General Rebelscum Photo Hosting Rules

Who The Forum Is For: This section is to give forum members the ability to host photo galleries of collectibles and other merchandise. As the Rebelscum forums are primarily for the discussion of Star Wars collecting members are expected to use the photo hosting section primarily for Star Wars content. This means, so long as your gallery is mostly Star Wars related, it's ok to have non-Star Wars content as well.

Suitability: All images must be considered PG, and so no explicit pictures are allowed. This means no adult-content even when using the galleries for Star Wars related pictures. Multimedia files and text documents are currently not allowed.

Flaming, Arguing and Profanity: It is possible to post comments about member's photos. These are under the same guidelines as the rest of the forums. If you aren't sure what is tolerated please review the Rebelscum forum rules before you post your thoughts and views.

Auctions, Advertisements and Classifieds: As with the rest of the forums, the photo galleries are not for promoting online auctions or advertising other websites. It is permissable to link from an auction page directly to a gallery in order to show more pictures, but using the Rebelscum photo hosting to directly link images on auction pages is not allowed. Using the photo galleries to host images of items for sale in the forum classifieds is encouraged encouraged. Rebelscum reserves the right to add watermarks to all hosted images.

The Final Word: To answer an often asked question about these rules, no, not everything a member could do that would be inappropriate for the forum is listed above. Sometimes, members find new and innovative ways to cause problems. As such, any member who causes problems not specifically listed above will be dealt with in a manner consistent with actions for similar issues in the past.

In any dispute about these rules and their application in the forums, the final say rests in the hands of the Administrators in general, and Philip Wise (Rebelscum’s Webmaster) in specific. If you can't play nice, you don't get to play.

Photo Hosting User Guide

Navigating The Photo Galleries

When you enter the Rebelscum Photo Hosting galleries you are presented with a confusing layout of links and images. Once you know where to look it isn't as complicated as it first seems. Below the forum header and tool bar are the following new areas:

  1. Photo Gallery Tool Bar: contains short cuts to your own galleries and albums, as well as search and upload photos links;

  2. Statistics: shows various vital statistics about the photo gallery section;

  3. Calendar: shows a table of uploads - click on a date to see what was added;

  4. Random Images: a single thumbnail plucked from a member's album.

The page space to the right of the sidebar is the main photo gallery area where you will do the bulk of your viewing. The content and layout of this area changes depending on what section you are in.

Viewing Your Photos

From the main page there are two ways to view your own photos:

  1. Photo Gallery Tool Bar: either click on the My Photos link to view a list of your photo albums, and then click on the album you wish to look at, or use the My Albums link to visit the User Albums tool page where you add new alumbs or make changes to existng albums (see below).

  2. Member's Galleries: click on the Member Galleries link to be taken to an A to Z listing page. Here you can either scroll down through all the members who are listed, or click on one of the letters to filter out extraneous members.

Using either of these routes you will come to a page of thumbnails. Click on the thumbnail to view the picture in its entirety. From the full image view you can also read and respond to comments from other users (see below).

While viewing a photo of your own you can delete a photo from your gallery. Simply tick the "Delete Photo?" box and click Submit.

Viewing Member's Photos

From the main page there are two ways to view other member's photos:

  1. Member's Galleries: click on the Member Galleries link to be taken to an A to Z listing page. Here you can either scroll down through all the members who are listed, or click on one of the letters to filter out extraneous members.

  2. Recent Photos: the main photo gallery page also shows the most recently uploaded images. Click on the image you want to look at to view it, and to be taken to the member's gallery simply click on their username in the breadcrumb trail directly above the images.

Using either of these routes you will come to a page of thumbnails. Click on the thumbnail to view the picture in its entirety. From the full image view you can also read and post comments about the image (see below), add it to your favorites, report a photo to admin, view a printable page and enable/disable emails for member's gallery updates.

Albums

An album is a sub-gallery of a member's section, and allows for further categorization. This can be done however the member wishes and Rebelscum will not place any restrictions on their usage.

While looking at your own album view (tip: use the My Albums link in the Photo Gallery Tool Bar) you can create new albums and make changes to existing ones.

To add an album to your gallery:

  1. Click on the Create a New Album link;

  2. Give the album a name (i.e Vintage Toys), a description (i.e. My vitnage to collection from when I was little.) and select if the album is private or not;

  3. Click the Create a New Album button.

If you make an album private it will not be visible to other members who are looking at your albums listing. However you will see it in your My Albums view, and a URL will be displayed below the album title so that you can copy it for those you wish to allow access to.

Once you have created a new album you must populate it with images (see below) before it is visible to other members.

To edit an existing album:

  1. Use the My Album page to see a set of links that will allow you to take action on a particular album;

  2. Upload images directly to the album in question (the same in the Images section below but with step 1 automatically filled in);

  3. Delete an album (note: deleting an album will also remove all the images within it);

  4. Edit an album (change the title, decription and other properties of the album);

  5. Change the order in which images are displayed within the album.

Please be aware that the first image uploaded to an album will become the default icon for the gallery (i.e. the album cover). Otherwise members do not have the ability to select an image to become an album cover.

It is currently not possible to create albums within albums.

Images

The hosting software automatically limits the dimensions of every image to a maximum 1024 x 768 pixels (width x height), a resolution of 72dpi (dots per inch) and a filesize of 1Mb. If the image you wish to add is below these constraints it will upload without any automatic adjustment. However if the image is larger than these dimensions it will be changed during the upload process. Please note that the resizing tool isn't as sophisticated as the software that you might have on your computer so the finished image might not be to your liking. It is recommended that you resize your picture before you upload.

Since the main purpose of the photo galleries is to host images, then the main tool that will be used is the photo uploading software. To use the Upload Photos link in the Photo Gallery Tool Bar:

  1. Select the album you wish to upload to from the dropdown menu;

  2. click on one of the Browse buttons and navigate to your image. You can upload as many as five images at once;

  3. Enter a title for the photos. This is handy if you are uploading one picture, but when adding more than one you will be able to make changes later;

  4. Enter a description of the photo. Again, this is handy when uploading one photo, but means making changes later on if you are adding more than one image;

  5. Click Upload/Submit and wait for the software to copy your image up to the server. Depending on your connection speed and image size this can a few seconds to a number of minutes.

Comments

These are to be used to make your thoughts and opinions on the content of the image known to other members. Comments will be moderated in the same way that forum posts are. Comments do contribute towards forum post counts.

To post a comment about an image:

  1. View the image you wish to comment on and scroll to the bottom of the page;

  2. Type in your comment. UBB code is implemented but clickable links that the rest of the forum has is not present. Likewise smilies/emoticons can also be used but the shortcuts are not visible;

  3. Click the Submit button.

To reply to a previous comment click on the Post a Reply link and fill in the subsequent page the same as you would above. Comments are viewed in flat mode even when you have your forum view set up for threaded mode.

If you find a comment you think is unsuitable please click the icon and fill out the page that follows. Once you report the comment you will be returned to the photo you were viewing.

If you wish to receive notification each time a comment is added to an image click on the Receive Email Updates link below the image.



If you have any other questions or comments about Rebelscum photo hosting please contact Chris Wyman.