Manual Signature Images

I'm pre y sure I can live wi hou i .

AYBAB U

 

Not much more for me to add here. I support the scrapping of most manual sigs. As a person who is on a 56K at home, I do have to wait while pics load.

Correct me if I am wrong, but when the markup codes were introduced, it was an explicit rule that you couldnt embed images from sites that werent your own.

Given that most sig images are linked to sites that dont belong to the member, then they shouldnt have been used in the first place.

 

"Correct me if I am wrong, but when the markup codes were introduced, it was an explicit rule that you couldnt embed images from sites that werent your own."

That certainly was/is the case in PSA. As I recall, that was only brought in because other SW sites complained. But the principle is sound, regardless of whether the owners complain or not: we shouldn't be stealing other people's bandwidth.

Whether we'll see a new policy on that kind of scale across the whole of the JC, I very much doubt. There'd be too much opposition to it, I think.

 

Ya' know, I'm on a 56k (snicker, more like 28.8 thanks to horrible phone lines) on a military base in Iceland, and I don't have a problem downloading the pics that people put up.

Now, I can understand making pic sigs illegal, but are we going to lose our right to post pics at all?

 

I would just like to point to this thread. Because of pretty much this exact issue, imbedding images to anywhere off TFN servers was banned. Because people started being more responsible that was dropped. But using pics in manual signatures is annoying for those people that do have slow modems (many through no choice of their own). It's unfair for some people to have to wait so long for a page because people feel the need to do this, and it's unfair on other hosts since it sucks their bandwidth, especially with the number of users we have here.

I say we all start being more responsible with images and only imbed those that are absolutely necessary, or go back to this former policy.

 

I like manual sigs, but the issue is the pictures. We can allow manual sigs, but just no pics.



...and a clone.

 

I agree!

No sig pics .. I mean pig sics ... bah!

EDIT: And for those Red X Rookies, take this

[image=http://www.sillymystic.com/misc/redx.gif]

 

My motivation behind this wasn't to get rid of image posting all together, nor was it to ban manual signatures.

As a webmaster, I can compare people leeching images to someone siphoning gas out of your gas tank. You paid for that gas to get you from point a to point b, yet someone else is using some of your gas, and it isn't helping move your car at all. Sure, they might just take up a gallon a month, but those gallons add up, and they are gallons that you could be using. Maybe you wouldn't mind, but I do.

Yes, I am on a cable connection right now. I didn't mention that it is shared by five people, so it isn't fast all of the time. Also, up until late May, I was one of the people stuck on a 56k modem. I could have turned off images, but there are images that I want to see. I want to be able to see all the smilies. I don't want to have to check every single smilie to see what it was supposed to be. I'm not complaining just to complain. I don't see many people shelling out money to pay for their personal webspace. After all, it is nearly impossible to find a free host that allows remote linking, and if they do now, chances are, they won't in a few months. Unless you are paying money for webspace, it isn't technically yours.

Again, the purpose of this was to highlight some of the potential problems with manual signature images. I didn't ask that posting images be banned. I didn't ask for manual signatures to be banned. I only wanted to bring out the fact that the combination of manual signatures and images could be a potentially hazardous one.

 

Anyone leachs from me I just turn the image into goatse or pain series pictures, they stop leaching fast.

 

Just to bring everyone up to date:

In keeping with our recently decided policy on implementing policies, two parallel polls have been created in the Mod Squad and the AC.

These will run for a period of 2 weeks so that everyone that wishes to comment has time to do so.

After two weeks, if the clear majority in both forums wish for the policy to be implemented, then it will be.

I know it seems like a lot of bureaucracy, but at least we're sure we are doing the right thing at the end of it.

 

And the link to Vert's announcment seems to me, to be saying, link only to images on the competitors sites. Places like episode-x and T-Bone to name a couple. If you wanted to post some random picture, from some random site, you can.

 

Hmm... I wasn't aware that fandom was a competition. If that's so, do you think we have a chance at winning against Lucasfilm, considering all the copyrighted images used to decorate this site?

 

I agree with BYOB on this issue.

And I just found words I never expected coming out onto my keyboard.

¤Night

 

I agree with the sentiment her. Those manual sig pics annoy me, making me want to stab people.

DarthNut,
the nuttiest guy around.

 

"I just found words I never expected coming out onto my keyboard."

Nor did I ever expect them to grace my screen.

 

I think we should take our time on this. Nut stabbing people intrigues me.



Seriously, leeching images from someone else's site is bad form -- especially since some of us can barely afford the server space as is -- though I don't see a way to police it. But banning the manual sig pics seems like a good first step.

 

Imo, this is a mistake and the mods will just be making work for themselves if its implemented. The arguments for it are sound, but they are speculative. Images have been with us for some time now, yet there are no complaints from anyone about a specific use of images in sigs. Committees and forums can sometimes throw up needless regulations and this strikes me as such a case. Having a rule might satisfy a point of principle, but if there is no specific problem to address, what will this really achieve? Is there anything wrong with a tasteful image, linked to a user's own site (many do), appended to the bottom of a message? Have their been many examples of people flagerently abusing this privelege? (Incidentally, I am not persuaded by the dial-up case. My connection is a dial-up one and I have no problems downloading pages, plus I can always turn images off if it annoys me). If the answers to these questions are no, then the case for the necessity of regulation is weakened.

As there is no wide-spread abuse of images in sig, it would be foolhardy to start implementing new laws to regulate them. There will be all sorts of ambiguities, not least of which will be deciding what is a sig and what is a legally embedded image. And here the issue loses coherence. What is the actual difference between someone posting an image and someone using it as a manuel sig? Will it be decided on context? What if a user posted a different image in each post? Or what if a user regularly posts images, but not as sigs (but nevertheless falls foul of most of the points raised in the initial post in this thread)?


In making their decision, I really think the mods should weigh up the costs of enforcing a new rule against the benefits. In this case, it might be more appropriate to issue guidelines on images and deal with any abuses as and when they arise on a case-by-case basis.

 

"There will be all sorts of ambiguities, not least of which will be deciding what is a sig and what is a legally embedded image. And here the issue loses coherence. What is the actual difference between someone posting an image and someone using it as a manuel sig?"

I don't think there's any ambiguity at all. Take a look at darth_boy's most recent posts. He posts a picture of the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons right above his manual sig, which says "-Comic Book Guy." Not much ambiguity there.

Besides which, when people post pictures as part of the general body of a thread, they generally explain its context within the post.

And one of the biggest issues brought up by YodaJeff was the host site losing bandwidth, which is a huge concern when someone posts the same picture in all of their posts, as opposed to someone who posts a picture once.

Amazing.

 

And one of the biggest issues brought up by YodaJeff was the host site losing bandwidth, which is a huge concern when someone posts the same picture in all of their posts, as opposed to someone who posts a picture once.

That's exactly the point. A leech here and there is not a problem, but if you have a person post 500 times with the same pic then it can get out of hand quickly.

 

I agree with what AmazingB said.

"the mods will just be making work for themselves if its implemented."

How so? If it isn't implemented, and a host decides that it is tired of someone leeching their image, and decides to get nasty, the moderators would have to go through and edit every single one of that user's recent posts. If they've been using the manual signature picture for a few weeks, there could be hundreds of posts that need to be edited. If it is implemented all they have to do is send a PM to any user who starts to use a manual signature image, and tell them that they aren't allowed.

"there are no complaints from anyone about a specific use of images in sigs"

It seems to me that the majority of the people here can see that there is no reason to allow the images, hence their agreement with the original post.

"As there is no wide-spread abuse of images in sig, it would be foolhardy to start implementing new laws to regulate them."

When I first came here, I don't remember so many extravagent manual signatures. Now, half the people use one. In my opinion, this rule, if passed, would help stop a problem before it starts.

"There will be all sorts of ambiguities, not least of which will be deciding what is a sig and what is a legally embedded image"

If someone posts the image every single post, it is a manual signature image. If someone rotates between a few images, yet posts one every single post, it is a manual signature image. If someone posts 20 different images in 20 different threads, all related to the topic at hand, it isn't part of their manual signature.

"In making their decision, I really think the mods should weigh up the costs of enforcing a new rule against the benefits."

The probably are discussing this right now in the Mod Squad. I believe the benefits outweigh the work involved. I don't think too much work would be involved to enforce the rule.

"In this case, it might be more appropriate to issue guidelines on images and deal with any abuses as and when they arise on a case-by-case basis."

The problem is, when the moderating staff deals with things on a case-by-case basis, drama is created. I can just hear it now: "I never read that rule anywhere.", "Well, how come UserX can have a picture and I can't?", and "The moderator has a personal grudge against me." If they create a rule, then it is in writing, and the rule applies to everyone. Therefore, drama is avoided.

 

I've been using my manual sig since the UBB days. I'm not exactly following the recent fad. I started using mine around the same time Mace Windy began his manual sig.

However, now that I post much more than I did back then (40-50 post a day as opposed to around 5 or 10) I do not post my manual sig in chat threads or threads that I have a lot of posts in.

I talked with an administrator about my *gif, and after I told him how I would be using it (not in chat threads, etc) he said it was perfectly fine.

[image=http://bestanimations.com/Sci-Fi/StarWars/Emporer-01.gif]
~Sithman~


EDIT: Markups.

 

I see that the picture is from "http://bestanimations.com/". Do you own this site? If not, have you checked with the webmaster of that site to see if they have a problem with you using up their bandwidth?

An adminstrator here can say what they want, but it isn't their bandwidth. If you post the image 5+ times a day, you still are taking quite a bit of bandwidth away from the original site.

 

[color=663300]I haven't read the whole discussion here but as for the question of stealing someone elses bandwidth, why not tell them that they need to save the image and then place it on their own server like web1000 that is there mainly for image hosting. The Bandwidth won't be stolen from an unsuspecting Webmaster but from a public and free service.

As for the question of individual users bandwidth, I'd Have to agree with YodaJeff. For those using a slow dial up conneciton, it just makes it that much slower to Download more and more pictures.

EDIT I see some others have expressed the same idea about hosting the images themselves. [/color]

 

As for the downloading part, I don't really agree with that. Like I said, I am connecting through thirty year old underground telephone lines into an at best 38.8k connection, and it doesn't take that much more time to download the one or two pics that I run into on the boards. If we're going to complain about loading times on modems, why not complain about the intricate banners and user icons and what-not too? I just don't think that argument holds a lot of water.

 

I have a slightly cranky 56K modem and I've never had any problems. There are too many 'coulds' and 'shoulds' and 'ifs' in this argument. In my view, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.