[ap4a]

Originally Posted by pburness

Thats just being pedantic, trivial and missing the point entirely.

It's not really. It's specific and addresses one of your original points which seems to have got lost in the twists introduced in the discussion.

Just to remind, you at first asked to be allowed to post images here, and then that it be done directly on your computer. The first has been addressed and the second point you've clarified. The rest of the discussion is a deviation which can keep going around in circles.

Having the image posted elsewhere (outside of the discussion forum) may have no value whatsover, and may even detract from an otherwise nice collection of photo's.

That could well be the case, and I don't use Flickr or any other sharing web site I use for posting to forums for that reason (unless the images are there already). But sticking to just this site for the time being, they already host people's photos for free, why would they want to escalate the cost so that they potentially host them twice in separate parts of the site? It could be that their budget allows for it, if it does then it likely should include a budget for a developer to fix the outstanding issues too.

If your database (and admittedly, I don't know which one you are using)

It's not my database, I'm an end user like yourself.

I don't see it that way, you can either improve what you have, or defend what you have.
Technically there is no reason why you cannot do as I have requested therefore no more discussion on that aspect.
Next discussion is do we want to, can we afford it, what benefits does it bring, is it a priority etc.

It's all the same discussion because it's a question of do they or do they not do it. All the reasons for and against come within that same discussion as it would be pointless to split the issue off into countless minor debates about different aspects of the same issue. However, given that, if they have the capacity for it, or the budget to scale up their capacity (including dealing with their dodgy databases) for it, then I'm neither for nor against it (as in I'd continue using the old method as I prefer to have better control of my content, including relating to terms applied to a service).

Originally Posted by Lurkalot

Precisely what I was going to say. Uploading a image directly to a post is easy, all Marcus has to do is turn the attachments on. It's built in.

Unlike IPB I wasn't aware it was built in to Vbulletin. A former colleague of mine had an IPB forum that he allowed attachment uploading on and it didn't take long for his web space to be used up entirely. Granted he didn't have a dedicated server like this site is run on, but he also didn't have as large a user base posting images to it on a regular basis like this one either.