StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Apparently phpbbs3 has a feature where you can upload images to the board server. It might be worth enabling it in specialist forums on a limit of like 1 image per post, and a maximum image size of 100 kb or less so that you can post diagrams, screencaps, etc without having to go to photobucket or various hosting sites...

Whatever is the point? Photobucket works just fine, and the only downsides are that you might run out of space on your own personal account. Not Mikes server space. True, this can make older threads a bit more obtuse when the images on them are deleted, but its a small price to pay. This feature does not seem to me to justify itself when comparing the negatives to the rewards. Certainly not for a board this size and traffic. Even the one image per page limit does not help because I cannot think of a single type of thread where you do not want to post multiple images, and would be forced to use an image host anyway. How would you decide which image is worth saving to the server and which ones go to the Photobucket account?

So tell me why we need it. Tell me why Photobucket is not good enough.

Because they delete Havokeff's artwork! 'Course, those pics would not be proper on Mike's server.
I'd favor a slightly larger avatar size, say 150x150 and 10k, over storing local images.

I see absolutely no point in this (beyond maybe reducing the work for the users, and it's not worth it). (Who can afford the negligible effort, lazy bums!).
If it's sensitive then people can mark it according to the TOS of their hosting site, there's no real reason NOT to use flickr, photobucket, imageshack etc'.

Until we can be sure there are no more people here limited to dial-up, we should probably put this off for the time being, and revisit it when we don't have to worry about things like "NSF56K".

Disk space isn't really an issue these days, it would take 10,000 max size image posts to use up one gigabyte and the server should have tens if not hundreds of gigabytes spare. Bandwidth might be though, I believe Mike's already paying for bandwidth and lots of images could be a noticeable increase in cost.

As for the avatars, looking at the current screen layout you couldn't make them much taller without annoyingly stretching out the short posts (at least, for people with non-enormous sigs), but there does seem to be a fair margin for increasing width. Going to 133 x 100 would be good since aspect ratio that matches a non-widescreen screencap and the extra width would fit into the blank space in the current layout.

As for the avatars, looking at the current screen layout you couldn't make them much taller without annoyingly stretching out the short posts (at least, for people with non-enormous sigs), but there does seem to be a fair margin for increasing width. Going to 133 x 100 would be good since aspect ratio that matches a non-widescreen screencap and the extra width would fit into the blank space in the current layout.

And is there any reason, let alone a pressing one, to allow bigger avatars? Is there anything you can express in 133x100 you can't express in 100x100? Is there an urgent reason to skewer the useful text<->decoration ratio even further?

Bounty wrote:And is there any reason, let alone a pressing one, to allow bigger avatars?

Obviously there is no 'pressing' reason, but so what? I just said that whenever Mike is next fiddling with the board settings, it'd be nice if the width was bumped a little.

Is there anything you can express in 133x100 you can't express in 100x100?

Why not reduce avatar size to 80 x 80 ! 50 x 50 ! Hell, you should be able to get the essentials into 16 x 16, NES sprite designers could!

Yes, it would only be a small increase in detail achieveable. So what? By your logic we would still be using 640 x 480 monitors, because 'what can you express in 800 x 600 that you can't express in good old standard VGA?'. Actually given that the resolution of the monitors everyone is using is steadily increasing, bumping the avatar size up slightly every few years seems sensible.

Is there an urgent reason to skewer the useful text<->decoration ratio even further?

As I've already said, increasing the width won't use up any space. Actually it would make the layout more balanced as the gap widths on each side would match, not that that's terribly significant.

On avatar size: you know, I have personally found that the 125x125 pixel limit used on one of the other forums I frequent adds a surprising amount of detail to avatars, but the frames are no bigger then the ones here because the avatar simply fills up the space already available. I measured (4.51 cm there compared to exactly 4.5 cm here), and they actually have MORE space for content because they have a smaller margin on the sides of the screen. Its a small bump up in size with no effect on space for content. The REAL concern is bandwidth, since that other forum has only a fraction of the traffic SDN gets every day, and can therefor more easily afford it.

Count Chocula wrote:Because they delete Havokeff's artwork! 'Course, those pics would not be proper on Mike's server.
I'd favor a slightly larger avatar size, say 150x150 and 10k, over storing local images.

Increasing the logical size of avatars might have merit, but what's the point of increasing the image size? 100x100 is fine; 6kb simply limits this 100x100 image to poor quality, crap formats or both. Non-square avatars are of course a product of wrongthinking (or an apt usage of the assymetrical area used for avatars). Increasing the size to 10-12kb would have pretty much the sole results of a) marginally increasing the quality of a few avatars and b) reducing the incidence of WAH MAKE ME AN AV PLZ threads, which occur in testing anyway and are thus irrelevant.

AND STRIKETHROUGH MUST BE IMPLEMENTED.

Stark wrote: b) reducing the incidence of WAH MAKE ME AN AV PLZ threads, which occur in testing anyway and are thus irrelevant.

I don't think it would help with that particular issue at all, if only because most of the people asking to have an av made are totally clueless on how to use basic image editor functions.

I could definitely get behind a larger file size limit, somewhere in the 10-12kb range. I would also support slightly larger avatar sizes, with 125x125 being the upper limit on that.

Starglider wrote:Disk space isn't really an issue these days, it would take 10,000 max size image posts to use up one gigabyte and the server should have tens if not hundreds of gigabytes spare. Bandwidth might be though, I believe Mike's already paying for bandwidth and lots of images could be a noticeable increase in cost.

Well, how about reducing it to 50 kb? Should be enough to get most diagrams through, allow for some decent color images, etc; while not cluttering up the board.

One thing that might help with bandwidth reduction is probably auto-thumbnailing the images. The idea being that while lots of people browse through all the new threads, only the people who actually want to see the image would click on the thumbnail and use significant bandwidth. Really the only way to check the impact on bandwidth usage, with or without thumbnailing, would be to convince DW to enable it for a trial period. As long as it isn't enabled in testing it shouldn't be too bad.