Okay, folks, we've had the discussions. Time for a show of hands.

PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT a moderator/administrator, this poll is completely "unscientific," and the management can ignore this completely.

This covers the type of photos we have discussed on this forum recently: links to vintage images for the sake of "here's a nice picture of X&Y 23 when she was on the X&Y", NOT current "news" photos, images posted as part of an informational query or a response to same (for example, the Wabash passenger car photo posted in response to Tim Stuy's informational query about surviving Wabash passenger stock), or photos illustrating progress or restoration on a railroad item (say, "then & now"). Just in case someone wants to debate "news," I'm arbitrarily saying "anytime in the past two years" counts as news.

I'd click on the 4th option, except I don't want to see the photo links on a separate page somewhere. IMO they belong within the Interchange...just not mixed in with every other topic on the list. So I guess I'm saying I'm not thrilled with the options you've provided as written.

*scratches head............. repeatedly.....*

So.............

You want them IN the Interchange............. BUT NOT "mixed in with every other topic on the list"..............

About the only way I see to properly segregate the two given those conditions is to make the Interchange two side-by-side columns, one for discussions and the other for photo links. Ain't gonna work, given most people's monitors.

Would you want the Classifieds mixed in as well? Or make all three/four (Interchange, Flimsies, Classifieds, "Photos/Nostalgia" or whatever it's called) separate pages?

YES, exactly. My thought was to position the photo links as ONE regular topic here, but "stuck" permanently at the very top of the topic list...as in "sticky"...as in, THE very first topic...forever. Label it, "Awesome Photo Links" or whatever. But everyone would know where to go to add them, and see them.

I agree that currently (sometimes) there are simply too many individual posts containing one photo link each, and that many interesting threads are getting pushed onto page 2 and 3... This would solve that dilemma.

Why must every photo warrant its own topic? If someone has 5 really neat historic, preservation photos to show, why can't they all be put into one topic? Why the need for 5 separate ones?

As far as the sticky on the top, that would work best if there was a way to REVERSE the order of the posts, so the newest ones show up on top. Then you don't have to do the search towards the bottom of the thread for the latest...

Well... then that solves that problem.

(I never was one for reading instructions)

I respectfully decline to respond.

Well, no, actually from what I know of working with PhpBB (the software around which this and many other forums are constructed), we can't easily add a permanent "top post" for "photo links" unless we want to make the moderators work harder to assign and reassign the "sticky" continuously.

So, answer this: aside from apparently your own personal preference to keep photo links as "first and foremost," what is accomplished with keeping the photo links in the Interchange that isn't accomplished by maintaining a separate Classifieds-like forum? I can see the case if we're entertaining a lively discussion over just where/what "mystery 0-4-2 saddletanker 2" is today, but not for what, for want of a less snide way of putting it, is "just another" photo of CP 972, UP 4466, or A&WP 290 in service.......

Keeping the photo links as a sticky topic at the top of the list will keep the links here...and not send them somewhere else...pretty simple. I like them, and I think we're just trying to figure out a better way to incorporate them into the Interchange.

You're right, it's not truly necessary, but I think these photo links (which someone went to the trouble of finding for all of us to enjoy) are certainly worthy of at least being given their "own spot" on the Interchange.