Moved by Cholula and seconded by kokonutz
that non-animated (static) images be allowed in all FlyerTalk forums except for OMNI and OMNI/PR.

This vote will close on Feb 13, 09 at 3:29 pm or after all TalkBoard members have cast their votes, whichever comes first.


Per the TalkBoard Guidelines:
The purpose of posting voting topics in the public TalkBoard Topics forum is to solicit member feedback on any motions that are up for a vote and to allow for comments after a vote is made. It is at the sole discretion of the individual TalkBoard members whether they choose to post in the public discussion thread, there being no requirement to do so.

So while there is already a thread and discussion on this general topic and a 4-forum beta test of the concept of allowing images on FT forums, and it is safe to assume that TalkBoard members have reviewed that thread, this thread is about this specific motion. Please feel free to post questions, comments or any other sort of feedback.

Which means to say that photos can be posted in all forums except OMNI?

This will be interesting.

Given the too-often-sclerotic nature of the FT server, I'd hate to see anything that potentially slows it down.

well, we know from experiments during the previous discussion that despite unproven assertions to the contrary that lots of images can slow down the loading of a thread, although I'm not convinced it's the FT servers, but rather your own computer having to access different websites around the world to retrieve the images.

But we also know that they can be turned off by users individually, although I can't remember which way the default setting is - perhaps good to ensure that default is off, so it's an opt in thing?

I believe the wording was chosen to exclude .gif images such as this:(Not to pick on this poster; just the least-offensive easy-to-find example.)

Care to elaborate on the "interesting" comment? You're a Starwood moderator, where this idea has been tested. Have there been problems? Or do you forsee problems in other areas? Any particular forums?

Agreed! Perhaps images should also be "off" for non-members/those not logged in.

Please also see.

It appears, according to the latest from our tech folks, that it is not possible at this time to exclude animated images like .gifs.

So it'll be up to the forum moderators to exclude them if they so wish.

Additionally, ALL images can be excluded in any given forum if that is also the wish of the forum moderators and/or the forum regulars.

I have a number of reservations about the idea of allowing images in posts across most of FT that have me saying "thanks, but no thanks".

Along with bandwidth/handling issues I can see this leading to other problems too, including things like some images being misappropriated and distributed despite not falling within a legal fair use doctrine; images being used as part of debates or for purposes of provocation; inappropriate images being put up by fly-by-night trolls; and so on.

So the result of a 'yes' vote by the TB would be to enable photos in all forums (OMNI excluded), at the discretion of the individual forum moderators?

Or 'forum regulars?' How would that work? Moderators could, if they so chose, gauge the temperature of the most consistent posters in a given forum as to whether pictures should be enabled?

That's my take on this. Images can be turned on or off for each forum.

Again, that's the way I envision it happening. Let the individual forums decide if images are appropriate for that particular forum. And that would include polling the forum regulars as to the pros and cons.

Unless the image is hosted by flyertalk, then IMG code has no more impact on the performance of IB's FT servers than a regular old URL. The performance of the server that's hosting the image is the issue.

That's easy. Make the penalties for misuse of images severe. At one IBB I pop in on occasionally, leeching an image off of someone else's server (ie, not a dedicated image host or the user's personal webspace) is a suspendable offense (7 days) on the first occurrence. No warnings, because it's very clearly stated in the sites rules/TOS. 2nd occurrence results in a ban. It doesn't take too many blows to the head to get the message across.

The situations you're referring to (debate, inappropriate images, trolling) are more likely to be problematic in OMNI, and the motion calls for no images in OMNI Fluffy or OMNI PR. Further, if a mod ships a thread off to OMNI because it's gone downhill, the images will disappear (you can still use the IMG tag, but vBulletin will either not render it at all, or just render the URL in plaintext).

Here's me using an IMG tag that points nowhere:



Looks like vB just renders the IMG tag as a clickable link.

Didn't realize that.

Thanx for the heads-up.

Fully in favor, plus anyone who opposes can just turn images off. Win win.

I understand that that's the theory, anyway.

In favor as long as maximum size is enforced....700-800 pixels wide?