Couldn’t everyone (even non-members ) on this site be allowed to see the pictures and links? Then you could make actual posting and asking questions a members- only benefit. Or maybe this is only an issue when joining is very restrictive and not an easy process. Always felt sorry for folks who desperately wanted to join other sites. They could read the posts but not see photos and access links which is essential to the enjoyment and education of the reader. You could make posting and asking questions a members - only benefit and charge a fee for this ‘full’ membership.

You would charge a fee ONLY
IF this was necessary to support the site and It was decided that this is better than ads. If you couldn’t afford the fee maybe others could donate to help or ,at the very least, you could still see the whole forum, including photos.

To be clearer , the fee idea is only to not burden one person with the costs. Could be ads or whatever. I still hope that the photos could be seen by everyone-member or not. However, Viewing them could be an inducement to join and this is OK if Membership is not held up for ages when you apply.

Before I joined Tomatoville, I would have really liked to see the pictures. I think for the purposes of this thread, we can ignore whether there will be ads or a fee. The question at hand is should the general public be allowed to see photos? It does make the information you get from the site more useful. Before I joined, I was researching tomatoes by myself and frequently the most & best information (sometimes the ONLY information) was on TV.

Do we want people to join just to look at the pictures? We will be performing a public service by having our threads available to the public. I think pictures would add to that.

The biggest problem I see allowing public viewing of the photos without joining is piracy of other peoples photos. It has happened before, I believe to people on TV even, when their photos started showing up on commercial sites and in Ebay ads. It is quite easy nowadays to copy a photo. Hopefully, there is would be less of a chance that people in a closed community would do this to each other.

I absolutely agree with Sue. It is very upsetting when your photos have been pirated. Membership viewing protects our rights and if people really want to learn and see, then they will join happily.

OK, Ladies! I'm here for suggestions, I can see both sides but I need to know what direction we want to go.

I know a few big forums I'm on don't let you see pics unless you join and some don't give full privileges without a subscription.

Should we put this up for a vote and then decide?

I vote that we vote and my vote is to keep pictures private. Thanks for asking violent Gardener. And please don't be throwing the dirt around.

I vote to keep pictures private.

I vote to keep pictures private.

You brought up a point I hadn't considered. I'm changing my vote to Keep it Private.
Nan

Do ya'll want to vote on this? We can to give more people a chance to have an opinion but I just disabled images from guests, go try it out and let me know what you think.

I'm all for having a vote on it. I don't have a real strong opinion, but if it doesn't cost the host any more money to have unregistered users view them, I don't see the point of hiding them. If unscrupulous people want to steal any, I'm sure they will have no problem registering as users and browsing many sites to do it. Considering how easy it is to take and post pictures from cell phones, there really is no excuse for stealing pictures these days. Not like in the old days when not everyone had the means and knowledge to take and upload digital pictures.

I agree with [mention]ddsack[/mention] If someone wants to pirate a picture then they will find a way. I am not sure that hiding pictures from visitors will really protect them and letting visitors see our beautiful photos may encourage them to join.

The ability to view photos was the main reason I joined Tomatoville. Otherwise, I would likely have remained content to be a read only visitor. I think that may apply to more people than just me so, it could help increase membership.

I think that there needs to be a reason for people to join Tomatojunction. Let's say an incentive..

We could have the best of both worlds if we do both of the following:

1. Make the current image upload thing members only. This is great because it reduces bandwidth, a lot (especially for all those bots that are probably trying to scan the site for changes every time someone posts). As for privacy, and photo ownership, that's not a huge concern for me personally, but I understand it is for others, and I can respect that.
2. Add additional functionality for an off-site public image upload. A lot of ProBoards gardening forums do this with the 'Simple Image Upload' plugin. Since the images are hosted off-site (by imgbb.com), it won't affect TomatoJuction's bandwidth, but people can see these pictures without registering. It's a pretty nice service available to forums and forum-users generally (not specifically just ProBoards); I'd recommend taking advantage of it. Uploading lots of images fast is easy with this service; they load fast, too.

As an alternative to number 2, you could keep the public images on-site, in order to have more control. But, it'll take more bandwidth.

I personally would opt for the public image upload probably 299 times out of 300, but other people are different. So, if we allow both, that might make everyone happy. People would still post private images (so there's still incentive).

I might suggest allowing users to tag a custom license onto images that they upload to the site itself.

I have unlimited bandwidth so no worries there. I'm trying to make the site easy to load pics. You can find an image online, right click, copy image address and post it in your response then highlight it and click the image icon.

Uploading is easy too and I just found a new plug ip that will allow us to copy and paste right in the post!!!!!!

But I have to wait till the transfer is over.

I say don't make pics available to the public. If they see a pic they like they can steal it. If they don't see the pic they can't steal it.

Not that I condone stealing people's images for commercial use or to pass off as your own, but you have to realize that if you are putting them on the internet other people will have access to them. While I agree with keeping the images viewable to members only that will not keep someone from joining just to get the images. I will cross-post a suggestion to the rules that the ownership of any images is that of the poster or site and the use of any images on this site without express written permission is not allowed and reason for punishment including immediate banning.

I'm in favor of only allowing members to see photos. The site was easy to join and I can't see a downside to giving members the ability to see pictures while limiting guests.