Why so few photos posted?

Absoultely Jon, I think that is the key point. Unlike a book, most posts here are by volunteers tryint to fit a quick reply around all the other things that they have to do. I think it unlikely that this will change because most people will find it too time consuming to illustrate their posts.

However, I don't think this needs to be the end of the story. It may well be that the FAQ section could be developed along the lines that NBEast is suggesting. I'm sure that if he/she or anyone else wants to contribute towards that, the help would be gratefully received.

Well said Mr B and Jon (who always says positive things).
It's probably worth bearing in mind that no one is forced to be a member of any forums and there is a vast array of them out there.
It is just possible the style of this forum does not suit every ones taste, that said it does seem to evolve to accomodate the variety of demand in particular areas, take the newly formed macro forum, brilliant.
Perhaps if there is enough demand there could be a visual Q & A section? where if people had overcome issues like wb or exposure or whatever, the before and afters could be posted.

Point well taken. There is a difference between contrived opportunity to post a photo and actual needed illustration. Erring on the side of less clutter seems to be the concensus.

Another poster brings the valid point of - why spend the effort if it just rolls off the screen by afternoon.

I have not explored (nor was I aware of) a Q&A section. Here's what I would envision:

If a poster (or reader) felt a thread, or even selected posts, warranted being saved then the poster would spend more effort than a quick text and it could be flagged for Q&A content. Some mechanism would allow it to be moved or copied. The Q&A would have some means of categorizing and /or indexing. Sounds like a complex effort to be too workable.

I don't see much interest in change though so I'm not proposing it. My initial question has been answered.

Regarding finding examples, I think finding a number of good examples where in-line photos have enhanced a thread would be more productive than trying to say someone should have spent more effort than they probably had time for.

Thanks all for your input!

I haven't seen this until now.

I think FAQ entries should use sample photos or screenshots if it help clarify the topic explained.

For example, Scottes have posted several tutorials in P&P that use this method. Here is an example:

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=34489

NBEast, is this the type of posts You are talking about?

Ideas and contributions to the FAQ are greatly appreciated. Post ideas in Forum talk or in a PM to me, if You can/will contribute with something to the FAQ then send a PM to me.

Yeah, very nice illustrations.

Queston; Big Ben commented on a FAQ section. Was he refering to the forum section or is there an actual FAQ stick with links to all the various old threads that are well done and informative like this one?

I was originally talking about say, when someone feels the need to explain how sharp their lense is, welllll, show us! But I'm also not on a bandwagon to change things and wouldn't want to see barrages (or any for that matter) of bad photos that have no point either.

Some threads have been marked as FAQ in the subject, You should be able to find them easily with the search function. Some of these FAQs have links to other threads with good information.

The FAQ section Big_B talks about is a work in progress and currently only visible for moderators.

Perhaps it has something to do with this;

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/announce​ment.php?f=33

This is something that was asked for by the membership quite some time ago,. and frankly I agree with it 100%

The forums are broken up into several sections. Some of these sections are discussion froums. Some are photosharing,. etc.

One of the most annoying things found on any photography forum is when a discussion thread is underway and someone decides this is a good place to show off a bunch of there photos in the middle of it.... that's usually not helpfull and is more of a showboating thing,.. If the photos are pertinant,. a link will usually suffice. Give the readers the option of deciding if joe newb member's photos are germaine. Don't jam them down our throats.

Obviously there are exceptions,. lots of them and we see them in the discussion forums every day,. but the hard and fast rule remains that inline images are reserved for the photo sharing sections.


As for the FAQ's,. I think we are all agreed 100% that contributory images embedded in these threads is perfectly acceptable,. and in fact neccesary in many instances.

(obviously) hadn't read the link. I like the extra color, but guidelines are guidelines. Thanks.

Agree; showboating is a little ummm, obvious and sometimes annoying. The guidelines didn't sound hard-and-fast but erring on the side of providing a link seems reasonable.

Regarding FAQ links, here's an example of what I thought you were refering to (this is in a similar forum - one using the same software).
http://www.dcresource.​com/forums/showthread.​php?t=7146

PS: I think this site is tops. No implication otherwise.

Here is a good example of a thread improved by in-line photos.

One could as easily link to an online album if they know all about setting it up, security from letting people download originals, etc. But this was easy and quick and a vast improvement - and nothing less would have sufficed in conveying to the Original Poster the possibilities of the lense in question.

https://photography-on-the.net …d.php?p=818225#​post818225

I agree with NBeast about posting photos in a thread; but a LOT of the newbs don't have an on-line photo hosting place yet to link to; let alone knowing what linking actually is.

I wonder what kind of space the forum takes up (HDD space) and if we could bump the 200K limit up a little. Sometimes I just want to pop a picture in a thread; but don't because I have to make it so small. I'm not saying make 3mb files allowed; but maybe 500k?

How many people here start off with "Sorry about the compression...." when sharing something. Maybe if we up the ceiling on the pic limit; more poeople will post images? Just a thought. Hdd space isn't what is used to be; and truthfully; I wonder how many people have this kind of camera gear and STILL use dial up? I live on the *fringe* of town and I had DSL 5 years ago.

Just my own thoughts...

Glad you agree.

Regarding pic size. Another site using the same forum software allows 200K and they come out very well at 72DPI 800 x 800 crops.

I wonder if the [IMG.] links bypass having to cache the photos in memory or causing (server side) bandwidth consumption. That would mean if using 100K would encourages people to start using the linking method would save a lot on POTN resources. Their current mix makes for some very good response times.

I don't think we will see an increase in the allowed size of attachments.

Diskspace do cost and there is just one person who pays for this and that is Pekka (and those that donate to the forum cost).

As for linking with the IMG tag. Here there is no limit to the size however please do conside dialup users. You would be amazed how many still use dialup particular in USA because of the free/extremely cheap local phone call rates.

Only 60 users voted but is this vote 1/6 states that they still use dialup: https://photography-on-the.net …?do=showresults​&pollid=74 actually in that vote the dialup came in on a third place out of 10 choices.

Thanks Tommy.

Do you know if the [IMG.] linking method causes the photo to pass through POTN, or does the client browser load it directly from the hosting server?

I wonder if there is a way for a dialup user to disable the linked images from displaying automatically. It would be a software option that would determine connection speed at the session start and maybe offer dialup users the option to disable in-line photos (wouldn't be a bad idea to have an "office surfng mode" either) - to pseudocode:

IF DIALUP
REPLACE "IMG]" WITH
"URL]"

The amount of bandwitdh used from the POTN server is very small if anything when linking with the IMG tag. The server just sends the image location to the browser which then loads the image from the host.

As for disabling the image display based on conection speed. That function actually already exist in the browser. (In IE at least) there is an option where You can tell the browser not to load images. Then when a user want to se the image a click click and load should do the trick.

As for putting a function like this in the forum software. Pekka have stated that he will not make modifications to the software only the CSS stylesheet so unless that function is already in the software or are planned by vbulletin developers I don't see anything like that coming to the forum software.

It can be selected manually.

If you go to "User CP/Edit Options/Thread Display Options" and uncheck the box "Show Images (including attached images and images in [IMG] code)" then images are displayed as clickable links rather than the image itself being shown.

You can also inhibit display of avatars and signatures in the same section.