Hi,

Sorry I tend to forget people might not know some of the wierder terminology.

Hotlinking is when you post a picture that is hosted on someone elses site but do it as a picture instead of a link. This means that whenever anyone looks at the thread those pictures get downloaded from the other persons site costing them bandwidth.

If you post them as links however they only get downloaded when someone is intrested enough to click them - it is considered far more polite in "netiquette".

So posting this;



eats up a lot more of the sites bandwidth than this;

http://www.satanswombat.pwp.blueyond...0248shrunk.JPG


To try and stop this a lot of sites do what cornsnakes.com has and block pictures or attatchments if people are not logged in to thier forums.

We looove pictures being posted but you have to be carefull they are either on your own site or one one of the sites that allow hotlinking - places like imageshack etc.

Or indeed in your own gallery space on this site.

The only other points we require is, if the picture is not one you took yourself, you give proper credit to the owner and, if possible, get their permission or say where you found the picture.

That way they at least get the credit they deserve and everyones rights are respected - similarly if they do not want the pictures shared they should not be posted. That doesn't happen often but it has happened and the pictures were deleted.

Sorry for writing a novel but I didn't want to miss any bits out.


dr del