Add Attach Feature to Private Squadron Forums

[MachNix]

Add the Attach feature to the Additional Options to the private squad forums.

It would be nice to have the ability to easily share films, such as training films, between squad members that would like to see them.  Currently the only option is to find a place to host the file and add a link in the post, or send it as an email attachment.

[MrKrabs]

Add the Attach feature to the Additional Options to the private squad forums.

It would be nice to have the ability to easily share films, such as training films, between squad members that would like to see them.  Currently the only option is to find a place to host the file and add a link in the post, or send it as an email attachment.

Or start you can start your own squad forum

[Krusty]

Don't think that will happen. EVERY attachment becomes part of the BBS database. Every single one. It's only allowed in a couple of select sub-forums (basically screenshots and the skins forum where you need to post your screenshots of work you've done on skins -- I can't recall any others allowing it, except maybe bug reports forum?).

The amount of rubbish attachments in any given squad sub forum (and I'm not picking on you, EVERY squad would do it, mine included!) would bog down the entire BBS in very short order with probably hundreds of thousands of attachments in a very brief period.

Think of how many squad sub forums there must be, and how chatty they all are.

It would be a bad move for the forum, which already has occasional "slow-down" periods as it is.

[MrKrabs]

Don't think that will happen. EVERY attachment becomes part of the BBS database. Every single one. It's only allowed in a couple of select sub-forums (basically screenshots and the skins forum where you need to post your screenshots of work you've done on skins -- I can't recall any others allowing it, except maybe bug reports forum?).

The amount of rubbish attachments in any given squad sub forum (and I'm not picking on you, EVERY squad would do it, mine included!) would bog down the entire BBS in very short order with probably hundreds of thousands of attachments in a very brief period.

Think of how many squad sub forums there must be, and how chatty they all are.

It would be a bad move for the forum, which already has occasional "slow-down" periods as it is.

Even more reason to just start your own squad forum 

[Skuzzy]

At one time we had this enabled.  It was severely abused.  Players were posting things they could link to, from other sites.  The content of those images was not something HiTech Creations wanted to be associated with.

If I could restrict the attachments to Aces High Films only, then we could think about it.  Unfortunately, those restrictions are for the entire bulletin board system.

[MachNix]

At one time we had this enabled.  It was severely abused.  Players were posting things they could link to, from other sites.  The content of those images was not something HiTech Creations wanted to be associated with.

If I could restrict the attachments to Aces High Films only, then we could think about it.  Unfortunately, those restrictions are for the entire bulletin board system.

I was hoping that having it just in the private squad forums, where the attachments are not viewable by the entire AH community, would limit the amount of abuse.  My next "wish" would have been to have the ability to update/delete attachments/posts so the squads could police themselves.  But apparently no one has the ability to control themselves, which is the right position HiTech Creations should take.  I had my blinders on and was only thinking about FSO squads where the players tend to be a little more professional.  Thanks for responding. 

[Skuzzy]

Once you have the image uploaded, you can use the direct image URL to view it from anywhere and that is what was being abused.  We have always respected the privacy of the squad forums, which ended up contributing to the problem as we have no idea what was going on until someone from an external site told us about it.

It is unfortunate.

[MachNix]

Yes, leave it closed.  I can see now how someone could use it to host some bad stuff.  If the private forums had this feature our squad would use it, but there are alternatives we can use such as attaching films to emails.

But if it where something worth thinking about, maybe a script could be written to search just in the private forums and delete any attached files that do not have the ".ahf" extension.  The script could run on some schedule like once a day.  I have no idea if something like that is possible or even practical.

Thanks for the background information defining the issues.

[No9Squadron]

We run our own squad forums - outlaws.freeforums.org

It works just fine having a private section there.

There's actually little that we don't want to share with the public, it's beneficial for the site, the squad and introducing new players into the game.