Posting Pics in topics.

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Lord k
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Posting Pics in topics.

Post by Lord k »

Im just making a suggestion that it is about time that Druchii.net allowed putting pictures directly into topics rather than just linking to them.

Druchii.net is the only forum i frequent that doesnt allow it.

I also dont really see why it is a necessary rule anymore. Surely if one is browsing the P+M forum they are wanting to look at the pictures. To me anyway it is just an annoyance having to click on all the links and end up with like 10 seperate webpages to look at.

I think the only time it would cause problems would be if people put in stupidly large pictures or a ridiculous number of them, but surely a little common sense from the moderators could easily be applied.

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Post by Eldacar »

It isn't allowed because some members are still on Dial-up speeds (yes, those poor underprivileged people do still exist), so having large pictures in the thread itself means that it will be incredibly slow to load for them.

I'm not going to argue for or against here, but that's the reasoning used for the rule in case you didn't know. :)
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Post by Fr0 »

Exactly.

We need to be considerate for those whom are still on dialup.

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Post by Kida »

But how many members are still on dialup? My guess is less than 1 in 20...

My point is, how long will this forum considerate dialuppers? Because there will always be a couple of people with ancient modems...perhaps it is (or will soon be) time to reconsider?
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Post by Linda lobsta defenda »

my main beef with pics in a thread isnt the speed, it is the size! sometimes .. rather all too often people refuse to resize them meanign i have to scroll all over the place to rad the thread.
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Post by Ilokir lúinwë »

I agree, it isn't that hard to provide a link in a post. I think it is much better the way it is now. .
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Post by Gnosis »

On a forum I occasionally visit, it is possible to post pics, but they can be no larger than 400x300 or something. Perhaps an idea?
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Post by Cenyu »

I have to say that I like the "stream lined" appearance the disallowance of directly posted pictures provides (especially together with the relative rarity of annoying and waste-of-space signature pictures) - leaves more room for actual discussion and the threads can be accessed easily without having to wait for pics to load and the need to scroll down dozens of screens.
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Post by Rork »

Linda Lobsta Defenda wrote:my main beef with pics in a thread isnt the speed, it is the size! sometimes .. rather all too often people refuse to resize them meanign i have to scroll all over the place to rad the thread.


Aye. I find it is the way that pictures tend to "bloat" a thread that is the problem. You can't always keep a picture in context of the text around, and it's a pain if you've read the thread before and the pictures "push" the most recent post somewhere off-screen (a minor annoyance, but it gets wearing after a while).

It's even worse if the picture is wider than the screen - scrolling down is one thing, but having to scroll sideways for an entire page because of a picture or two is frustrating.

It might be an idea for people to group related pictures in their photbucket (or whatever) albums into single sub albums for one handy link.
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Post by Gnosis »

Only allowing pictures in P&M, where they are actually useful as opposed to spam pics in OT, with an explicit "Warning: Pictures!" in the title, would be sensible.
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Post by Rork »

Damnation wrote:Only allowing pictures in P&M, where they are actually useful as opposed to spam pics in OT, with an explicit "Warning: Pictures!" in the title, would be sensible.


But that's where pictures are posted and viewed 90% of the time, anyway. Even with broadband I don't like threads with four or five pictures in one post.
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Post by Tarbo »

If pictures are ever allowed, I believe they should be heavily restricted, which could incur extra load for the moderators. For instance, a restriction could be a size constraint, resolution constraint, having to ask a mod's permission, or something else.

Pictures are allowed in signatures (I use one, myself), and while there is a 10KB limit, some of them are still large in terms of pixel dimensions. These instances provide a very repetitive disruption in a thread.

I'm primarily against allowing images in posts, because simply saying "no" is far less prone to misinterpretation/error/favouritism than an array of "only if". I'm confident at least 80%-90% of the regular posters here can responsibly handle ability to post images, but it's the rest that worries me.

Perhaps the img-tag could be removed altogether to prevent future confusion to new members? It's a bit drastic, but if the policy is "no images"... well... ;)

At any rate, if pictures were ever allowed, I'd limit it to a kind of thumbnails.
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Post by Loki »

I have cable now, but I can remember when I used to have dial-up. One reason I enjoyed this site over all the others I visited was that I was I didnt have to sit and wait forever because someone posted a pic in a thread. All the other sites took me forever to wade through the topics with pictures in them. And while I don't have that problem now, I think that we should still consider those who do.
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Post by Ansob. »

What Tarbo and Damnation said, and more: weight limit of 50kb (enough for a nice 640*480 picture, so perhaps drop it to 30kb so people don't dump uncompressed loads on us) and size limit of 300*400. This is if we decide to allow them.

As far as I'm concerned, I see no reason to do so - because it gives the mods even more things to deal with (remember the amount of PMs we send out for signatures?), because I know quite a few people who're on dial-up and because it's ugly, and we've worked fine without them forever.

Instead, I say we allow image thumbnails, like the ones Tarbo intended to use for SAU. This means only ImageShack users could use the thubnails, but I'm sure those people who, like me, use Photobucket, will be content with sticking to links. If not, they can always switch to ImageShack or create a second version of their image resized to something ridiculous like 10*10px, host that and post it with a link to the actual picture.
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Post by Belial »

A neutral shade of black. wrote:because it gives the mods even more things to deal with


Well, as I see it(and since I'm not a mod, I truly can't tell, but...) it wouldn't be extra work. Making people resize images equals making people link to images. In my head.

If the rule is: Images allowed, at a limit of YxY pixels, the work before used to make those who either forgot or did not know the rule of no pictures, will now be used on making sure people resize their images. On the other hand, allowing people to post images may give extra work if people turn lazy, and can't be bothered to resize their images.

So Idon't know. I like pic's in threads, but I see the consequences that might loom ahead.

And about dialup users: Though it is heartless to say, we can't make take special precautions for their benefit forever. Everything, including netspeed, evolves, and the new possibilitis should be used. Sure, I've been a dial-upper once, but really, it's just the way things are on the net. But one could perhaps consult this wonderful thread: http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=44512
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Post by Fr0 »

If there were a size restriction it wouldn't be so bad. but when you have a lot of pics in a thread, it still takes a bit to load.. even with cable.

Where I can see the desire for pics, for now it might be best to leave it as is.

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Post by Eldacar »

Where I can see the desire for pics, for now it might be best to leave it as is.

Just to point something out, the only problem with this is that there will probably always be some people who are still on a dial-up connection, so the excuse 'for now' can really be stretched out over a long period of time.

And, of course, it raises the question of how many people with dial-up speeds actually go to the P&M forum, since that's where most pictures are shown.
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Post by Ansob. »

LordBelial wrote:Well, as I see it(and since I'm not a mod, I truly can't tell, but...) it wouldn't be extra work. Making people resize images equals making people link to images. In my head.


Unfortunately, you're wrong.

This is the same as the following: given the choice between yes or no and the choice between answers A through Z, knowing that only one is correct, where do you think you have the most chances of getting it right? Situation #1, otherwise known as "links only." If we allow any kind of pictures in threads, the amount of people who post pics over a certain weight or not in line with the size restrictions will be much, much larger than the number of people who post pictures instead of links under the current rules. Add to that the fact that almost everyone knows how to link to a picture rather than use the phpBB img tags whereas few people know how to resize and recompress an image, and I'm sure you'll understand that allowing images would be much more trouble than we care to handle considering the limited benefits.
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Post by Eldacar »

rather than use the phpBB img tags whereas few people know how to resize and recompress an image

It's actually quite simple - but even so, adding an FAQ in P&M with instructions on how to do it wouldn't be too hard, would it? Nobody really seems to read those, on the other hand, so it might not do all that much to rectify the situation.
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Post by Belial »

A neutral shade of black. wrote:Add to that the fact that almost everyone knows how to link to a picture rather than use the phpBB img tags whereas few people know how to resize and recompress an image, and I'm sure you'll understand that allowing images would be much more trouble than we care to handle considering the limited benefits.


Point taken. You're right there.
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Post by Sbod »

As I see it, and this is just my opinion mind, pictures in threads are unneeded and prove to be more of an annoyance as you have to scroll past/over the pictures.

It's just as easy to post a link to a picture and it makes loading times much faster, it also cuts down on page lengths which is always good.

I have always prefered D.net to other forums because of this rule that we have in place as it makes life just that much easier and better.

Just my 2 cents.
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Post by Ant »

I aggree that pics in threads are not needed. Those of you who say most people will use the option sensibly IMO are wrong. I uploaded about a dozen pics to the album of my army last night and linked to all of them from one thread. If pics were allowed in threads I'm sure I would have put them all in that thread, making a stupidly long thread of pics. This would obviously be a bad idea but, I would still want to post all the pics somewhere, and it would be just as annoying to have 3 different threads for different pics. Links are definitely the best way.

Thumbnails could be a good idea though, just to give people some idea of what they are linking to.
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Post by Tarbo »

Well, most people don't and wouldn't use images at all. ;) I count those with the percentage I guessed.
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Post by Ansob. »

Of course, we could always hardcode a limit to the number of images present in a single post (Warseer does that, IIRC), but that would just lead to people double- or triple-posting to put all the images in.

And Eldacar, what with the number of people who read the FAQ, do you really think they'll bother reading a page-long tech manual on how to make your pictures dial-up friendly?

Like I said: allow ImageShack thumbnails, which are only 3-5kb heavy at the most. Nothing else is needed.
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Post by Ant »

Of course, we could always hardcode a limit to the number of images present in a single post (Warseer does that, IIRC), but that would just lead to people double- or triple-posting to put all the images in.

Even if people do follow the rules it still won't solve the problems. We all WANT all the pics of someones army accessible from one thread. It would be even more annoying if they were all in different threads. links and thumbnails is the way to go.
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