Photo hosting?

[Thorness]

Are we still OK to use http://my.gn15.info/ for hosting photos to use on here?

I have a vague recollection of Tom (Tebee) requesting that we stop using it in order to keep the bandwidth down.

From a practical point of view "in house" storage should avoid Pbucket type issues but it is no good if it causes other problems.

Cheers.

[tebee]

No problem using it - apart from one month we are only using about 2% of available bandwidth.

But there are no new id's or password changes allowed so it's deprecated.

Is probably better to add as attachment, but this may not allow you to share to other sites if you also do that.

Tom

[PeterH]

Hi Tom, are you happy that we link from other forums to our photos in my gn15.info? I remember a few years ago this wasn't allowed. If we link, won't gnatterbox eventually have the photobucket problem: having to pay for the traffic? Or maybe the amount of such traffic isn't much.

[tebee]

i'm quite happy for people to use Gn15.info to host picture and use them elsewhere - but yes it does increase bandwidth usage and one day might mean we have to pay more to support and host the forum.

Two things - firstly that day is a long way away yet and secondly, as long as the pictures are reasonably relevant to us here that increased usage will mean we have got a lot more people interested in Gn15 and hopefully, enough of them will have joined us and be contributing to forum maintenance.

This is why I think those societies who have closed forums and the specialist forums you need to have a subscription to see or post too have it wrong . Forums are relatively cheap to run, you need to have it as open as possible so as many people see it and become interested in what you have to offer. People like Google and Facebook know this - it's all about the numbers. Equally I'm not too worried at this point about things like Facebook groups diluting out membership. There are advantages to them and advantages to our forum. But the more people who get to know about Gn15 and the like the more potential members we have.

Tom

[tebee]

Following on from that, I have been thinking about adding a replacement for my.gn15.info as the forum software stores photos in a way incompatible with some other forums - in particular the software used by RMWeb and NGRM-Online.

I've been unable to find any free software that i'm happy has all the functionality we would like. There are some cheapish ( less than £75) paying solutions that have been mentioned in some of the discussions about Photobucket replacements. Would people be interested in contributing for this. One off payment now, with the proviso that we might need to spend more on hosting in the future.

Tom

[chris stockdale]

You can count on me to find a few coins down the back of the sofa to help out.

Cheers,

[Thorness]

I'm willing to contribute.
Just let us know when it is needed.

Cheers.

[PeterH]

Yes, I'm happy to contribute. And I agree that an open forum is better than a closed one.

[docnjoj]

I'm in!
otherDoc

[Kerluk]

You can count on me too !

Following on from that, I have been thinking about adding a replacement for my.gn15.info as the forum software stores photos in a way incompatible with some other forums - in particular the software used by RMWeb and NGRM-Online.Tom

It doesn't work either with a lot of forums.

[tebee]

This is a test installation of some software I'm looking at http://tbmod.com/g8

Would welcome any comments

user id = test

Password = test99

This version is free, but for some reason I can't get it to work on Gn15.info - there is a paying version which I am assured will work.

[PeterH]

I tried it. Chose bcode full. Simple and easy.

[chris stockdale]

Our house sign



Cheers,

[Kerluk]

Works fine for me too !

[Thorness]

Seems to work for me too!

[tebee]

OK i've adjusted the server settings so it now works here !

It's now up and live at https://gn15.info/photo

You will need to set up a separate login there as it does not link with the forum software.

I'm trying the free version for now, but if we have problems may need to change to a paying version to get support, but it's only a $43 one off payment. The paid version may in the future offer forum integration, but doesn't currently. It also lets you remove their branding and adds a few extra features.

All photos added there are given a default creative commons licence, which means anyone can use them, but they have to attribute you as the originator, so don't use it if you want to retain strict copyright control.

I would prefer it to be used for things relevant to this forum or at least railways in general, but I'm not enforcing this unless it all gets badly abused and we start using huge amounts of bandwidth. If you think you are abusing our hospitality, feel free to give donations towards the hosting fees and I will grant you absolution.

Try to respect copyright as far as possible - I'm not worried about old photos where the photographer is unknown or probably dead, as a good fair use argument can be made for these, but don't go pinching photos from other people's blogs unless they are also CC licenced !

Tom

[Grum]

Thank you Tom, I followed on from what other members have said and it seems to work fine, I will gladly contribute to the cause if required.

Graham

[Kerluk]

Works fine here too !

[docnjoj]

Not quite yet. Waiting for the appearance in my Email to activate.
otherDoc

[tebee]

I've manually activated you David, emails seem to go missing sometimes.

[docnjoj]

Thanks Tom! I'll give it a try today.
otherDoc

[rue_d_etropal]

I would have thought people would have learned after the last free photo sharing website went bust, that the best way is to have your own paid for website and post your pictures there. You ae talking, less than the cost of a couple of pints a beer a month. No adverts, and you are in control, and as far as I know it works on all forums.
Pleased to see you have same opinion about closed member forums, Tom, but then we both have worked in IT and understand how it really works. On the plus side, this photobucket thing has woken people up here.

[Kerluk]

Many photos hosted by Chevereto seem to have disappeared. What's going on? Is it my PC or something else ?

Capture.JPG

[tebee]

Bandwidth problems on my test server - it's only got a small allowance.

I'm still surprised it exceeded it - will check what is happening with it .

Tom

[Kerluk]

Thanks. When I tried this link http://tbmod.com/g8 I got this:

PH 02.JPG