Offsite images in forum posts

[HB]

Originally HB only had support for "offsite" images, that is, images hosted elsewhere on sites like flickr, photobucket, and personal webspaces. Since April of last year, the site has had support for uploading images directly from within the New Topic and Reply window. Images uploaded with this feature are stored on HB's server. Recently I noticed a few broken image links from [img] references in the forum. A broken link scan found dozens more "missing" offsite images. These broken links occurred because the owner had deleted / moved / renamed the file, or they had abandoned their personal webspace. For noteworthy threads, I contacted the original poster(s) and asked that they upload their images to the HB server for the benefit of those who wish to read these past discussions.

Understandably, it's easy to forget about images referenced here from your photo archive. Rather than risk losing important discussion context, future posts will no longer support offsite image references. If your post contains [img] tags referring to another server, this message will be displayed when you press Submit:

Sorry, offsite images are not permitted in forum posts:

http://www.example.com/DSC2021.gif

Please use the site's Upload image... feature and resubmit your post (step-by-step instructions are available here).

I apologize for the inconvenience this restriction may cause. To make the change a little more palatable, the maximum image size has been increased to 800x800 and 160K. Please remember to resize the image locally before attempting to upload.