{Membership Issue} Can't view attachments

[Lambsmedia]

Hello,
I used to be able to view attachments (JPEGS,PDF,ETC) when logged in. Now it tells me I don't have enough forum permission to view these items. Is it something i'm doing wrong?

Thanks,
Brian

[fwright0408]

I just realized this same issue myself. Any help would be great. Thanks.

[[Admin] osborn4]

To see attachments, you must be a ProMember, which not only gives you access to attachments, but also the entire Media eXchange Center (MXC).

[[Admin] danroth]

Unfortunately, many people were using the attachments to distribute items which should have rightfully been placed in the MXC. Therefore, attachments are now only available to PRO members. We're very sorry that this change was necessary!!!

[dewknight]

I think this change really goes against the helpfulness that a forum is, but I can sort of understand why this change was made. The membership is definitely worth it but some people may only want to see one little thing that was part of a thread, and will move on to other sites.

[[Admin] osborn4]

What if we put them in photobucket and use the img tags for technical images rather than media?

[[Admin] danroth]

Attachments were always intended to be for illustrating conversations, not for sharing media. However, despite frequent reminders their use for sharing media was growing, not declining.

Any solutions would be greatly welcomed!

[dmerchen]

I too have found it somewhat limiting, while I understand the need for support, it seems a little restrictive. Was the issue with people sharing media because of resource usage, or simply a ToS agreement type of problem? If resources are the issue, perhaps some type of offloading would be possible, perhaps through the API provided by imageshack, as this would lessen the demand for bandwidth, and http requests to this server. Of course, if it's a ToS problem, the above solution is useless. What of a post count limitation for attachments, would that lessen the abuse?

[[Admin] osborn4]

Perhaps you could limit the size of attachments, so that full size media could not be posted, but illustrative pictures could be, say 300x500 pixels or so for images, but allow full size PDFs.

Just thinking "out loud".

Of course, I have no idea what it might take to implement something like this.

[[Admin] danroth]

It's a ToS issue. We pay the bills by having people get PRO subscriptions.

While many folks subscribe to support the ministry of CMN, many subscribe to have access to the MXC.

Tell you what... I'll turn attachments back on, but ask the community to be hyper-vigilant about media (including visuals, audio, and things like policy documents) not being posted (and reporting them when they are).
(I won't be able to do it right now, but should have it done within 24 hours.)

We want to be a blessing to the church in general and media ministers in particular - even those who don't subscribe. However, we do have to pay the CMN bills, feed our families, etc.

[dewknight]

Definitely understand needing to pay bills (as I work for a datacenter / webhost). I can imagine the bandwidth costs must be large. I do think attachments add so much to conversations, if they can just be used as you mentioned it would be most excellent.

Is there a listing somewhere of things that should be in the MXC? Like I posted a model release form the other day as an attachment, should I move that to the MXC?