[Discussion] Image Spamming

[Surlethe]

Official Board Policies

Official Board FAQ

Please be considerate to other users and do not inline link to excessively large images of greater than 75KB in size or wider than 500 pixels.

Potpourri

For the sake of our dial up users don't post excessive pictures as images in threads not specifically for pictures. If you have to post them link to them instead. This spares those stuck on dial up while keeping the pics in the posts.

Certain members have been warned about this. Their offending posts will simply be deleted if they continue. We aren't here to clean up the messes you make.

~~~

Picture spamming has become commonplace in Testing. There are several members who often jump into a spam thread and post pictures, macroed images, or .gifs for either comedic effect or just to spam. More seriously, as we saw in the discussion thread for punishing darthdavid, he posted several massive images to break formatting in two threads in Testing; meanwhile, on April Fools' Day, several members were running around posting ungodly large pictures in consecutive threads simply to break the formatting. There were even one or two dedicated "break-the-formatting" threads.

I have at the top of this post linked to the board policy threads in Announcements, and quoted the relevant portions of each thread.

Thus, I put these questions to the Imperial Senate: ought we recommend a policy change on picture spamming? Should there be an outright ban on annoying format-fucking pictures? Should the image size limit be increased to 100 kilobytes or more? Should there be any specific punishments for excessive image spamming? Should a specific rule addressing image linking be added to the Board Policies?

EDIT: It has been pointed out to me that I should clarify the difference between actual spamming and posting pictures in dedicated threads, such as the Official Funny Pics thread in AMP.

[RedImperator]

I didn't mind the "break the formatting" thread because 1) it was in Spamworld, 2) it did what it advertised, and 3) there was only one of them. What got very annoying were certain dipshits who ran around all day doing nothing but posting huge pictures or hundreds of pictures in one thread. It WAS all in Spamworld, but it got annoying in a hurry.

Testing there's more spam leeway than the rest of the board, but I don't see why that should extend to deliberately wrecking an entire page of it for shits and giggles. If you're going to act like an immature little dickweed, there's about a hundred million other boards where you'll fit right it.

It goes without saying that anybody who deliberately fucks the formatting of a thread outside of testing is going to have his spleen pulled out through his nose.

[RedImperator]

I just recieved a letter from a constituent:

You may quote:
It is my opinion that even if someone purposely screwed up the formatting in a legitimate Testing thread (example: New person trying to dress links or SD.netters chit-chatting about swear words ) they should be punished without mercy as well.

Thank you and the Senate for any consideration on my input here in this PM.

Your constituent in the Peanut Gallery,
-M

Fucking with actual testing threads in testing is exactly what I'm talking about. It's boorish, annoying, and it wastes bandwidth.

I don't think any new limits are needed, and I don't think we need to swing the hammer any harder at people who accidentally inline an overlarge picture once or twice (almost everyone does it at one time or another), but I'm in favor of making picture spamming a punishable offense. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to remove a member's ability to inline images, but avatar/sig removal seems an approppriately symbolic punishment.

[Mad]

An amendment to PR13 could be made, or perhaps a similar rule. Currently, it is:

Do not over-use smilies. This is, of course, a subjective rule, but let's just say that it's definitely over-use when more of your post is composed of smilies than text. Lesser examples will rely on more of a judgement call.

Simply changing the first sentence to "Do not abuse smilies or inline images" and perhaps adding some verbage for guidelines (or referencing the guidelines) could be helpful. Hard rules for inline images are difficult to come up with since they are very situational. Modifying PR13 would at least make image abuse a rules infraction.

[Connor MacLeod]

Why care about restricting specific privleges wjhere images are concerned? We expect a certtain minimum level of etiquette in debating and posting on this forum regardless. Some silliness is allowed, but one is expected to be something of a contributor as well to balance that out. I don't see why that should not extend into Testing as well or the posting of images. posting huge, meaningless images or emoticons is just as pointless as +1 "me-tooing" and should be treated as such.