UBB.Developers Forums UBB.threads 6 V6 Modifications V6 Mod Ideas images - upload vs. embedding

i'm not quite sure, if this is the correct place, but ok:

we're running a 5.5.1 forum and currently got a major problem with the embedding-function for pictures; people used to use images for signatures and profiles - and as quite some traffic is going on, webmasters from the pages, where the images are physically located started to complain about the "traffic-theft".
it's quite clear to us, that the feature itself is the problem, because we're in no way legally entitled to embed pictures from somebody's server.

so we turned the image-feature off, but now our users aren't satisfied.

the only solution could be, to upload the images to our server - and that's my question:
- is the upload feature for pictures (signatures, profiles, text entries) in vers. 6.x already integrated?
- is there an admin-check for the uploaded pictures? should be some way of moderation for the pictures, so that admins have to check the pics before they are available

thanx in advance

- is the upload feature for pictures (signatures, profiles, text entries) in vers. 6.x already integrated?

The images for profiles is already integrated in 6.0.2. You click to upload a picture and it uploads it and stores it with the user's usernumber. That way if they want to upload a different one, it simply rewrites over the old, and you never have "extra" profile pictures sitting on your server. As far as signatures and text entries, it's not as integrated. You can certainly allow the users to make a post and use the attachment feature to upload a sig. picture, then it will store it on your server. The user could link to that pic and it would be pulled from your server. Same with pictures in text files.

- is there an admin-check for the uploaded pictures? should be some way of moderation for the pictures, so that admins have to check the pics before they are available

There isn't any kind of check as far as whether the pic is appropriate. You can specify what types of files you allow to be uploaded (for example, we don't allow .bmp because they are often large files and because our Mac owners don't always see them). You can also specify the maximum size you want uploaded.

And you can specify the image dimensions too. 80x80 is the default.

Set low limits on the file size that people can upload cause it encourages them to send you small files.

The image size is just the way the image will be diplayed on your forum pages, so if somone uploads a 2 MB image that's 1600 x 1200 it will be displayed in a 80 x 80 "window" (or whatever you have your image display limits set to), but the entire 2 MB file still has to download from your server to their PC...

I think I have my limits set to around 10 KB max.

[]so if somone uploads a 2 MB image that's 1600 x 1200 it will be displayed in a 80 x 80 "window" (or whatever you have your image display limits set to), but the entire 2 MB file still has to download from your server to their PC...

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that's totally true - and it is the problem we're encountering today - except that the images are not on our server but on somebodyelse's, which makes the problem much worse, because it's illegal and totally unfair to produce traffic for some other site in this way.

Well, in 6.0.2, there is a "bug", so that once a user uploads a pic to store on your server, it no longer allows them to replace it with an outside linked pic. To change the pic, they have to replace it by uploading another pic. So, you could install 6.0.2, upload a 1x1 transparent .gif, and set everyone's pic to that. Then if they want to have a pic, they'll have to upload one to your server -- they won't get a choice of linking from an outside source. If they don't want a pic, they'll just have a 1x1 transparent and they shouldn't know/care anyway. Does that make sense?

Your members should be responsible and not put their images on a site which prohibits this activity. They can use a site which does not mind, or not do it. Perhaps you should add to your usage policy that if they are accused of bandwidth theft on their board used images, their account will be deleted. Pretty harsh, but they are breaking the rules of their site's hosting isp, and they are certainly needlessly wasting time of the board admin who has to handle complaints from an isp. I have been on both ends of the issue here, and it is not fun for either. Mostly just a waste of time due to people being dishonest or just ignorant. Gee, I sound so harsh, but it's such a waste of everyone's time to deal with this kind of needless junk.

expanding board policy in the way you described it is certainly a good idea!
most annoying is that users link pictures they find anywhere in the web - probally most likely through google's image search
most users don't put the pictures on their own webspace, which wouldn't be a problem (this is probably because the users on our forum are teenagers)

thats a nice bug! and a creative way to deal with it!

I totally agree with what Aglavalin is saying about making it policy. We have that in our TOS, and we've "lectured" (nagged? ) about it, written very long discussions of it, etc., but there are still people who don't have a clue they are doing something wrong. I usually refer to it as "AOL Syndrome". Between Walmart (and any similar stores) selling computers in their video game departments, and AOL sending people a disk every week, it's made it much easier (way too easy) for people with absolutely no knowledge of computers to get on the internet and become a user at our sites. For the most part, that's great. But it means we're stuck trying to explain things that many of us just take for granted that we know.

Sorry, stepping down off my soapbox now. I have strep throat and have to go to school in a little while, and I don't get home until almost midnight, so I'm probably just grumpy.

Oh, I almost forgot! To prevent the opposite problem (users linking their pics on your server to other sites, or even just other sites linking to your pics) you can set that up your .htaccess file (if you have one available, I don't think all servers allow for this file? )

For example, in our .htaccess file, I have it set like this:

code:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://fishingfordeals.com/.*$     [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.fishingfordeals.com/.*$ [NC]
ReWriteRule .*\.(gif|jpg|png)$      -       [N,F,L]

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With this piece of code, your server won't serve pics unless the referrer from the person's computer is coming from your site. If someone is on another site and your pic is linked there, they will just get the little red x -- no picture. We pay $200 a month for our bandwidth, we can't afford for people to steal it.

Most of the people who steal bandwidth are probably not aware of what they are doing. It's like someone who gets behind the wheel of an automobile without reading the drivers handbook about rules of the road. Then they plead ignorance of the fact that you are not suposed to run people over on the sidewalk.

Is the judge really gonna care that you 'didn't know?' I think not, LOL

[]Is the judge really gonna care that you 'didn't know?' I think not, LOL

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Depends if you have a good enough lawyer! (That's a joke, I'm finishing law school this year. )

We had to add this to our .htaccess file, and it seems to have solved the problems of other sites linking to our pictures.

We had a "Celebrity" and his message board/fan club come and make a "joke" out of our site, and link to a bunch of our member's pics... they did it only for about 24 hours before I figured out how to "break it", but our bandwidth bill shot up almost $200 in that short amount of time.
I had done some research, and we asked him to stop (big mistake) and threatened "bandwidth theft" and he laughed at us. Another Admin from our site went there and posted the info from his "whois" record (which apparently was his real address and phone number) and he got very angry and unleashed a "troll war" on our site for a while.

So now all our member pics sit behind an iBill protected password, we have disabled remote linking, and in our photo galleries we use a little java script code to disable the "right-click". Seems to have helped.

good ideas for solving the problem the other way round!
(by the way: does anybody know the css-tag for disabling internet explorer 6 tooltip-like feature [save picture - send via email...]?)

what still strikes me, is the problem of using pictures in a forum. pictures are a cool feature, but i can't see an alternative to uploading ALL pics used in the forum on my own server.
this would solve the problem of stealing bandwith, but of course not the copyright problem.

i'd like to sum up the original problem:
the implementation of image-upload in ubbthreads 6.x is limited to user-profile pics.
so if the imagefeature for posts is turned on it's in way opening the door for bandwith-theft (to put it harsh).
is that correct?

No not really.

You can upload a profile image in version 6.... which serves off of your server... so you won't be doing any bandwidth theft.

You can also upload as an attachment to posts... which again is served off of your server.

Nothing solves the copyright thing except moderator enforcement.