I'm currently planning a major addition: image hosting. Many people who use the forums post images of their cars, their latest accident, race photos, etc. In many cases links are broken or blocked with the various 3rd party sites that are available (imagestation.com, etc.)

There is a major hardware and bandwidth upgrade planned for 2003 to support the new features that are in the works. The forum is financially stable- much of this because of your donations many months ago allowed us to rebuild and regroup.

Since the resources required to host people's images are significant, I have been considering charging a small monthly fee. Now, the details haven't been worked out, but we can definitely make it worth your while. There will probably be a few levels to choose from, since some people might only want to have a few images online. Example: 1MB for $2/mo, 5MB for $3/mo, 10MB for $4/mo, 20MB for $5/mo. Keep in mind many images, even decent ones, aren't more than 100k in size.

I'm going to do some more research on this, but I think it will be a valuable addition to the forum. There will be no limits on where you can link to your images, so you can host them here and easily link to them from another forum or even your website. You'll be able to add captions and people will be able to leave feedback. You will also be able to have movies, but bear in mind the disk space requirements.

Ultimately, I want this to be cheap and easy for people. Your questions and feedback are welcomed as this is a major addition and I want to make sure we have enough interest. Send me an IM (AIM: mixylplik3) or drop me an email (mhunt@ecin.net ) and I'll listen to what you have to say. Things are going to start changing around here, but all for the better because it's a community-driven site...

Please visit http://gallery.boatdesign.net/ to see an example of how this could work. There will be an entire attached area just for images.

Big thumbs up Matt. I'm tired of looking at broken links, and having to fumble around to log into Lycos Photos (which is going away anyway). All of those advertising driven photo sites are for the birds.

Many of us spend allot of time here, so a couple of bucks which will host your images AND help the forum is a score.

C (:-)

I've been waiting for this to come about. I think it's a great idea, count me in.

sounds good, so when someone does a write up, a month later the pictures are still there

Would video hosting also be available? I know a lot of the members have been talking about getting videos hosted somewhere, and there's really nowhere to be found.

Would linking to other sites be available, or would it be restricted to this site only?

Would video hosting also be available? I know a lot of the members have been talking about getting videos hosted somewhere, and there's really nowhere to be found.

This is something that could be made available. It would cost more but you'd get a generous amount of disk space. Perhaps $7 for 700MB? That is something that is very possible- so there will probably be a package for that, too.

Would linking to other sites be available, or would it be restricted to this site only?

You could link to your images from anywhere. Link from a website or another message board, it doesn't matter.

Good idea. I don't need it but it should be nice for people.

Good idea man. I'm in.

This is a great idea, and I hope it goes full swing. My only question is "How do we pay"? I figure you would set-up a paypal account, but for us that refuse to use PayPal (don't ask), could we send a check, or better yet a money order?

I think it's a great idea and the prices sound very reasonable. Count me in when you get it set up. I'm glad our donations were able to bring the stability to make this sort of leap possible.

As always, thanks for your ongoing efforts.

Thanks everyone for your support! I'm so happy there are so many of you looking to take advantage of this. For those that don't want to use Paypal, there will be a place to mail payment. I want this to be as accessible as possible. The tentative time frame for getting everything online is mid-January.

I think the paid image hosting is a great idea.

However, I think that the forum should support videos for free. Specifically member videos from sanctioned events...dyno, drag, road or auto-x. As a growing forum it would be nice to see videos of sr20 powered vehicles doing their stuff. The videos could be in their own section marked: "Multimedia"

You could make guidelines...For instance: must be a member registered for 30 days, no illegal "street racing" allowed, must be smaller then xxMB, must be sr20 powered (moderator's choice on that one), will not be hosted until reviewed by one of the "3 wise men." ;)

Whatcha think?

I think that a section could be added, a moderated one, for this reason. This weekend I've been transferring all my videos to one of my computers and there are a few good segments of SE-Rs being represented at the track. Once the system is online, this is something that is easily added.

Please keep the ideas coming everyone!

I'm really all for this as long as I will be able to use it. Which means as long as it is shit simple and there is no HTML involved. :)

Amen Chrissy.

It'll be easy, I swear.

Originally posted by sr20deboston
It'll be easy, I swear.

Then let me be the 1st to sign up! :D

I love this idea. Nothing is free in this world. Also, maybe this seems generic or cliche, but I think a member's ride section would be a great idea. Like instead of having a bunch of mods listed in a sig. you could have a small link to the member's ride section and it would have like a profile type thing with a pic and stuff. I like sigs. with pics and quotes that keeps everything interesting, but i think it would be more uniform to have a member's ride section to browse too. I don't know how much room it would take up, ALSO like in the member's ride section you could upload your pics to there and then say you need to use on in a post, just link it from your member's ride thing, that way its already uploaded onto the site and everything. Just my idea.....

Excellent. This whole thing looks like it will be a success. Thanks everyone who took the poll!