New Forum

[gnies]

Hi everyone, after reading all the discussion about the lack of picture support on this forum I have decided to create my own forum that will offer picture storage to members with no limitation. I invite everyone that would like to join this forum.  I would like to say sorry to Sean, my intend is not to hijack your forum, but to offer another option and I welcome you to join the forum I just created. I know that there is a lot of content created on this forum and hopefully that there will be good content created on the new one. I was a bit torn when I created that forum because I wasn't sure of the reaction of this community, I just hope that it will be well received because my goal was to help. Please let me know your opinions! 



[a href="http://livinliteforum.com/"]http://livinliteforum.com/[/a]

[tinkeringtechie]

Choice is good, but I'm not sure if easier photo posting is worth creating an entirely new site. Most new non-techie users have trouble posting photos no matter what the method is. Once they learn (integrated or third party) they seem to do just fine.

There are some obvious questions about a new forum that need to be asked:

It looks like it's privately hosted by your own company. I'm assuming you've got it on a shared server that has some spare capacity so it's not really any extra cost to you. That's great for now, but what happens when bandwidth and storage costs start to become a burden? What about if you change trailers, change businesses, or just don't feel like doing it anymore?

[gnies]

[quote timestamp="1433945113" source="/post/12123/thread" author="@tinkeringtechie"]Choice is good, but I'm not sure if easier photo posting is worth creating an entirely new site. Most new non-techie users have trouble posting photos no matter what the method is. Once they learn (integrated or third party) they seem to do just fine.

There are some obvious questions about a new forum that need to be asked:

It looks like it's privately hosted by your own company. I'm assuming you've got it on a shared server that has some spare capacity so it's not really any extra cost to you. That's great for now, but what happens when bandwidth and storage costs start to become a burden? What about if you change trailers, change businesses, or just don't feel like doing it anymore?[/quote]I do have a dedicated server with big capacity, a lot of forums are privately hosted and they are doing fine, actually most RV forum I go to are privately hosted. I don't think space and bandwidth is going to be any concern as I have little traffic on that server. The same question could arise here, what happens if proboards decide they shut off their service? You loose everything because you have no backup and have no control at all on your content, at least when it's privately hosted you have control over your data. Also if the new forum grows I am open to do a plan in order to keep the forum running if any of those issue you raised happen.

[djsamuel]

I joined the new forum as well, and plan on checking both.  As it is I split my time between the Goodsam Site, this site and the Fort Fiends site as well as a couple of non-camping sites. I'll just spend some less time on the Fort Fiends and Good Sam sites and concentrate on the Camplite sites as a priority.  Any way we can help people understand the benefits of the Camplites, the better.  

[gnies]

Thank you djsamuel!

[funpilot]

I wonder if there is a way to move the data from the older server to yours? 

[admin]

I have some concerns about the privately hosted forum similar to those already posted by @tinkeringtechie
I have no concern about another forum however, this one already has a strong community forming and has the backing directly from LivinLite.

[dh50]

[quote source="/post/12168/thread" timestamp="1434032228" author="@admin"]I have some concerns about the privately hosted forum similar to those already posted by @tinkeringtechie
I have no concern about another forum however, this one already has a strong community forming and has the backing directly from LivinLite.[/quote]With all due respect, Sean, if we indeed have 'backing directly from LivinLite', why are we running headlong into 3rd party photo hosting?  Has anyone even considered approaching LL with a request for assistance in this regard?  Not suggesting here that any demands be made, but rather, making a simple, respectful request for help thereby giving LL a chance to step up and and fully show forth their support for LL's 'strong community'.

As to generalized statements made by other(s) that 'non-techies' will eventually figure out how to utilize 3rd party hosting misses the point entirely!  This isn't rocket science, folks, or the 'kids' wouldn't be such a driving force in all things cyber.  Some of us intentionally choose to live life by the KISS principle.   Isn't that the basis behind LL and the great outdoors anyhow?  

[david]

I totally agree with gwbushhog. Sean, you have been much too passive in this entire debate over how to have a smooth functioning board that also allows reasonable sized pictures to be hosted. Ask LL to kick in enough to make this a first class board. Otherwise I suspect Paul's new board may prevail. BTW Paul's is about ten times faster than this board.

Forget about third party picture hosting sites. I have tried it, don't like it and this is the only forum out of 6 that I follow that doesn't allow photos. All the tutorials in the world are no substitute for the real thing. Any concerns about this board becoming an LL marketing mouthpiece are silly. If they do then it will die. Make it easy to use and it will thrive.

David

[thudd3r]

gotta say i am amazed at how much flack Sean is catching over this photo hosting thing.  people are making it sound like it is a monumental task to upload pics and link to them.  it is like an infomercial where they try to get you to buy new mop because old mop is "soooo hard" (visualize person over exaggerating how hard it is to use old mop).

Sean is offering a free platform for all of us and some people cant be bothered to go through 3 or 4 steps to link a photo (photobucket is actually 3 steps max, which is fewer than it takes to upload it directly to the site.  use an external site for a couple days and you will get used to it.  in a month you will  see that it really is easy.  and you get the added bonus of being able to link to them from any site.  you can link to them from any forum and not have to keep uploading (saved you some more steps right there) 


really...sheesh

[david]

I belong to 6-7 online forums. This is the ONLY one with this problem.

David

[dh50]

At the risk of belaboring the point, for us, it is not only about keeping it simple, but keeping it safe (if such is possible anymore).  KISS.    

[daplumbr]

There is a LOT more to running a great forum than photo insertion. The quality of the moderation, administration, search ability, and organizational sense come to mind right away. There are likely other factors too. Does anyone have the time to do a really good job of all that on another forum? Forums can turn into a real mess if not paid enough attention. And the overall number of owners of LL products may not be large enough to justify 2 forums? After all, it's not like this is a Forest River forum with a potentially huge base. As with other members, I belong to several forums, including some where there are choices. For example there are many forums for Land Cruiser owners, both directly and indirectly. I belong to the one that has the best moderation, administration, search ability, and organizational sense, etc. I simply don't want to take the time to join and participate in multiple forums on any one topic, unless they are clearly different. For example, my wife belongs to 2 different forums on drones, because one is oriented toward the flying and the other if oriented toward the photography. Although I admit I have not yet had the time to set up Photobucket for my photos on this LL Proboards, at least for me it's too soon to give up. From what I understand, it's not a lot more complex than doing a good job of selecting, sizing, and posting photos directly. My last thought for this evening is that I agree it's frustrating that storage space limitations are an issue at all; storage space is very inexpensive and getting more so all the time. Surely this is a solvable issue!

[whoofit]

Thanks for providing an alternative, Paul. I'll have a look when we get back from our trip. I don't mind using photo bucket here. But it's nice to have options like you provided. Too bad we couldn't do a plug-in to use your site for pic storage. That would tie it all together nicely.

[gnies]

Thanks for providing an alternative, Paul. I'll have a look when we get back from our trip. I don't mind using photo bucket here. But it's nice to have options like you provided. Too bad we couldn't do a plug-in to use your site for pic storage. That would tie it all together nicely.

It's probably possible to do we would need someone with knowledge on how to do a proboards pluggin