A request of the mods

1

http://www.kirupaforum.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31592

See this thread? This is not the first time that I’ve seen both members and mods hot link to servers which they do not own. I’m not saying that we should spend any serious time looking for such things, but I know that in the past kirupa has taken the stance that it is “in bad form” to hot link to something which you don’t own. This is my opinion, though I don’t know for sure if Kirupa subscribes to the same opinion still.
So I guess it’s really up to the kman to decide if such is acceptable or not, but I thought I would bring it up, since it seems to be happening quite often around here.

Personaly I find it to be a real pain in the *** when I’m loading a page and it takes twice as long as it should as the browser attempts to circumvent a broken link.

2

but that happens when you place images you do own, and your server goes down.

it would be tedious as heck to try and police…

just my thoughts

Rev

3

my own dislike of broken links cannot be solved, that’s true, but that is hardly the point. Every designer who owns space knows that it’s unethical to hot link to someone else’s server. All I’m asking is that a ruling is made on the issue. If it is, I’ll add the ruling to the rule list.
Policing isn’t all that difficult on such a thing. It’s not like we’d have to check every image. Mearly delete those that are noticed, and give a minor warning to the offender.
The only reason I really bothered is that I feel very strongly about the issue of misappropriated bandwidth.

4

I have to agree with David here, sucking up someones bandwidth for fun isn’t cool at all. Think about it, every time someone views that thread, the image gets downloaded from the hot linked server, thus eating up a ton of bandwidth, especially on a popular forum like this.

5

fine, go ahead then, be the link police

even on a popular thread, the image is only shown on one page, seen by maybe 25-30 people, once, then never pulled up again. I don’t see this as a major issue. If it were, the people hosting their images would have a javascript that limits right clicks…

sometimes I think the fun is being drained out of this place…

but that is just my opinion.

Rev

6

do you really see that much of a problem with misappropriated bandwidth? Most people have way more bandwidth than they ever need, and nobody is paying by the traffic, unless you are huge, then you disable the right click.

maybe we should make everyone verify their serial # before posting any fla on the site as well.

Rev

7

well, whatever the reasoning, if this is the rule, it will affect the entire forum.

so the motive is moot.

Rev

8

Rev, perhaps what you percieve as the fun being taking out of the place, is an attempt to reign in some of the anarchy that has been creeping into it for a long time. Rules are not bad, they are meant to ensure the enjoyment of all, not just a few select individuals. If you look at that as fun, then you’re a bigger fool than Phil is.

sorry, but its an acceptable practice on the internet these days;

only among the unethical. Perhaps Phil you can’t possibly understand because you are not a designer. You might be an anarchist, considering the manner of your paranoia and loathing of anything that is not “phillish”.

I have the right to my opinion. I have the right to that opinion even though it goes against both of yours. Don’t throw a hissy fit about it. I made this thread to ask the question, “who thinks this?, who doesn’t?”

You phil, have interjected your opinion in spades, as usual, making little sense, and being very accusatory. If you feel that I have problems with you, take it up with Kirupa privately, not in this forum, just as you WHINNED that I should do before you opted to just ignore me entirely. Anything beyond your opinion is insulting and degrading to me personaly. Not that it matters to you, you don’t follow any rules around here.

I’m done in this thread. It’s up to kirupa. I’m not going to argue with the two of you about this. It IS unethical behavior, and only crackers and punks do it. The rest of us try to have some sort of moral high ground on the issue.

edited to add a point:
You know nothing for nothing, but you two weren’t around when we started this thing called Kirupa. If I recall correctly, Kirupa made a lengthy post about exactly this subject, condemning it on the board. I have not been being a stickler about such things exactly because people keep whinning about all the fun being run out of the board. The fact is, people will still be able to have fun here without posting the same picture 5 to 20 times in a row, post after post, all linked to an outside source.

9

lol… yes I deleted a post containing those characters phil It had nothing to do with the conversation at hand. If you had gone in and edited the post you could have seen what the letters actually said, but I suppose it’s too late now. I make no appologies. It is obvious who is attempting to start a fight in this thread.

10

btw, cut that out. Kirupa specificaly asked us to stop fighting. I am not fighting with you in any way phil. you are being very abusive to me however.

11

So far this thread has been viewed 70 times, and only four of us have given their opinion on the subject. Please people, just ignore the paranoid one. I would like people’s opinions on the matter. This forum is ruled by kirupa, but our councel is what motivates him. If everyone here thinks that hotlinking is tolerable thing, then that opinion should be heard. Of course if you have no opinion that’s fine I suppose.

12

I don’t really mind hotlinking from a news site. Most of the news sites would rather have the images hot-linked from their servers with a credit link placed back to them like it was done in this case.

Also, after viewing the image once, the image gets cached so the viewer won’t be downloading it repeatedly. I think I was against users uploading their attachments in the test forums and using their uploaded attachments as their footers - thus using the forums as a place to host attachments.

EDIT: David, you posted this at 1:01 AM, most of us sleep at that time haha :ub:

EDIT2: Just thought about this, if any sites are not interested in having their images be hot-linked, they can always disable them by placing a “do not steal bandwidth” graphic like what geocities and many free web-hosts do.

13

:slight_smile: 1 am? not in Paris.

ok maybe I’m a little pushy for the answer. but I didn’t expect everyone to answer immediately.

I agree with you in so far as multiple shots on a single page, will not suck up any more bandwidth than a single shot, and that most people’s cache will prevent a future download.

I still think it’s unethical but I personaly don’t believe that it’s vital as a rule goes.

I mearly bring em to the table. .

14

EDIT2: Just thought about this, if any sites are not interested in having their images be hot-linked, they can always disable them by placing a “do not steal bandwidth” graphic like what geocities and many free web-hosts do.

if I leave my car in my driveway is it ok for you to steal it IF I don’t lock the doors?

it’s misapropriation of bandwidth. It always has been considered such,and I see no reason why that should change. Perhaps a big news site is ok with the bandwidth misapropriation as it occures. But of course if it’s ok to do it to them it’s certainly ok to do it to the little guy as well. Perhaps you would be cool with someone hotlinking to a cool image that you were hosting. You might think differently if everyone on the planet opted to follow sheep like phill into the abyss of “harmless” crimes.

like I said… it’s just an opinion. I said in the beginning “ultimately it’s up to kirupa.” as I believe all things should be. Councel from the mods is good too. :slight_smile:

15

well there are ways to prevent it and some providers do so (geocities and tripod for example). Otherwise, Id say a solution may be to (which I have done some in the past) is give a link to the site hosting the image so its kind of like giving credit.


[size=1][ from http://www.b97hawaii.com/ ][/size]

Now could something like this be built into the [**img] tag? That could be something to look into, though if so, I would suggest some kind of argument to prevent that kinking for things like personal smilies and things of that type.

16

true… and a very bright thought.

I doubt that it will be necessary though. I’m either way on that one. Since it’s something that we can do, without a specific rule covering it, it certainly would be my choice of solutions. Though since kirupa has basicaly stated that he doesn’t think a ruling is necessary, I doubt that we need to trouble ourselves. Might be fun to do just for the hell of it though.

17

Either way, a small image that is about 75k in size, when viewed by a 100 people, is only about 7.5 MB of bandwidth out of a total 5-10 GBs that most basic servers have. It is ethical - yes - but the difficulties in taking an image, hosting it on your own server far outweigh any of the benefits.

About the car being stolen - the locks are there for a reason just like the “do not hot-link images.” I would not steal your car, but I cannot say the same for everyone who walks by your car though. It’s up to you, as the owner of the car, to ensure that your car is locked. If the Florida Sun Sentinel chooses not to have people hot link their images, they can take use of the bandwidth-conserving snippets of code that exist throughout the web.

Trying to make it a rule would only cause most people to simply not post images BUT link to that news site directly…which not only downloads that site’s images, but also any content, banner ads, etc. So now, we are helping the site by only using their image instead of supported content :sure:

18

sen - I’ll try to see if I can find a way of displaying the source of site that hosted the image.

EDIT: For the most part, I noticed that many posters of the hot-linked images do give credit back to the site from where they got them. In the future, if someone hotlinks a graphic that doesn’t contain a link to the original site, we can add it in. Eventually, the members will start doing it automatically.

I don’t think many of the members actually bother reading the rules C:-)

19

Trying to make it a rule would only cause most people to simply not post images BUT link to that news site directly…which not only downloads that site’s images, but also any content, banner ads, etc. So now, we are helping the site by only using their image instead of supported content

ahh, but that’s ok because they get the ‘hit’. :slight_smile:

I understand where you’re coming from. It’s cool for it not to be a rule.

I don’t think many of the members actually bother reading the rules
that’s why they should be posted in each forum. I wasn’t going to do it but I hoped that other’s might follow my lead in the ordered forum and post it elsewhere. I suppose it could be made into an anouncement. that seems over the top as a permanent thing though.

Perhaps just post them on an html doc somewhere and put up an anouncement for a small period of time. Then, have it in the sign up agreement when you first become a member. Not a difficult solution at all. :slight_smile:

20

I think that providing bandwidth isn’t an issue, then hot-linking isn’t too much of a problem, as long as the poster credits the site / person they’re linking to.

I reckon it’s better than saving the pic and putting it on your own server, as I’m sure that’s kind of un-ethical too… :slight_smile: