It says:

Images require a valid web address (or URL) to locate the picture to which they are pointing.  This means the image must be hosted somewhere online for RPoL to be able to find it and display it in a thread.

 Images use the image tag (<img>).  This tag has no closer.  Within the tag, the address of the image is supplied using the source attribute (src=""); the address of the image goes inside the quotation marks.



So do I find the image on google..and I mean google NOT Google Images

than copy and paste the web address..

So lets say the web address is: www.picutre.com

Do I just cop and paste www.picture.com in the thread or do I have to do

(<img>)www.picture.com(src="")

<img src="the url of the picture">

for example
<img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-AeWL8BdtsyE/UAdWq5k52KI/AAAAAAAAAMg/sIDSXJRWwXA/s640/DSC00352.JPG">
would post a picture of my dog if users could post pictures in these threads

Also, directly linking to images is typically considered poor form on the internet.  You need to download the image and upload it to your own image host (there are a lot of free ways to do that), instead.

I would rather download the image to my desk top and than put it on my thread is there a way to do that?

In reply to 9945 (msg # 6):

nope.

upload it to something like sadpanda and go from there

I do what swordchucks does.  I think that linking to your desk top would create problems if that computer was not on.  Uploading from your desk top image is stored on a server.  Storing it elsewhere for more gaming room here makes sense to me.

So example;

<img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-AeWL8BdtsyE/UAdWq5k52KI/AAAAAAAAAMg/sIDSXJRWwXA/s640/DSC00352.JPG">



 would post a picture of my dog if users could post pictures in these threads


Did he just copy this:  <img src=

and than copy the http address which was this:

"https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-AeWL8BdtsyE/UAdWq5k52KI/AAAAAAAAAMg/sIDSXJRWwXA/s640/DSC00352.JPG">

to get the image up there?

Yep.

But I would definitely get a host account to use for your pictures. Otherwise you are using someone else's website to get your picture content from. It will hog their bandwidth and they may take down the picture you are using.

Yes, if your using a direct link to somebody else's webspace, that means you have no control over what's there.  So the person who owns the site could suddenly decide to replace the images you're using.

Which might lead to you logging into RPoL one day to find an rMail telling you that we've removed a ton of pornographic images from your non-adult game, and we've banned you from the site.
This message was last edited by the user at 08:58, Wed 16 July 2014.

It's also akin to stealing if you're linking to anyone that pays for their bandwidth.  Years ago, the practice was to replace the image you were leeching with a message about how you were stealing their bandwidth.  I wouldn't be surprised if some people weren't taking horrible steps like BBR describes these days.

There are a LOT of free webhosts out there.  You can successfully use Google Drive or Dropbox, as well as hosts like Minus (http://minus.com/) for this purpose.

Just to clarify, the format is this (including the " marks):

<img src="website URL goes here">

I can recommend Photobucket too ... it's quick and simple for online depository of images for use in games etc.

I like Minus that is a cool site:

So I found a pic:  And this is the web site:  http://minus.com/i/bkjKWMKeDHrOi


so I just put that in my post with img src=

so it should look like this:

img src=http://minus.com/i/bkjKWMKeDHrOi


So do I need triganlges (^) in their and is their a space between img and src

Thanks for all the help everyone :)

<img src="http://minus.com/i/bkjKWMKeDHrOi"

That's exactly how you do it, just remember the <> brackets. It's the same every time.

Actually, you'll want to make sure you're linking to the image, not the web page the image is on (the above URL goes to a web page).

There should be (if that is your account) instructions for how to "embed" the image in another page rather than just linking to the page that's hosting it.

If that is not your account on Minus, you should get your own, and copy any images you want to display to it.  As several have said before me, embedding others' images is a no-no.
This message was last edited by the user at 21:07, Wed 16 July 2014.

In reply to cruinne (msg # 17):

Legal no no, or moral no no? Is it just an etiquette thing?

It's definitely a moral no, and an etiquette no.  Some people also say it's illegal though I've never heard of a prosecution for it, though technically, you can be sued for the money you cost the host (though I cannot imagine it'd be worth it financially, only really to be a crank).

It comes down to: someone has to pay for the bandwidth that's used and the server the image is stored on.

If an image is hosted on my own personal domain and you're hot-linking to, then you're actually costing me money here in the real world.  When you make an account at a site of your own to host an image you want to serve instead, you are paying for it somehow -- by paying money for the server and its connection, or by entering an email account and details to a company who then sells it to marketeers, or who shows you ads, or whatever, to compensate them for the costs.

So anyway, morally icky, pretty rude, and technically illegal.  And it is prone to get you into trouble when a host has enough of your leeching and serves super-skanky porn instead of the image you thought you were showcasing (really, it's a simple modification to a single file to do that).  As a site mod, I very highly recommend that you don't engage in bandwidth theft.
This message was last edited by the user at 22:04, Wed 16 July 2014.

I get confused with this, being a non-techie who doesn't know anything about web hosting. Is it still stealing bandwidth if you don't use the img src= and just link to the picture without showing it?

One thing you can do, 9945, is you can upload pictures from your desktop to the Game Maps. Since there are about thirty 'maps' now within a game, you could potentially post twenty-odd pictures that way, in unused Groups, but they wouldn't be in-thread. I'm not sure if it's possible/permissible to do an in-thread link to a game map.

In reply to icosahedron152 (msg # 20):

No, it isn't.  A simple link to the image means you are directing people to the site which, presumably, the owner wants.

Hot-linking simply uses their bandwidth to display the image, without them getting the benefit of additional traffic.

It's a good idea to create your own account at an image-hosting site like Photobucket, upload anything you want there, and use the link there to display the image.  That way, if the original site goes down, or someone replaces the images with something else like BBR said (Cracked has done this before when other sites stole their images), you'll still have the image on your personal site.

Could RPlay simply not create a copy and paste way of doing this?

I know I can drag images to my desk to and than drag them or paste them to my documents, facebook, etc..

You can actually do this with almost all of the picture hosting sites out there. Photobucket comes to mind immediately. Also it can give you the exact cut and paste code for your threads after you upload your pictures to your account.

When you past things onto Facebook, you are uploading the document onto facebook's webpage.  Facebook has a LOT of storage space, paid for by advertisements and the like.  RPoL has no ads, and is supported by donors.

RPoL expects you to host your own pictures if you wish to use pictures other than the game map or the avatar you can select in games to represent characters -- either on your own webspace, or another site that provides that service.

Why doesn't RPOL

Create a bunch of pictures for their site for us to you.

They could create it just like they do in terms of how they do it for the Avatar pics.

Because of the space, legalities, bandwith, time, expense, etc. that would be involved -- especially where there are alternatives already available to accomplish this.