Or is the upload first a thing to stay.
That is the way it has always been, except for people who used a mobile device app. In regards to this thing, it would be fair to say (IMHO) that they did things in a way that they didn't want to, solely to make it possible for mobile app users to upload images
at all.
But this is... somewhat of a guess, as I am not on the forum's staff.
I'm not sure it can change
Again, this is a guess (and much more of one than above), but I doubt that Rob wants to change the general method for using images here. It has been this way for at least nine years. Having an actual "image gallery" setup allows people to place photos in any thread - as opposed to only the ONE thread that the original uploader posts it into. It also allows the forum's "watermark" to be added to each and every cannabis-related image. We even have at least one contest that involves members hunting for images in the gallery section that they feel are especially nice for one reason or other.
It is, of course, entirely possible that they are trying to figure out a way to make the whole process easier for those who access the forum via a cell phone or tablet. But I do not expect the general setup to change markedly.
Personally, I would love to see another mobile app get produced, because that would allow them to stop trying to make the actual website "mobile-friendly" (at the cost of making things more difficult for those of us who use a laptop or desktop computer). But this is a business, too, AfaIK, and it may not make financial sense to develop two more or less separate products. Not unless this new forum causes such a drop in members/visits that ad-revenue (etc.?) begins to noticeably suffer. It has been my experience that the average person these days will put up with quite a bit of hassle/inconvenience if they want something bad enough, lol, so I do not expect the activity level to drop a great deal (if any). And, while the forum as it was before was a wonderful, beautiful thing that functioned very well from the users' end, the
content here has not changed.
I did some "looking around" this week, and while there are
many more cannabis-related forums than there were even five years ago... There still are not a great many where there is a positive attitude that is comparable to this one. We have a great deal of information for the grower - more than most other cannabis-related forums. And, while we appear to be a bit lacking in some "technology/science" stuff, the forums that seem to have the most such information seem to be the ones where there are no real rules about how members should treat each other (unless you count "free-for-all flame wars okay"
. And our medicinal cannabis information is still unmatched, IMHO. Therefore... No, I do not expect the average user to drop out even if he/she does not like the new forum software/configuration.
Plus, since even most of the people who only access the forum via their desktop/laptop probably have some kind of "smart" cell phone, IDK, maybe there is some subtle(?) encouragement to get people to decide to use their mobile device to access it instead going on here. After all, mobile devices are the way of the future (at least that's what the people who manufacture, sell, and otherwise earn a paycheck because of the existence of the @%*# things keep telling us
).
TAPTALK was a bad bad thing
You betcha, lol. I never was one to react well to a third party being able to inject things into the content here which forced our browsers to access its servers simply by viewing a thread that those things were posted in. And I'd guess that everyone doesn't know how to block such things on their computers at the system level (although it's pretty simple to do).
They weren't even able to add the
420MAGAZINE.COM watermark to images posted via a mobile app (and, if I remember correctly, they ended up having to allow people who used 420's app to host their images on
420's servers instead of the forum's - which is a great big negative against the convenience of being able to "post one directly into a thread" (or at least that's how it
appeared to be; technically speaking, they weren't being posted into the thread at all, we just ended up having off-site image links to a 420 server
).
that is part of what is taking us longer than expected. 
