Let's post images! Let's NOT leech them!

Started by Schrödinger, April 08, 2010, 02:46:43 PM

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Schrödinger

Something that's been irking me for a while is how people around here on the forums are a little lax with keeping sites' bandwith in mind when they insert [img]'s around in big post-your-favourite-picture threads. I mean, sure, by all means, post your favourite image, porn or otherwise, in the designated threads. Spread the wealth, as the old adagium goes. But every time the threads and pages are opened, the images are downloaded from these different servers, and a sizeable strain indeed will be put on them with threads read by all users - excluding guests for the sake of argument and convenience - visiting Elliquiy.

I honestly wish I had a better source than Alexa to provide a modicum of insight in users perviewing the forums at any time, and certainly, not all of the 400+ active users at a moment are or will be watching these various post-your-favourite-picture threads. But free web servers are abound, and there's a reason why many sites disable hotlinking - to reduce the strain on their servers from people leeching images and just posting them willy-nilly without bothering themselves to reupload their images to a free webserver like Imageshack, Imagesocket, Imagefap or what have you, for images that are very likely to get a lot of views. Heck, it might maybe even remove some strain from the Elliquiy Wiki as well for small images here and there.

Would it perhaps, both for the sake of keeping others' bandwidths in mind and for the sake of keeping those resources of those favourite images of all of us (relatively, ad-wise speaking) free, be wisdom to start implementing a general guideline that's pretty commonplace on most online communities I've visited, to remind users to reupload their piccers to either private servers or aforementioned free imagehosts? No serious penalty needed either - enforcement could be as simple as 'EDIT: Images removed/turned into links. Please consider uploading your images to your personal favourite free image host. No leeching, please  :-('. It's honeslty just some nettiquette, really.

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Schrödinger's O/O[/li]
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Nadir

As one of the big image posters here, I fully agree with you. Image hotlinking does annoy me. Work safe images, I re-upload to Photobucket. Not work safe, I use my tumblr bandwidth to host. Despite the size of E, there isn't a lot of bandwidth used in comparison. I get a lot more traffic from people hotlinking my uploaded images than through E itself.

Vekseid

It's one of the reasons I host Elluiki.

Elliquiy has 6 terabytes/month of bandwidth, and 250GB of mirrored hard drives. We have a 10mbps pipe, typically using about .8 mbps and peaking at about twice that. So we can handle about five times our current traffic before bandwidth becomes an issue.

I'm not hurting for it : )

Outside of giving credit and providing warnings where appropriate, I also would rather not have any images of anyone under the age of 18 on this site, at all, period. Sometimes people freak out and I'd rather not deal with that.

Thanks.

Nessy

#3
Quote from: Vekseid on April 08, 2010, 04:22:57 PM
It's one of the reasons I host Elluiki.

Elliquiy has 6 terabytes/month of bandwidth, and 250GB of mirrored hard drives. We have a 10mbps pipe, typically using about .8 mbps and peaking at about twice that. So we can handle about five times our current traffic before bandwidth becomes an issue.

I'm not hurting for it : )

Outside of giving credit and providing warnings where appropriate, I also would rather not have any images of anyone under the age of 18 on this site, at all, period. Sometimes people freak out and I'd rather not deal with that.

Thanks.

I use the E Wiki to upload images. I think the phrase about not unloading our porn collections is a bit of a turn off though. I don't think I have a lot of images on there, and it's certainly not every image I have, but that one phrase made me very hesitant to upload anything at all the first go around. I keep expecting to get chastised for uploading the handful I already have at some point.

I can tell you the most aggrevating thing though is to go to a post that has dozens of images as links, so youhave to click each one to see what they are talking about, many times the links don't even work because the site hosting the image hates hotlinking too!

I was also going to say I get my pics from all sites that claim they check legal status of models though i avoid the ones i wonder about.
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Vekseid

I could probably remove that. That was back when we were limited to 1-3 gb of space - the constraints that prompted that no longer apply.

Nessy

Quote from: Vekseid on April 08, 2010, 08:19:25 PM
I could probably remove that. That was back when we were limited to 1-3 gb of space - the constraints that prompted that no longer apply.

Oh that is good to know. I don't use a lot of pics for my stories, but sometimes my partners want them so I might put up a few to show them and chose but i leave the two not chosen for later. I guess I can see where you might be worried if everyone just uploading thousand of pictuers.

Which brings me to another question about images, what's the policy about using images already posted. Is it just fair game to "borrow" an image to use yourself?
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Vekseid

I've been debating about building something to compete with Gelbooru instead - ban loli, permit (tagged) gore, and so on, but to facilitate an upload service that Elliquiy and Blue Moon could use.

Quote from: Nessy on April 08, 2010, 08:52:57 PM
Which brings me to another question about images, what's the policy about using images already posted. Is it just fair game to "borrow" an image to use yourself?

Some people have a hissy fit about it. It never hurts to ask. In general, as long as they're not putting them elsewhere for credit, you can assume my renders are free to use anywhere on Elliquiy. I can only speak for myself though.

Vandren

Quote from: Nessy on April 08, 2010, 07:56:40 PMI use the E Wiki to upload images. I think the phrase about not unloading our porn collections is a bit of a turn off though.

That's primarily (at least my understanding of it from the early days of the wiki and briefly taking over admining it) in place because early on there was a good deal of uploading images that people weren't using and never intended to use on E.  In other words, some were using the E. wiki as an online hard drive for their own collections.  That doesn't seem to be going on at this time.

On a related note, especially for those who upload more than the occasional file: please, please, please tag your uploaded files with Categories.  If you're not sure how to do that or what categories exist, check the Images page.  It has instructions and a full list of Categories currently in place.  This helps keep the wiki user friendly and relatively organized.  And if you do it, then those of us watching such things don't have to guess as to a category.  Danke.  :)
"Life is growth.  If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead." -Morihei Ueshiba, O-Sensei

Nessy

Quote from: Vekseid on April 08, 2010, 09:47:07 PM
I've been debating about building something to compete with Gelbooru instead - ban loli, permit (tagged) gore, and so on, but to facilitate an upload service that Elliquiy and Blue Moon could use.

Some people have a hissy fit about it. It never hurts to ask. In general, as long as they're not putting them elsewhere for credit, you can assume my renders are free to use anywhere on Elliquiy. I can only speak for myself though.

Thanks for the info. Unless we have a lot of budding artists on the site, and I am sure there are a few, most of the images are borrowed from somewhere else. This means I can often find the original image myself, but I don't want to get targeted for using the same image. I've seen some of the images I have posted used elsewhere, but again, they were never my images to begin with, so it hardly concerns me unless they re-upload the same image into Wiki under a new name which I think just eats up space and two, some of the images I use have courtesy links back to the original site (its a condition to use their images) which would be lost in this,w hat I think is a needless copy endeavor.
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auroraChloe


a/a 8/21/17

Schrödinger

Quote from: auroraChloe on April 13, 2010, 05:35:40 PM
doesn't that put Google Wars! out of business then?

I would suppose it means a mod steps in, says, 'hey, let's upload any new stuff to imagehosts, okay?' in the first post and in a new post, and call it a day? Occasionally look at whether or not people leech images or not?

Seriously, some folks can be vindictive about that. Nothing says 'don't leech' like some shocksite image replacing that cute pile of kittens you linked the other day.

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Schrödinger's O/O[/li]
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Caeli

Quote from: Schrödinger on April 15, 2010, 04:45:03 PMI would suppose it means a mod steps in, says, 'hey, let's upload any new stuff to imagehosts, okay?' in the first post and in a new post, and call it a day? Occasionally look at whether or not people leech images or not?

I understand the sentiment, but I have no intention of ever becoming the post-police on Elliquiy - it's a waste of time, frankly, that would be better spent bettering Elliquiy in some way or working on my own roleplays. I comment on uploading images to image hosts once in a while, especially if they pull of of private webspace, but I don't look out for it or intend to tell every person who posts in Finders & Seekers to upload images to the Elluiki.

Post policing? In my opinion, people can police themselves, and learn to follow netiquette at the suggestion of others; or, if Vekseid thinks there's a need, he can disallow all images on Elliquiy's forums except those hosted by the Elluiki. I love giving my time to Elliquiy, but policing posts for leeched links would be a fruitless effort unless there was a technical enforcement.
ʙᴜᴛᴛᴇʀғʟɪᴇs ᴀʀᴇ ɢᴏᴅ's ᴘʀᴏᴏғ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴡᴇ ᴄᴀɴ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀ sᴇᴄᴏɴᴅ ᴄʜᴀɴᴄᴇ ᴀᴛ ʟɪғᴇ
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Schrödinger

Fair enough, I suppose. Being a mod here is, like everywhere else, you putting your free time into the site and the community for the lot of us, so I can imagine you guys not being too keen on being forum nannies as well as mods.

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Caeli

It's not about being forum nannies. I have no problem volunteering my time to Elliquiy - I just spent about six or seven hours writing a new sticky that will hopefully debut in On Topic very soon.

Say I write a sticky, somewhere, announcing that any images that are directly embedded into posts on Elliquiy must be hosted from the wiki, and this is enforced policy now. I can guarantee that at least 50% of the people who post after that will not have read the sticky. I and the other staff have to spend time PMing the many, many people who haven't read the sticky or weren't aware of policy change that hey, they have to upload their stuff to the wiki now. Then we have to make sure that they actually do it.

We do this on a much smaller scale for IM usernames posted in the public boards. It still happens, even though it is written in the rules and in each request board. Images are used on a much wider scale, and are not limited to only the public boards.

Again, I have nothing against devoting my time to Elliquiy. But if I have to spend more than 10% of my time enforcing a rule that's not technically enforced (i.e., similar to how Elliquiy breaks any signature image that isn't hosted on the wiki, but at a much broader level all over the site), that's time wasted that could have gone to organizing stickies, writing new stickies, working on my various forum projects like the FAQ and pictorally-illustrated tutorials, and so on.

The most we can do is encourage the use of the Wiki - I love it and use it for almost everything that I post here. But if you're wanting enforcement, or turning that suggestion of yours into policy, I'd say that the most efficient option would be for Veks to write a technical solution.
ʙᴜᴛᴛᴇʀғʟɪᴇs ᴀʀᴇ ɢᴏᴅ's ᴘʀᴏᴏғ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴡᴇ ᴄᴀɴ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀ sᴇᴄᴏɴᴅ ᴄʜᴀɴᴄᴇ ᴀᴛ ʟɪғᴇ
ᴠᴇʀʏ sᴇʟᴇᴄᴛɪᴠᴇʟʏ ᴀᴠᴀɪʟᴀʙʟᴇ ғᴏʀ ɴᴇᴡ ʀᴏʟᴇᴘʟᴀʏs

ᴄʜᴇᴄᴋ ❋ ғᴏʀ ɪᴅᴇᴀs; 'ø' ғᴏʀ ᴏɴs&ᴏғғs, ᴏʀ ᴘᴍ ᴍᴇ.
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Schrödinger

Nah, can't ask for you to enforce it, and heck, if a sticky won't work, what will? Well, besides Veks going through the hassle of only allowing forums images hosted via the local wiki, which is probably not viable now, either.

Make no mistake, moderators' efforts here do not go unnoticed and I fully appreciate the work you do here to keep users involved with the site as well as the community. But I guess that kind of exhausts the options and what can and cannot be expected of the userbase and of the moderators - again, can't ask more of you guys than you already do  :-)

Thanks for at least explaining it a little more in-depth there, Caeli.

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