Image Policy Change

[zoraster]

yeah. I don't even think chamber is talking about sites like xkcd or theoatmeal or penny arcade or whatever. I think he's talking about if you google "scary ass spider," find it on a random site called "megapicsupload" and directly link it.

[zoraster]

no. this is a much better solution than removing hotlinking altogether.

[zoraster]

it's a BIG deal to remove hotlinking, quadz.

[zoraster]

We're saying you're accountable for what you post. And to my knowledge, chamber hasn't said they're going to ban you instantly if you do it or anything. I think that's fair.

And removing hotlinking is a TERRIBLE, terrible, terrible idea that will hurt the community until and unless we have some sort of image hosting on site. So yeah. If the options are (a) implement this change to minimize hotlinking from malware sites and (b) shut down hotlinking altogether, I'll pick b every time.

[zoraster]

Or you warn the newbie that they hotlinked to a site that had malware and describe how to avoid it. They're now on notice. If they continue to do it, remove hotlinking privileges.

Eliminating the source of the problem also removes the ability to embed photos onto the forum unless I'm mistaken. And that's not a good thing.

[zoraster]

What quadz said.

Harm of banning hotlinks altogether is HIGH. Benefit is LOW.

[zoraster]

Yes.

[zoraster]

Yes, it is. Plus, general mafia posts for fun. Plus, things like picture mafia are possible with it.

Also, I think it makes GD/F62 stronger.

[zoraster]

Well, you edited your post to insert it, so don't be surprised people missed it.

Anyway I'm pretty sure on this other BB board I browse that it's possible to upload images when you post them onto a forum rather than hotlink. So it doesn't seem to me that it would be impossible to implement that as a feature to replace hotlinking.

I came from a forum that was able to have images implemented in the posts as attachments. Is that possible to do on here?

Software side, yes. I don't know if the server could handle the extra load though.

[zoraster]

Yes?

The problem is that Chrome will block pages with malware links. Since many people use chrome, that's an issue.

[zoraster]

It's not about punishing. It's about stopping the problem.

[zoraster]

Be that as it may, we don't have control over how Chrome treats things.

[zoraster]

Yeah i use chrome at home and have never had a problem

[zoraster]

It's not someone's computer that's compromised from what I can tell. It's the site itself you hotlink from. Maybe that's why you're having such a severe disconnect from everyone, zach?

The way it works is that someone searches somewhere for a comic or something. They find it on a less than reputable site. They take a link of the jpg or whatever from that site, and then they slap on a couple of [img] tags. Then it trips it.

It's nothing about their computer being infected or not.

[zoraster]

Meh. Sometimes. Chrome is kind of aggressive about it. If you get it from a site that has a bad reputation for dodgy downloads (DOWNLOAD NOW!) then it might be marked even if the actual image and site you accessed the image through was fine. Regardless, the fact your computer is infected is actually irrelevant for the hotlink's goodness or badness.

Anyway, If you're being honest I will too: it's neither MS's job nor is it the administration's job to care about what diseases your computer picks up unless it's from MS itself. The goal is to preserve MS as a clean site.

[zoraster]

Anyway, again. I'm going to put the emphasis on the fact that you can't expect the user to know what isn't reputable. The filter chrome uses along with any other anti-malware browser of anti-virus changes frequently.

Well I think that's why chamber suggested using imgur or photobucket or whatever. You know that you can use those and either (a) be safe or (b) if something WERE to go wrong, you'd be held harmless.

[zoraster]

Chrome is a very popular browser. It kind of depends on how you count, but by some metrics, it's the number 1 browser.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_shar ... b_browsers

[zoraster]

firefox too, i'm sure.

[zoraster]

I imagine many people using IE are doing so from their work.

[zoraster]

it may be page accesses or something.

[zoraster]

I don't think it's a joke. That was my understanding as well. Or at least that was the concern that chamber had with allowing images to be hosted on site.

[zoraster]

I don't think it's a joke. That was my understanding as well. Or at least that was the concern that chamber had with allowing images to be hosted on site.

I said I didn't know. Hohum is the person that would given that he owns the server MS is hosted on.

Right. that's why I said it was your concern.

[zoraster]

well hohum hasn't even said that we don't have enough BW, UN.

[zoraster]

Out of interest, hohum, what's the cause for somewhat slow loading of pages with lots of photos? Is that just on my end, the site that the photos are being hosted at, some sort of server-side stuff?

[zoraster]

cool. Sounds good to me. Keeping in mind I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes and whether this is a "duh" statement, you might ask mith before implementing it. Although there's not really a practical difference, mith may not feel good about actually hosting some of the images that get posted here... and potentially having those photos get hotlinked to from other sites.