Another no vote. And yes, we do know they can be disabled! And I have two reasons, as follow:
Slowing this board down, could be it’s kiss of death, in my opinion. It already hobbles along and that just seems like kicking a cripple. It seems to me that people are far less patient with slow loading and bad board performance than they were way back when.
It is my opinion that those people who ‘just gotta’ sometimes post a picture, are the very persons most likely to post something entirely inappropriate when feelings are running high. Effectively tossing gas onto a fire. Too many use shock value as humour, or commentary, or in place of cohesive words and thoughts, for it not to be abused.
I cannot understand why posting a link instead, is in any way limiting, other than because I can choose not to view it. We shouldn’t ‘have to’ see what anyone wants to post, surely.
Images do not increase the load on the server. Stop saying that. And you already know that upgrading the board is only a problem if you go up a full version. We are still very insecure because we don’t apply bug fixes, and it’s likely our recent problems were because of that.
As for the topic of thread: the fact is that pretty much every other message board can handle images. If ours can’t, what does that say about us? I seriously do not know another board that doesn’t allow images of some kind.
And clicking on a link means I have to open the image in another tab, and can’t continue looking at it while reading the post. Most of the time, that may not that big a deal, but it can be useful.
But, honestly, the only reason I hate it is because banning them basically amounted to letting the trolls win. People may claim other reasons for keeping it that way, but they were banned because the mods would rather punish the behavior rather than get rid of the posters–the same problem they have with closing threads instead of punishing the people who ruin it.
I hate what it says about us, but I’ve learned to accept it.
Boy, I didn’t even think about that burden. That would be a heavy burden indeed. I prefer a higher signal-to-noise ratio, so yes, keep it to the written word. No images.
Well, I don’t see how larger data transfer cannot be a burden on the server and the bandwidth. I can accept the rules of this board, and if I don’t like the rules then I can either create my own board or join another whose rules I prefer. Looks like you’ve learned to accept it, too, BigT.
For those who don’t like the rules, they can pay their fees elsewhere and join another board. The choice is theirs.
Now that we’re on the new server should be more capacity, zippier. Are you still seeing problems? How slow are we talking about here? It’s not like there’s excessive stuff to render, though it’s not a bare bones page for sure.
I’m not seeing any problems, pages render quickly for me. I’m on cable broadband and a win7 laptop … kind of an old one, not too high powered. But stuff comes up reasonably fast. I’ve been assuming everyone else has at least the same experience or even faster/more efficient, my equipment is like five years old and I could use more RAM. So what are we dealing with here?
I retain Slug Signorno at $10,000/ week to surf the Dope, and create illustrations for certain posts that catch his fancy. This would be done entirely at Slug’s whim.
I offer TPTB that I will pick up all start-up costs to this initiative (including generous bribes to the admins).
The board enables images ONLY for Slug Signorino, who is free, if he wishes, to accept (or reject) commissions from individual Dopers at rates to be negotiated between Slug and the individual Dopers.
TPTB would, of course, have the right to commission Slug drawings, and auction them off to individual Dopers, as fund-raising opportunities.
Steps 4 and 5 would not affect the weekly $10,000 stipend which I would pay Slug out of my Powerball winnings.
I recognize that Mr. Signorino might have no interest in taking part in such an arrangement. I’m just saying that it’s the scheme I would support.
I like the fact that, by keeping the board limited to words, we are required to actually USE words. It’s not that I can’t handle images, it’s that I like the results of not having them. It means that the poster has to think of something to say, not just find a picture and post it.
Does that mean that it’s a bit of a pain in the butt sometimes, to have to open an image in another tab? Yes.
The fact that I never have to see an OP consisting only of a picture, or see goatze, or kittens in a brandy snifter far outweight that slight PITAness though.
Hell, I bet Slug would do that for $10K a month. Otherwise, I love your idea..
I have no big problem with images. Avatars do make it a little easier to look for one posters line of thought on a page. But I am Ok with the way it is.
PS, I bought a ticket too, we’ll split it, OK? Even the paying Slug part.
I oppose enabling imaging, unless we can figure out some way to make it work. And once you get into the nitty gritty details, enabling seems ill-advised: see my previous proposal. That said,
I assumed images would be hosted off-site, so server burden should be minimal.
Images can aid the fight against ignorance. Here are links to images that I’ve used in the past on this board and Unaboard.
Yeah, we already have too many fucking goddamn worthless piece of shit posts which consist of nothing but “*What do you think of *this?” (“This" usually being some inane Youtube).
Speaking of “we are required to actually USE words” I’d like that type of OP to be banned. At least tell us what you think of 'this". …but no, that’d require them to think.:mad:
This is all sadly reminiscent of the great avatar debates. Obviously the built-in image display capabilities of the board software allow those who don’t want to view images to disable them. And those who don’t want to post them don’t have to. Posting a NSFW link without 2-click measure is a warnable offense and so would be posting a NSFW image directly. It seems to be a question of not wanting others to be able to see images and some misguided sense of how the ‘good old days’ of plain text would be lost forever to the old timers, or something.
Regardless, the Marketplace forum here allows image posting and there haven’t been any horrific abuses or degeneration of post quality at least that I’m aware of.
Fortunately there are userscripts available for both avatarsand inline images at the SDMB so, problem solved.
The internet is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s website, but that’s just peanuts to the internet, …
So I’m sure there are lots of other message boards where you can post your images. We don’t need every message board to be just like every other message board.
There are message boards where people share photos and/or drawings and/or music. I come to this message board to share concepts and/or information and/or humor.
I’ve been hanging out on a car forum a bit recently, because I (still) need to buy a new car. They have pictures enabled, and there are lots of them. It’s useful when someone is talking about what the sports styling package looks like. But people also have pictures of their stable of cars in their sigs. I personally find it cluttering up the page, and am glad I have the option of either seeing the pictures or not here.
As long as it doesn’t affect board performance, I don’t care. I will not look at your pictures, so it won’t affect me, and posters who think ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ too often will be on my personal pay-no-mind list.
This place is so sad. It would be funny how backwards this discussion is, if it weren’t so pathetic.
If the posters on this board can’t handle something as simple as embedded images, then maybe the Dope isn’t as precious as some of you like to believe. I’ve been on many boards–less high-minded than this one–whose posters don’t abuse the image feature and whose moderators efficiently deal with the few problems that arise.
Screw it! I say we do away with this “electronic communication” altogether and send each other handwritten letters in the mail. That’s the only way to be sure that everyone puts the proper amount of thought into their messages. But no drawings!
