Whats with the "no pics" rule all about? I,m sorry to have been among those that broke the 700 pix rule though I do host the pics on my own $ite, I didn't even give it a thought as this is/has been home, and I'm just comfy posting pics now and then here as I dont g"et out" much to the other forums just the same, This is the premier Flightsim news and forum site on the web and must have rules, but wingless creepers what happen? please reconsider...please?You O'le Mule! :-eek

People send us email complaining about the speed of the forums. Come to find out later today that there was a thread that had 25+ images in it and all hosted on our server AND ALL OF THEM over 700 pixels wide!!! NO WONDER the dang forums are dragging. Okay, so I probably over reacted ("as usual", I am sure some of the "icons" will shout)... Shots of the sims belong in the screen shot forum (no greater than 700 pixels wide and no more than 5 per post PLEASE!!!!), and as for images here, well, if they help a person understand a technical issue, or help in some other way related to working the sim or your system, okay. But dang it... ah, enough said.

Thanks Tom, I will comply. I will comply.I will comply. I will comply.I will comply. I will comply.I will comply. I will comply.I will comply. I will comply.Can I go play now? :)And now I would like to demonstrate the therory of good screen shots, in these next 50 shots notice how the...Just kidding! Ok, Ok, I'm going....

lol thanks for the laugh, Paul

Paul,There are still a huge number users in dial-up connections (and who have no practical choice in the matter) and many of them do not have large monitors as well. Even with 700 sized pictures, it still takes a while to load them, but it is far better than trying to load larger images. As you are well aware, the image size increases exponentially with image width, and anything much bigger than 700 really taxes a dial-up connection.

If large pics are hosted on our own personal site how do they slow the forum down?

They still get downloaded by the reader's browser for display. On a dialup connection that's slow.

http://brianc.vip.warped.com/kpwk_sig.gif

errr, though there is fiber-optic running all over the place here I'm on a dial-up connection me self so I understand image size just fine, but thanks Just the same. :)A Wize man said once:It takes a very big man to admit when he is wrong, and I am not a very big man.

<< Shots of the sims belong in the screen shot forum (no greater than 700 pixels wide and no more than 5 per post PLEASE!!!!), and as for images here, well, if they help a person understand a technical issue, or help in some other way related to working the sim or your system, okay. >>Sounds like a reasonable compromise. The forums are remarkably faster. Thank you. R-

I think the pictures Tom is referring to were, in fact, hosted on the avsim servers.

A picture is worth a thousand words sometimes when you're trying to solve a "general MS flight simulator" problem. Please relax the rule.Edit: sorry, just re-read your reply Tom, and I had reacted in haste. Thanks for understanding.Greghttp://www3.sympatico.ca/gregory.moffatt/A320_BigO_new.jpg

Hi Tom,any limit is good! besides the cosmetic display of images larger than 700 pixels wide, isn't it a matter of file size rather than width? I mean a blue sky with an aircraft in the middle compressed in JPG takes less space at 1280x1024 than a close up of a very complex panel with lots of tiny details compressed in JPG at 700 pixels wide. In that respect, isn't it easier for the forum system to automatically reject any picture attached to a post if the picture is greater than 125K and/or the cummulative size of the pictures attached is over 625K?Hope this helps!

As a former extremely slow dial up connector -can't you just stop the picture downloading and move on if you aren't interested in the picture?I used to do that all the time, and still do with cable/dsl if I find the image is something I am not interested in.http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/Geofdog2.jpg

>As a former extremely slow dial up connector -can't you just >stop the picture downloading and move on if you aren't >interested in the picture? >I used to do that all the time, and still do with cable/dsl >if I find the image is something I am not interested in. Yes Geof, you usually can, although some browsers will try to load the images before or at the same time as the text so if you halt the transmission, you may stop the thread in the middle also. Depends on the browser. Second, not everyone that can do that, will do that. They want to download the images to see them also, and thus, the forum still gets tied up trying to download the huge threads to all the people hitting the thread at the same time. This is obviously worse in the screenshot forum and part of why we have had so many strict rules over there. People will have to be conscience of the fact the this forum, being so busy, could become part of the performance problem also if not used wisely.

Would be "oh so nice" if the forums were a little more user configurable. I realize the forum software is something off the rack, but the ability to configure whether images are downloaded or not on a per user basis would be nice. Also the ability to ban/plonk users on a personal/individual basis would be nice. These web forums have kind of taken over the usenet roll, though I still go to usenet a lot. To have newsreader style functionality seems logical, though probably a dream.Just my .02 Eric