Hosting Maps and Player-Generated images locally

[returner]

Quick one here.. is it a viable option to host map images locally on our cantr.net/flizzle server?

My maaajor concern is that imageshack and various other hosting websites will inevitably shut down or remove the image from their servers after a certain period of time and we MAY lose a lot of content.

Does this already happen? (ie backups of images).

I plan to play Cantr for many, many years to come and plan to return to it even after I quit for many years. It's a fantastic society simulator and it's only going to get better.

[marol]

Hosting images on Cantr server is the only allowed method! No external hosting is allowed for Cantr gaming purposes.

To upload a file, please click painting icon next to the note title on the note edit page.

[EchoMan]

Yet a lot of old maps use external resources. The Black Atlas for example was broken a while back when "someones" imageshack(?) account didn't work properly. Would it be possible to query the database for external links and see how many images reside outside of cantr servers, just to see how big the problem is? Would it be possible to parse new/edited notes and remove URI's from them, since there is absolutely no need for external URI's within the game?

[returner]

Hosting images on Cantr server is the only allowed method! No external hosting is allowed for Cantr gaming purposes.

To upload a file, please click painting icon next to the note title on the note edit page.

Ah really? I recall a particular map, possibly the latest one of the Pok island (it looks all fancy), which was hosted on imageshack.

Give me a moment to confirm/find some.

[returner]

// Do not post maps on forums.
// marol

One of the more popular maps. Respectively, the notes are called "Treefeather with Resource Captions" and "Good Copy of New Map"

Out of the three maps I checked on one character, these two are hosted elsewhere (understandably.. and probably by the same user).

[marol]

Sure, people do store on external servers, though it is still forbidden.

[returner]

Okay, so I guess I'll adjust my suggestion accordingly:

To quote EchoMan; "Would it be possible to query the database for external links and see how many images reside outside of cantr servers, just to see how big the problem is?"

Following that, can we transfer them to our servers?

Following that, can we please remove the usage and availability of <img> HTML tags? .. in fact, any external links at all? (I understand the usefullness of internal links within a note for indexing purposes IG)

[catpurr]

Instead of allowing any html note content should be filtered anyway. Some simple regular expressions will do your job.

[Rob Maule]

The reason for maps with externally hosted images is that the file size limit for uploading to Cantr is very small. It's a pain to cut up your images and upload them separately, so many people choose not to.

[Piscator]

By the way, are pictures deleted from the server if they don't link anywhere anymore?

[marol]

By the way, are pictures deleted from the server if they don't link anywhere anymore?

No, they do not.

[Piscator]

Maybe they should. Or is it designed that way to facilitate tracking improper content?

[Andu]

Is there a limit to how big a picture can be?

[catpurr]

Include a (free) graphic editor, and disallow images. Saves a lot of space on the server (since vector data uses a lot of less data than images) and removes the external linking problem!

Either flash based, or HTML Canvas Element based, both work:

E.g.:
http://artpad.art.com/artpad/painter/
http://canvaspaint.org/

(Both links just about the technical possiblity, I think from these two editors both licensing models don't fit)

Add an option for players to include parts of the cantr maps they currently see.