I was thinking earlier about the GALLERIES and BEST OF SHOWCASE here at PiMT which are great but not easy to find as forum postings, within a group, within the vastness of redbubble.

Then I thought I can add a FREE .co.uk domain name to my current webhosting package. How about pimt.co.uk where the GALLERIES and SHOWCASE can have their own website with all images linked directly back to members’ redbubble pages much as they are now in the forum.

The site can then be SEO’d to target an audience interested solely in painting.

It’s just an idea, I tried pimt.com but that’s already registered.

I just realized the FREE extra .co.uk domain offer expires today so I snapped it up anyway just incase the hosts here are interested.

I’m not suggesting removing anything from redbubble or PiMT but just arranging the GALLERIES and SHOWCASE under an easily searchable domain name and then linking it all back here.

This sounds great Martin. I will bmail Kafka about this, I think he may have missed this post.

Thanks Marilyn. I’ve just been in touch with my webhosts 1and1.co.uk and it will be possible to set it up with multiple admins ie yourself and the other PiMT hosts, oh and me of course as it will be hosted on my account that I pay for although it won’t cost me any more than I pay already for martinkirkwood.com

If the others are interested I can send the admin login details once it’s set up so we can all edit it.

Still just an idea. Keep me posted.

Hi guys, sorry I did miss this first time round Martin – it sounds like a good idea – I have to admit I am not really clued up about this sort of thing but if it gives the group another link to the outside world then it sounds ok. (It took me weeks just to figure out how to add a link to the pages to go at the bottom of every e-mail that I send..!)

Can I suggest speaking to Sam about it or dropping in on his thread with the idea to kick it about a bit. (the guys there seem to know what they are talking about.)

ps. sorry Martin, forgot to thank you for the time and effort and community spirit you have shown.
good man!!!

Thaks kafka, I’ve chucked the idea into Samuel’s thread.

I’m no expert at website hosting or building but I have spare space on my exising account to host a gallery similar to martinkirkwood.com

My current package will only allow 12 pages at pimt.co.uk and 14 GALLERIES won’t fit.

I might have to leave the experimental digital one’s out if everyone is OK with the idea.

I can put the SHOWCASE and most of the GALLERIES online at pimt.co.uk Just need a “Yes, go for it.” from the rest of the PiMT hosts and redbubble admin.

Forgive me for rambling but I do sometimes run with an idea and get slightly ahead of myself. I DON’T WANT TO TREAD ON ANYONE’S TOES BUT PLEASE SAY YES.

Some of my ideas are rubbish but this one might be BRILLIANT.

I don’t quite understand why you want to take any images or galleries away from RB and put them elsewhere? Maybe I am just misunderstanding.

You could just forward http://pimt.co.uk to the group home page here. Or any other page here for that matter.

Not that I have any images in the group (at the moment) but I would not be giving anyone permission to host any I do add anywhere other than at RB. Unless of course I agree otherwise on an image by image basis.

As I said, I have no images in the PiMT group (at the moment) so it is a moot point personally and I only raise it to trigger thoughts/discussion on how you might deal with copyright issues if you proceed.

I’ve just had a look at what you’ve got so far, and it looks really good how you’ve set it up.

revad is right about the permission thing even just out of courtesy.

So from my understanding it would be something like a real gallery with different room and each individuals image linking back to their redbubble page.

On the home page we could give an introduction to the web space similar to the introduction in the Best of Showcase.

Let me know if I’ve got it wrong.

Martin this would be get to showcase the works because forum threads do have their limitations when it comes to presentation! This is a great idea and thank you so much for being so proactive. Big Hugs!!!!

Hi revad,

I have no intentions of taking anything away from redbubble or PiMT just giving the Galleries and Showcase a searchable home.

Yes Marylin. You’ve got it spot on. The galleries and showcase will have there own online gallery outside of the forum threads that are hard to ffind.

People will still upload images to redbubble and the Galleries threads as they do now and redbubble and PiMT wont change.

There will just be the Galleries and Showcase under one roof at pimt.co.uk and all linked back here.

I’ve emailed redbubble HQ to ask if this is OK and the permissions issue is exactly why I haven’t populated the pages yet. I’m just throwing the idea around in a public open forum at the moment. I’ll let you know what redbubble HQ think if I get a reply.

A suggestion: why not also write a ‘links’ page with brief (e.g. thumbnail image and text only) links to the overview page of each individual member of PIMT?

Yes Carson. Great idea and exactly the sort of thing I have in mind.

Just waiting for more feedback and clarification of the permissions issue.

The homepage could also have a link for others to join PiMT here at redbubble and it can all be searcheable for people interested in painting.

Hi Martin, a great idea and good on you for grabbing the free domain name.
Just thinking – this could be wonderful, but it could result in a bit of work for you? Would you be pasting the code from RB into your html page at pimt.co.uk?

What if, to save your time and workload, we could use the pages of your domain as a ‘shell’, and somehow embed the RB page inside your document? That means it’s updated automatically as it’s linking directly.

That way the home page of your domain could be the RB overview page, you could have a link for galleries and showcase as you do now which display those RB pages, and a ‘people’ page too.

I googled it last night and there are many ways to do this using SSI which I’m thinking your hosting may not support (Classic ASP and ASP.net), and a few wasy to do it using javascript.

Just an idea!

If he just used the embedded redbubble adverts you get in the “promote” section of each members pages then it would get around his need to upload or even choose the images himself. It may also avoid any legal issues.

I could be wrong…but I thought that code was static, ie once you paste it in, the pieces that are displayed remain until you repaste code. ie if you upload new works it will not update.

But hey, we’re painters right? Paintings take time to do…don’t think any of us ‘mass upload’ :)

The flash widgets however call images directly from your RB images folder. So new stuff will be included.

However you don’t have much choice about the works that pop up in the widget, and the arbitrary square cropping is not particularly flattering to some artworks (mine especially!).

To ease workload and get around the permissions thing, the flash widget could be embedded for any member that agrees to be part of it?

I think it may be a bit dynamic, the flash animation piece certainly is.

Let me have a squizz at the code.

Hi firedrake.

There are two ways I can populate the pages.

Either use the already existing image URL’s and link to them which is the easy way but if anyone removes an image from redbubble you’ll just get that little square with a red cross in it. which will look rubbish and unprofessional.

The hard, time consuming way that I prefer is to copy the files manually to the pimt.co.uk resources directory.

Subject to the permissions issue.

One thing to remember is that information embedded in ‘flash’ code is virtually invisible to search engines, so having this be a flash-heavy site would defeat the original purpose.

Yes, it is static. I just tried it here
If you view source, you can see it specifically names image files.

Only 12 show too…from the looks of it I think they correspond to the most ‘popular’ (ie views/comments) of my pieces.

Yes that’s right Carson, search engines don’t crawl text embedded in flash and the widget is images anyway. To get around that there’d need to be text next to it with relevant info.

Martin, if you’re prepared to do this, I can help with CSS to maybe make it easier for you – do you use style sheets?

The biggest issue I can see is the legal side. we all agreed contracts for redbubble to display our work.
Martin would have to write something similar to protect himself from prosscution.
Those showing the work would also need legal agreements to make sure he doesn’t try to sell the domain or advertising space or defame anyone or misrepresent them in any way. The legal nightmares that could arise from this are mind boggling.

Now i have to be the person my genes make me. A Durkin

Obstinate the Dourer Kin

So he goes with the whole cold water thing.

While WE all know what PiMT stands for it’s also a misspelling of PIMP or P.M.T since search engines use instant correction and weight a great deal on the domain name, we could find our PiMT site attracts all the wrong visitors anyway.

Plus one of the first miss address your going to end up at is.

Great for the stressed out executives.

Also I wouldn’t really worry about PimT.co.uk helping with traffic. Redbubbles has a rank 4 on google. PimT.co.uk will be rank 0 so it will essentually be invisible.

plus if you just type in painters in modern times in google

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=painters+in+modern+times&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

The Redbubble page is on the first page of results.

But if Martin really does want to go to all the trouble, both legal and time wise and can get more then the handful of regular people who post on here to sign up to it, I’m sure it will be an interesting site.

Sorry Martin, I know you have the best of intentions, but if you are copying images and making them available elsewhere without explicit permission, then you are very much in breach of copyright.

Indeed even if you hot link from your pimt.co.uk site to any image here without explicit permission you are again in breach of copyright. By ‘hot link’ I mean display the image by sourcing it from RB every time the page is loaded.

My only motive for raising these issues is to prevent some good people becoming embroiled in the inevitable legal quagmire that would follow.