Not wanting to be a whinging old windbag but… [:p]
I can’t help but notice the amount of redundant images on the forums.
Now I appreciate the importance of images to this hobby - it after all a primarily visual one - and I as much as anyone else enjoy seeing people post their models and would whole-heartedly encourage them to do so.
I also love the Group Build icons that people proudly display like badges of honour, and the image links that many post to their own clubs, interest groups etc.
However, there is also the issue of “signature” images that get included every time someone posts. Many of these are the aforementioned GB and SIG icons, fine, almost all are small GIFs and JPGs. But there are many, of whatever nature, that are HUGE! Several hundred KB! Often tagged onto a message of a few bytes like “wow! that looks great!”.
Maybe we’re spoiled by broadband, and fooled by the forum software that shrinks images so they look small but retain their filesize for when they are blown up. But when irrelevant sig images suck bandwidth and crowd out someone’s pics of their lovingly crafted model in their own threads, I just think it’s a bit, well… rude.
So I suppose my request would be, for fellow posters to be more considerate when designing their sigs. [8)]
Do like I do…go into your profile and under signatures select “text only” and then update your profile. All the graphical “stuff” will no longer load or be visible. I much prefer the forums this way.
thanks chaps, hadn’t realised that option existed. A shame to use it, as many sigs have fun or interesting stuff in, and being a nosey so-and-so, I’m afraid I’ll miss something.
But yes, it might come to the “text-only” option.
(and I’m on a T3. Not a matter of bandwidth, just visual clutter [;)])
I find that they just add clutter to the threads as well. Some hold valuable links to model related sites so I would not want to use an option that deletes everyone’s signature information.
I think the group build icons are fine and a way of showing pride in FSM community involvement. I even think the League of Extrodinary Modelers icons are interesting.
But some of those same posters also list the umpteen kits they’ve completed and have in progress. What’s that about? Some insecure need to prove to others that they actually build models versus just post about them? Some of these lists are close to a dozen kits each. That’s just ridiculous.
Yeah, let me post “hey great kit!” and then have the next 20 lines be a list of kits I’m working on or have already built. Get real.
I have to agree here with U-96 that the visual clutter in this forum is beyond anything I’ve ever seen, and makes for horrendously long page loading @ 115 Kb/sec. It would be a shame to shut off all images, but I might have to. (Also interesting for me is the question of cost for running a forum that needs so much bandwidth!)
Would it be a problem to limit file attachment size and signature images to a given size (say 600 pixels (longest side) max for attachments and 300 pixels (longest size) for signature images? This would help the pages from bouncing around so much while loading, and allow us to attach images without being rude. I’m also willing to help anyone who has questions about how to resize and compress their images. Write to the admin on www.petros.pl for help.
Some sort of file size limitations (relax, nothing draconian) might be in the works for the future, but we’re probably never going to elminate the option of having images in signatures. Once you give it, you can’t take it away…
That would be a good idea. Some of the sig photos are really quite large (ex. ddayp51b02.jpg which weighs in at 236 kilos) and for many people they really slow things down. I can’t imagine why any attached photo should be more that around 60-80 KB at the most, and that’s for an image that measures 700 pixels across. It doesn’t make sense to post images that large anyway, since the forum resizes them…
perhaps a forceful limitation will not be neccary, rather a nice message that asks everyone to bear this problem in mind when designing sigs for themselves ? this way a rule doesnt have to be stuffed down throats. it may become neccary to make a rule, but im just saying that an appeal might go down better and have the desired effects. and the turn off sig option is always available, but i must agree that this is indeed a relevant issue about visual clutter
Having just visited this site and forum after a long absence I must agree with U-96. The images are way to big and very distracting. I have never come across a site with so much junk added after the message. The only ones of interest are the group build icons and these should be half the size they are now.