Forum Photo Topics - MUST READ

[Bill Edwards]

Dear All

 

Unfortunately the technical difficulties with posting images in forum posts mentioned in an earlier post at http://www.fun-fairs.co.uk/topic/86293-new-forum-feature-gallery/ haven't gone away - in fact it is now at the stage where we MUST do something. I anticipated that we would have months to decide what to do, if anything needed doing at all, unfortunately that isn't the case.

 

The Forum Panel have been discussing three possible options - none ideal, but unfortunately doing nothing isn't an option:

1. Continue using forum topics to display photo sets - To continue using forum topics to display photo sets and to avoid technical problems we MUST limit the amount of photos per post. At present no one can quantify how many is too many, so we would have to set the limit unrealistically low. This would mean the vast majority of our photo submissions would be posted as several posts. I believe, and the majority of the Forum Panel agree that this is far from a solution to our problems. It would be messy and difficult to Moderate efficiently.
2. Continue using forum topics to display smaller photo sets and the Gallery for larger sets - A non starter in my opinion. We would have photos in different places and the problems mention above would still be present
3. Use the Gallery - Not perfect I appreciate, but I am slowly tweaking the software to give a better experience. Once you get used to viewing the photos in a different environment I genuinely believe it IS better - better for posting and viewing.

 

The decision by the majority of the Forum Panel is that from now, we will use the Gallery to display sets of photos posted as a collection. 

 

Things get a tiny bit complicated now  There is a distinction between photos posted as part of a post and posting of photo collections. If you are discussing a topic, such as the ID of a ride, or documenting your project and you include photos as part of that post - that is acceptable - these photos will still be welcome in the forum. Where you post a set of photos such as from a fair then they MUST be posted into the appropriate Gallery category. This applies to ALL forums, Photo Forum, Theme/Amusement Forum, Non UK Forum, Circus, Off Topic etc. Photo sets posted anywhere other than the appropriate Gallery category WILL BE DELETED. If you are unsure, please ask!

 

The Photo Forum will be CLOSED for new submissions. The topics already present will remain and will, as time allows, be transferred into the Photo Forum Archive (please see http://www.fun-fairs.co.uk/topic/85493-long-term-storage-of-photo-forum-topics/ for details)

 

If you have ANY difficulty in using the Gallery - please ask for help. The Forum Panel and I have been using it for a couple of weeks now and will be able to help you.

 

If you have ANY suggestions for improving the Gallery - please let me know and I will try and find a tweak to improve it.

 

If you can suggest any additional categories or changes to the current categories/set up, please let me know.

 

I appreciate this is a big change, but the majority of the Forum Panel and myself believe it is for the better. Your patience and continued support is very much appreciated. I look forward to enjoying your photo sets for many years to come.

 

All the best

 

Bill