I have been to many, many UBB Discussion boards and they can be great fun. It would be very nice if you would turn on the UBB code so we can personalize our posts. It would also be very nice to link to images on the web through the UBB code.

Please turn it on.

Hi!

Unfortunately, I am unwilling to turn on UBB or HTML codes for two reasons:

(1) DCSki is very close to exceeding its maximum monthly bandwidth allocation. DCSki is frequently getting over 12,000 hits per day, with well over a gigabyte of data flowing across the server each week. DCSki is hosted by a web presence provider, and if I exceed a monthly bandwidth allocation, I will be charged a significant rate. Although DCSki is funded in part through advertisements, many of you know that the revenue I bring in from advertisements barely covers the fixed costs of the site. (Granted, if users included images in their posts, they would often be linked to some other site.) I also regularly hear from readers with low-bandwidth connections to the Internet that are always asking for "leaner" pages.

(2) In order to add support for my banner display engine to the bulletin boards (necessary to fund the site - see #1), I have had to make modifications to the bulletin board software and web server. These modifications required "breaking" the feature that allows users to embed HTML or UBB codes within a page. (I won't bore everyone with the technical reasons, but I did spend a frustrating day or two trying to figure out alternatives. There are also well documented security implications involved in turning these features on.)

I appreciate the suggestion but, unfortunately I'm not in a position to turn on UBB codes right now. As I mentioned in another post, I'd be happy to set up pages where users can contribute their own images. As is, I think the Message Forum offers a great way for users to interact.

(For those unfamiliar with what's being asked here: the message forum software I purchased for use on DCSki includes a functionality that allows users to embed their own HTML code within web pages, for example including an image within the body of a page, special formatting commands to change color, size of fonts, etc. There can be negative side effects to turning this functionality on, and the company that produces the software recommends that the default be "off".)

- Scott