Hello all,
As you may have noticed, over the last few days the admin team has taken the time to create a repository of images that are widely used on the forum. These can be split into two main categories:
Note that a repository like this is not the same as a list of images. The image files are attached, which means that they are uploaded on the forum server. This contrasts the use of
tags, as in that case the image is just linked to from an outside server. This also explains why each post in the repository only contains one image, as you cannot have multiple attachments, and why only admins can upload images (under the current mask settings).
There are many reasons why these repositories are useful. I will list a few here.
What is possible, though, is to upload the most commonly used images, and replace the most common occurrences to those. The first part is what the admins have done by creating these repositories. The second part, however, requires your contribution.
To be more specific, we would like to request that all members go through their signatures and replace links to awards, medals, office userbars, etc., with those in the repository. To make this easier, the admins have created an index of all uploaded image in the first post of the public repository, here. Go through the index and, if you find an image that is included in your signature, replace the link with that in the repository.
Furthermore, in the future, we would like to request that you try to use the repository links instead of the original sources of the images. One way to facilitate this is to edit commonly referenced lists of such images and replace the links contained there with the links in the repository. I have already taken the liberty to replace the corresponding lists of military badges and office userbars. Other such lists would be the thread with the Presidential awards pinned inside Goldenblock, or the thread with the recruitment-related awards in the Interior Office, to give two examples.
One final request. If you have any images in mind that you believe should be uploaded on the forum server, please let the admins know by posting an image upload request in this thread. Appropriate images would be ones that are likely to be used by several users, or in many posts. An image contained in the heading of all documents released by the Office of the President would be one good example. A custom userbar contained in the signature of a single member would not fit into this category.
Thank you in advance for your collaboration.
1This is an entirely hypothetical scenario, and no implication that Jaden Eaglepoint has, is suspected to, or is likely to have any such intention is made.
As you may have noticed, over the last few days the admin team has taken the time to create a repository of images that are widely used on the forum. These can be split into two main categories:
- images used by the forum itself, for example for the skin, the banner, etc.; and
- images used by the users, for example awards, userbars, etc.
Note that a repository like this is not the same as a list of images. The image files are attached, which means that they are uploaded on the forum server. This contrasts the use of
Code:
[img][/img]There are many reasons why these repositories are useful. I will list a few here.
- posterity: images stored on the forum server are only deleted if an admin deletes them or if the forum itself is deleted. Unlike hosting services such as photobucket, no longer do we have to deal with the problem of the online copies of the images becoming unavailable, deleted, or lost.
- security: images on the forum server are controlled by the admins. Images from websites outside the forum are controlled by whoever controls that website. Let me give you an example of why this is dangerous1: say that Jaden Eaglepoint, the creator of the office userbars, goes crazy or develops a grudge against Europeia. Then, he may replace the userbar files in his photobucket account with images of, say, pornographic content. If he retains the same name for those, then all links on this forum to the userbars will now automatically display this pornographic material. This is only one of the many other scenaria where widely linking to images hosted in external URLs can become a security threat.
- speed: if you link to an image to an external URL, whenever a page here on the forum is loaded that contains this image, it must send a request to the server hosting that image, and retrieve the image from there (assuming that the request is accepted of course). To the contrary, if you link to images hosted on the forum server, all such requests are internal and therefore much faster.
What is possible, though, is to upload the most commonly used images, and replace the most common occurrences to those. The first part is what the admins have done by creating these repositories. The second part, however, requires your contribution.
To be more specific, we would like to request that all members go through their signatures and replace links to awards, medals, office userbars, etc., with those in the repository. To make this easier, the admins have created an index of all uploaded image in the first post of the public repository, here. Go through the index and, if you find an image that is included in your signature, replace the link with that in the repository.
Furthermore, in the future, we would like to request that you try to use the repository links instead of the original sources of the images. One way to facilitate this is to edit commonly referenced lists of such images and replace the links contained there with the links in the repository. I have already taken the liberty to replace the corresponding lists of military badges and office userbars. Other such lists would be the thread with the Presidential awards pinned inside Goldenblock, or the thread with the recruitment-related awards in the Interior Office, to give two examples.
One final request. If you have any images in mind that you believe should be uploaded on the forum server, please let the admins know by posting an image upload request in this thread. Appropriate images would be ones that are likely to be used by several users, or in many posts. An image contained in the heading of all documents released by the Office of the President would be one good example. A custom userbar contained in the signature of a single member would not fit into this category.
Thank you in advance for your collaboration.
1This is an entirely hypothetical scenario, and no implication that Jaden Eaglepoint has, is suspected to, or is likely to have any such intention is made.
