New "Ski Route Photos" section?

Ok, easy issue first: posting of photos. The way it works right now for inserting a photo into a TR, the photo file must reside on a computer which is always connected to the web and which is set up to share files on the internet (a "server"). While some people have a home computer set up as a server, most don't, and this means that you need to upload the photo file from your home computer to a server. This is generally not a big issue though, because there are lots of free photo hosting sites, and most people have "web space" on a server with their ISP account where they can place the photo files. Then, it is just a matter of inserting a photo link into the TR, pointing to the actual file (the "YABBC tag" button third from the right inserts the code).<br><br>I theoretically could set things up so that my server (where TAY is hosted) would accept photo uploads, but I don't really want to do that for several of reasons. One, I don't have a lot of extra space, I'm constantly filling it up more, and I'm not sure I want to get into opening up my server like that. Two, I don't really want to take the time at this point to set this up - I've got too many other things going on, including kids and skiing.<br><br>The tougher issue: a Ski Route Photos section.<br>[A note on TR board terminology: a "board" can contain many "threads" (the actual messages), and a "category" can contain many "boards". For example, "Trip Reports - June 2003" is a "board" contained within the "category" of "2003 Backcountry Trip Reports"]<br><br>In the posts so far, I see two different levels of organization suggested. Amar seems to be suggesting that the new Ski Route Photos be a "board" (simply containing a bunch of threads, with no sub-sections possible), whereas alpentalcorey seems to be suggesting that the new Ski Route Photos be a "category", so that it could contain a bunch of "boards", each specific to a particular volcano or region of the mountains. The latter is the way that the Route Reports section on cascadeclimbers.com is set up ( www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/ubbthreads.php?Cat=&C=1 ). Neither way would be a big deal to set up, but we should get it right from the outset because rearranging it later would be a bigger deal.<br><br>The board approach (Amar) would have the benefit of being simple to browse, with all Ski Route Photos threads accessible from a single page, but could become hard to use if there ended up being a lot of threads from many different areas (threads sort by most recent post, and there would be no easy way to keep, for example, all Mt. Rainier-related threads together).<br><br>The category approach (alpentalcorey) would make browsing threads more difficult (because they would be spread across a number of different boards), but would make it easier to focus on the particular volcano/region of interest, especially if there gets to be a lot of threads.<br><br>I'm open to going either way, although my inclination is to go with the category approach (alpentalcorey), expecting that eventually there would be enough threads that we would want them subdivided by volcano/region. This approach might look something like this:<br><br>Ski Route Photos (category)<br>- Mt. Baker (board)<br>

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thread 1 (ie. photos from the north)<br>

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thread 2 (ie. photos from the south)<br>

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thread 3, (ie. photos from the east) etc.<br>- Mt. Rainier (board)<br>

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thread 1<br>

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thread 2<br>

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thread 3, etc<br>- Mt. Adams (board)<br>

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thread 1<br>

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thread 2<br>

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thread 3, etc<br>- Other WA volcanoes (board)<br>- North Cascades (board)<br>- Central Cascades (board)<br>- South Cascades (board)<br>- Oregon volcanoes (board)<br><br>This is just for illustration purposes - the specific boards would need to be decided on. Please post additional ideas/preferences.<br><br>

I'm all in favor of the idea of multiple boards. I didn't realize that it was an option, or that you (Charles) were leaning in that direction. But I don't know if we should sub-divide into too many separate boards, like separate boards for Rainier, Adams, etc., since there would logically only be a few possible threads in each single-mountain board. <br><br>Looking at the trip reports posted here, the majority are obviously from WA, with most of the remaining reports from OR, CA, and BC. So perhaps we could have 3 or 4 boards for WA (Northern, Central, Southern, perhaps also Olympics), with one board each for OR, CA, BC, and Other Regions. Is it a lot of work to sub-divide the boards further in the future if needed? I'm not really sure how many route photos will actually be posted, and for how many different mountains. I think this should be adequate for at least the next year or more.<br>

Charles - Not all of us are very familar with the coding necessary to insert a photo. Could you add examples to your photo guidelines to help the near illiterate . I find even one photo greatly increases the value of a TR.<br><br>If you do create sections for route photo's it would be nice to build an archive by having people submit from past reports. With the date included it could give a perspective of how route change month to month, or with heavy/light annual snow fall.

Russ, I have added how-to info to the photo guidelines thread. Please let me know if it is not clear or you still can't get a photo to show up in your post.<br><br>It sounds like we are pretty much in agreement about the new route photos section. I will go ahead and construct it along the lines of Amar's latest suggestions. Moving a lot of threads from one board to another (or a new one) involves quite a bit of time and clicking as things work right now (one thread at a time), but I seem to remember that there is a YaBB modification available that would enable me to do it in groups of threads, which would make splitting boards very easy. I will look into that modification.

I finally got back to working on this new section. I've posted the guidelines in the North Cascades section (I will copy this to each section eventually). I also had to decide what the definitions of North, Central, and South Cascades would be. I thought about using Beckey's 3 divisions, but it seems like this would give too much emphasis up north, so I have defined the areas like this:<br><br>-North Cascades: north of Stevens Pass to Canadian border<br>-Central Cascades: north of Crystal Mountain through Stevens Pass<br>-South Cascades: Columbia River through Crystal Mountain (plus Olympics)<br><br>I am open to other ways of dividing up the Cascades, so please post your opinion. After this matter is finalized I will open up the new boards and let the posting begin!

How 'bout we make the division between South and Central everything north of Naches Pass? That way most of the questionable hikes and tours north of Crystal get included without question.