Uh, Tuba, About bandwidth stealing.

About This Message Board
1

I don’t think that everyone here realizes the difference between referencing a page or site and using art or pictures from that site.

The main issue that I am talking about is the cute little smiley that shoots the other smiley. I’ve seen several references to that picture and one admitted that the site didn’t belong to them and others have been using this forum.arstechnica.com/forum/ubb/smileyshot2.gif as a reference (hopefully, that won’t show up as the smiley) including a moderator. I don’t think that anyone realizes that they are stealing someone else’s bandwidth when they do this.

I just saw a thread where the person referenced a smiley 72 times, luckily it was one that was on this board. Had that been on another person’s web space, that would have created 72 downloads of that file for every time anyone brought up that thread. Some people pay by the amount of bandwidth that is used.

I know that almost everyone that has an internet account has web space that is part of the account. If they download the file and put it on their web space, then the bandwidth comes from them instead of someone else’s space that I’m sure didn’t give them permission to do this.

Tuba, my questions to you are:
Will the SDMB provide space for files such as these so people aren’t stealing other people’s bandwidth.
Can the SDMB police the references to off-site files so that they are edited out or permission is granted for their use?
Can an index be created of pictures that are stored on the SDMB server for anyone’s use?

With all due respect, this forum is the main offender from what I have seen. People play around with things here and may never use them on other forums. But, each time a thread is opened here, with an off-site reference, it steals bandwidth from someone.

I don’t have a real grudge or anything. It’s just that I don’t think that people understand what’s happening. If I had the web site that had the smileyshot picture on it and I saw hundreds of downloads a day on that file but none that referenced my page itself; I’d change the picture to “Fuck you very much!” and see how everyone liked having that spread all over their screens.

Sorry about the rant, just wondered if there was anything that might be done without a big censorship job.

2

You DO have a point and it’s well made.

It’s not that people are intending to steal, it’s that most of 'em don’t know or don’t understand.

You’ve explained it very nicely, and I hope more people read your explanation and go forth and sin no more.

Everybody, please, do not use images from other sites without permission. We’ve been really lax about it but we need to crack down, obviously.

Let’s be more considerate of our friends in cyberspace.

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
The Straight Dope

[Note: This message has been edited by TubaDiva]

3

Hmm. Y’know, this is one of those things that you techie types understand that those of us who are members of the computer illiterati do not. I believe you, because you are the expert and I am not, but my mind simply doesn’t work that way, and I don’t understand how posting the smileyshot thingie “steals” something from somebody else.

That said, I’ll plead guilty to allowing Middle Son to post and play with the smiley-shooting-other-smilies images on the “test, test, test” thread in this forum, not realizing that there was something wrong with that. Jenny, why don’t you go ahead and delete that post of his, if it is a problem, and if somebody can explain it to me in a way that I can explain it to an 11 year old kid I’ll do that so the problem doesn’t reoccur.

Thanks.

-Melin

4

Merlin, it’s not the file itself that cost the money. It’s the transport of that image to your computer. It’s kinda like when you send something using the postal service. It costs you 32 ¢ first class. Every time someone references an image, you are forcing them to send you that item and pay the postage.

I hope I cleared it up and not confused people any more.

5

Melin, that was the point I was trying to make. Most here don’t understand what the difference is. I’m not trying to put down anyone, just see if there is a way that we can make one download to this site and everyone reference it here, instead of hundreds of downloads from someone else’s site.

6

And also, much like when during Christmas it takes twice as long for something to get delivered because so many people are sending stuff, when a lot of people reference a site to grab a image (even if it is the same one). It takes more resources to send the image, and it slows down their server (and this site as it waits for the server).

Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars and he’ll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint and he has to touch it.

7

We obviously need to make some sort of board-wide statement about this.

Let me kick this problem upstairs to Ed, we’ll draft something reasonable.

In the meantime, could you spread the word among your friends here? It would be helpful.

I’m also going to ask the moderators to take a harder look and a harder line on this issue.

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
The Straight Dope

8

Tattletale.

I took this into account when orchestrating the rolleyes concerto. I would never reference a large file that would take more than a few seconds do download, but I also agree that many people might not know better & could do this innocently. I’m sure there must be a safety that the techs can build in if it ever does become a problem. (At my last job, I was very concerned about throughput since all the workstations were diskless & therefore constantly broadcasting for every little task. If more than a handful of people attempted to download something at the same time, the network came to a crawl. I put a 10 second timeout limit on all requests that went out past the local LAN and that pretty much took care of the problem. It worked so well in fact, that I would heartily recommend it for this or any site if throughput ever does become an issue.)

In·flam·ma·ble, a. Flammable.

9

Opus, sorry about using your thread as an example. I thought it was funny that you misspelled it 72 times. Then, I went to a thread in MPSIMS (that I don’t normally go) and saw a moderator use the picture. I had seen Cessandra already ask someone if it was their site that they got the picture from. I just thought it was about time to bring this up.

By the way, I loved the 72 misspellings, more than the smileys

10

So what’s the original image you’re referring to? I wanna see!!

In·flam·ma·ble, a. Flammable.

11

The picture I’m referring to is one smiley face drawing out a gun and shouting the green smiley face.

I’m not going to refer to the picture because I would be doing the exact same thing I am questioning.

But it wasn’t your smilies per se that I was talking about as much as it was that people come to this forum and reference a picture and that picture may be off-site. And they display it several time and each image draws bandwidth from someone else’s site.

I really am sorry that I used your thread as an example. You did refer to a local image not an off-site image.

Please, forgive me.

12

Let me see if I can explain exactly what stealing bandwidth is. Suppose you have an art gallery you want only YOUR visitors to see. Yet the bar next door keeps sending people in to look, taking the space away from YOUR friends to stand. So YOUR friends miss your show because of all the strangers.

I realize this is a gross simplification. But I had to dumb it down for the debaters… :slight_smile:

You know how they are, great on ideas, suck at the net.
<h1>Hey! I earned this one!</h1>

“Tell me and I’ll forget; Show me and
I may remember; Involve me and I’ll
understand.” - Old Chinese Proverb

13

Waayyy off topic, but
I’ve been on (and off) this board for eleven months and just NOW I notice that (unlike a certain magician) Melin’s screen name has no R.

I’m getting some glasses, mañana.

Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars and he’ll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint and he has to touch it.

14

Tuba and opus, other than a new rule and some more policing, a KB per post limit may be difficult. If I remember the original idea for this was so that if you need to display a chart of come type, you can do it. Actual scientific charts I’ve seen on the net is way bigger than the dreaded Hello Kitty graphic.
Of course it would be a good idea (and easier) to just ask people to stop using the Hell Kitty and parody smilies. Or if the teeming thirty really really have to use the Kitty smilies (I don’t know why!), ask them to get permission to mirror them on the site.

15

::laughing:: Well, I have been called a “witchey woman” before . . . :wink:

-Melin

16

Actually, it’s not such a big issue, we just need to enforce the rules already in place and educate our forum members a little better.

There’s a big difference between using graphic elements on our site (like the regular smileys we have) and “borrowing” an element from another site.

As users of this board, we all need to be more considerate of other people and their property.

Those of us that are moderators need to do a better job about policing our forums and explaining board policies to our members.

your humble TubaDiva
Admnistrator
The Straight Dope

17

Tuba, I think you are right that it isn’t a big issue. If people start playing dueling smileys, trying to see who can find the neatest one somewhere, then it could begin to be a problem.

I probably wouldn’t have said anything last night except that I saw how people thought it was fun to play around with the smileys and then saw that even a moderator didn’t realize the difference between a local one and an off-site one.

I’m glad to see several people that know the difference and have brought some old threads to the surface that also explain it.

Jim

18

Hi. My name is manhattan, and I am a bandwidth thief.

In these days of Gigabyte bandwidth and whatnot, I honestly thought there was no longer an issue with referencing a site for a few KB, reasoning that the site reference was worth more to the site than the small usage of bandwidth (I went to the site the “shooting smilie” came from, for instance. I may even join in on their MB).

Clearly I was wrong. I apologize, and I pledge not to do it again.

Consider me educated. I thank you all for pointing it out to me.

Livin’ on Tums, vitamin E and Rogaine

19

Well, I think authorities here should stand on firm reality here. . .including number – Kb/s and $. I’m certainly no expert on the various considerations discussed here, but I think some people here are getting too carried away. I think manhattan is not too far from right.

Apparently there are two considerations being discussed here – 1) the cost to someone and the congestion to others, as a result of the bandwidth usage in using UBB code for tranfer of images to the server for this MB, each time someone accesses a post here with such code, and 2) any copyright infringement in so doing.

As to the smiley-murder animated GIF: ‘1)’ What bandwidth is required for that? I’ll bet it’s real peanuts, and: ‘2)’ I think it’s funny that JimB now says he won’t point out that GIF. . .because he already did in his OP, from which I looked at it for the first time. I also looked all around that that forum site but could not find any reference to copyrights of anything thereon. I won’t say that doesn’t mean there aren’t any on anything there, and if there were, perhaps the law would claim access of an image there could be a violation of copyright, since there could be things there that are copyrighted by a third party who has given permision of the site to use them but has not put them in the public domain. If everything there is not copyrighted by anyone other than the site people, if they don’t notice copyright on anything there, I don’t think they have any such claim against anyone downloading such material.

So if, say, I downloaded, to Web storage at my ISP, something from another site which thing is legally in the public domain (and maybe expressly so stated on that site), I would not be violating any copyright in so doing, and would not in letting it be accessed, from my storage, by any other Net terminal, through any other servers.

If the gizmo is only a few Kb in size, I think nobody is charged or inconvenienced by such a bit tranfer. If SDMB gets the thing from my storage, and the product of its size and the number of MB-post hits runs over whatever my ISP has limited my Web-storage access-capacity to, I’m sure I’ll either get a complaint or additional charge from my ISP. To date I have not gotten either, but I haven’t linked many large files from the SDMB to my ISP Web storage, though it has more than most posters, by far, I’m sure.

I certainly think it’s reasonable for the SDMB staff or moderators to remove UBB code from posts AFTER A CERTAIN TIME if the image or sound file it links to is of a significant size, but I don’t think doing such, in the case of the above example, is worth the trouble.

Maybe I missed some points here, but I hate the results of wild scares. Remember Y2K? :stuck_out_tongue: I hope some people very technical in this area, together with some people good with financial sense, take a close look at this, before other people at the SD go ga-ga over it.

Ray (I was gonna put a great big GIF here but. . .then I remembered Slug had given Tuba a set of his whips and high heels.)

20

I realize this may be a nit, but… If an offsite gif is referenced 72 times, will it really be downloaded 72 times? I thought the browsers were smarter than that, and would grab it once and copy it. Even if it’s then used elsewhere in that thread, on the board, or even on a different board, isn’t in my cache, for a while at least? Of course, everyone who opens that thread has to get it once, and that could add up.

It is too clear, and so it is hard to see.