Some help from forum admins/users (Civnet or others)

[jlvfr]

Hia folks


I work at a professional association, with severall thousand members of the same profession. We have an official forum, where our members can exchange professional (or semi-professional) messages. Pretty much a normal, everyday forum.

Only now, the boss (who fancies himself as a "forward thinking man" and "tech savy") got a suggestion from a forum user (kill it with fire!!!), saying something like "Dude! Why won't you allow us to upload files to the forum?!"

To me, as sysadmin/tech support, this sounds like a Very Bad Idea. Over the years, I visited many forums (informal like Civnet and professional/official) and never saw one that allowed this. But now I'm left with putting down on paper why it's I don't like this. Possible problems that pop to mind:
-extra file space needed in server; even if we limit the size and type of files, the space needed would grow fast.
-multiple versions of the same file uploaded, cause user A wants to help B but can't find C's original post with the file.
-possibility of virus in attached files; we would need some form of extra anti-virus for this.
-how far does our responsability for these files extends, as forum admins/owners.

I know that there are sites/online services that allow for file storage, which can then be linked to others. Can someone point to 1-2? Capable of handling docs and pdfs.

I'd apreciate if anyone came up with some other thoughts. I haven't slept much in the last 3 days (overwork is a b$tch...), so my brain is going into a freeze...

[Genocidicbunny]

Rapidshare.com
Sharebee.com
Megaupload.com
Zshare.com


Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.