. But! There are actually two different groups of "users" to keep in mind. Posters and readers.

As a poster, sure I'd like to batch upload those 8 images I carefully edited in one process.

But as a reader, I'd hate to see DT get more like other forums with waaaaaaay too many piss poorly taken photos, filling threads.

Our current status quo neatly keeps quality high by being a pain the arse for uploading. I like that balance. Change could really affect the look and reader usability of the forum. Not to mention loading times and server costs. The present culture we have is great : people upping one or a handful of hand picked photos, with a link to their imgur dump. Meanwhile, review writers and the like are already putting in the hours on their mammoth post, so the image upload process is no big deal for us and I'm sure I've done 20 in a single post now and then, but not together and certainly not random. A cap would crap right on our cheesecake.

Strange that all this developed because of a bad interface, but I'd like to keep it!

Is it possible to enable multi-upload for a select group? I upload 8-10 pictures at a time like a few others and it is painfully slow. I can live with it if it's not a feature but when it is, you are just punishing those who are your more frequent posters especially when you have a Photos forum category.

matt3o wrote: you mean an imgur for DT? 20 minutes probably. Unless you want a deeper integration into phpbb (ie: a dnd replacement for the current "upload attachment" option)

Having the possibility to manage own albums in DT the same way as on imgur and select from those when attaching pictures would be awesome. But maybe that's too much work to do :/

I am fine with imgur for now but chances are that threads will be missing pictures in the future in case I lose interest or something. So I am a bit concerned about what will happen with my old threads but I am willing to move all Keyboard related images to DT.

I'm torn on this one, I have encountered the situation where I wanted to post more pictures in a few of my keyboard threads. On the other hand I do not want a "trend" like Mu is describing where people just upload batches of crappy pics just out of comfort. Multi-upload for a select group does not sound good snuci. Let's not impliment "select group advantages" in this community. Reserving the next post in a thread for more pics is not a big deal for the OP.

See, that's why I piped in. This is surprisingly complex, from a human point of view, while quite simple from code!

DT's "austere" look — absense of walls of animated gifs, shite photos, and other guff — is immensely appealing to me. As is our egalitarian structure — absense of powerful douchebags, market thread feedback manipulation, and needy appeals to authority in general — which we must also defend. You wouldn't think a topic as harmless as improving the image attachment interface would affect all this deep cultural stuff… until you do!

But you can upload your crappy potato pics on imgur and spam them here anyways.

Yup. But notice how people don't? Laziness is the natural law of the universe! Even copying [ img ] tags is too much bother when you just want to take a big dump on a thread. So people provide a neat little link instead. Brilliant! Because we readers aren't forced to load all those damn pictures. We can visit them if we're really interested, but no big deal if not.

You're slightly exaggerating Mu but you're right, no need to make DT spamoramic XXL. Sure you can upload your crappy potato pics on imgur and spam them here cookie, but that one simplistic hurdle has so far kept the superspamtrolls away. We do have some douchebags, but they seem to be caught up in DT's austere ways or perish. I never spend any time at GH so I don't know what goes down there but I have heard the stories...

seebart wrote: You're slightly exaggerating Mu but you're right

It's called rhetoric, and it works!

This sort of thing is all about people's worst behaviours anyway, so it's fair to argue in those terms. Even if most people didn't misbehave, a batch system would really make a mess when the few do inevitably go overboard. Thumbs down!

I give more faith to humanity (especially DT's humanity). I'd say, let's give them the tool. If it becomes a mess we can always revert to 1998. Innocent until proven guilty.

In 1998, images would have to be upped via FTP. Even I cannae be arsed with that!

Anyway, give it a shot. And be vigilant! You know what to look out for.

"Hai guys. Maybe ill remember to open a window someday. In the meantime here's my awesum stash from a hundred different angles. Turn up ur monitor if you can't see anything. I swear there's keybroads in that closet."

I think I am with matt3o, I have absolute faith in the DT community [

Oh I don't mind, let's give it a try.

Like Mu said, can always go back if we need to.

Also what happens to 'old' banners that are taken out of circulation. Are they archived somewhere?

Old banners are here, at the top there is a "inactive headers" link. Seeing as there is no way to delete them, they will keep piling up in there.

scottc wrote: I'm willing to write descriptions if there's some nice way to submit them...

Superb new feature that. Exactly the right place for these descriptions to be. Because, let's face it, no one was writing or reading them before; too hidden away to discover. People would even fire up new threads just to ask!

Anyone who wants to help ID the existing pictures can do so in this thread. Just include the photo your description is about, so we don't get tangled up! I already figured out Webwit's new UI for entering the text: Click the i button on the image in question, and… Insert sage words of identifying wisdom here.

Impressed!

Edit: [Photos by me:]

206 = IBM Beam Spring keyboard from Early IBM 5100

201 = Cray Research keyboard made by Ampex