Short version: Go setup a
http://www.smugmug.com account.
LONG version: First, some background on the subject....
The reason I don't simply add the ability to upload photos is because, first of all, it's not simple. This forum use the popular, free phpBB software. You'd think by now somebody would have developed a slick photo gallery module. Well, there are some solutions, but I've looked at them, and in my opinion they stink. I'd rather have no solution than a half-baked solution that reflects poorly on the quality of the system.
The second biggest reason is that unlimited photo uploading for even a relatively small community like ours can easily consume Gigabytes of disk space in no time. The most common reply is "disk space is cheap". It is not if you are renting a server with hardware that you are not allowed to upgrade without upgrading your hosting plan to a new server. I pay about $90/mo for my dedicated server. That gives me a decent server with only a 60GB disk. To upgrade to a larger server with bigger disks will run me closer to $200/mo.
Another factor involved is that so many people already use one of the many decent photo hosting systems on the Internet. My personal favorite is
http://www.smugmug.com. If a person already likes to create their photo galleries at smugmug, they don't want to also upload photos at RideForum.net. They'd rather just link people to their smugmug gallery.
Smugmug charges a small fee, but offers unlimited space. I'd have to charge a fee to provide Gigabytes of disk space for hosting member's photos.
Here is the good news, though. Your photos do not need to be hosted by RideForum.net to be displayed in the forums. As long as your photo is available online somewhere, you can display the photo in our forum using the IMG tag.
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Regarding the separate forums--one for preparing for a ride and one for reporting on the ride...
That sounds organized, and I understand that some ride discussions can be several pages long, so the ride report (and photos) would be buried on page 4 or something, but I like the single thread. To me, they belong together---the beginning and the end. The alpha and omega. Many times the preparation discussion includes links to route files, maps, etc. When looking at the photos and reading the report, if you get excited about the route, just scroll back in the discussion and get the route file.
That said, I do have a vision for a custom ride report tool that would be a unique feature of RideForum.NET. This tool would be optimized for photo-journal style reporting. (Photos would be optional, though.) The user would be able to easily paste links to their photos hosted elsewhere OR upload photos directly to RideForum.NET. The system would automatically resize and optimize the photos for the web.
In addition, there would be a place to link to the route file(s) so everything you need to really see what a ride is about is in one organized place.
Another custom tool I keep talking about (but not doing) is the route library tool. This would be integrated with the ride report tool. So if you were in the route tool viewing a route, you could see links to all the ride reports based on that route.
When you code all day long for a living, it's hard to get motivated about writing code in the evenings and weekends.
One of these days Im just going to take that bike home with me Mike and give it a gooooood washing.
