Pictures During NaPo

[suzanne]

Umm, from one "slow kid in the class" to another, I'm trying to translate #1 into something meaningful in my non-techie head, I'm not sure that putting up images that are hosted by PFFA is okay or not okay, what is definitely okay is posting images to the "Image Friendly Thread!" threads (thanks Donna, for coming up with that one!).

Concerning #2, I think that is an excellent idea.

And for all of you, I very much appreciate your patience and cooperation as we discuss this issue, and try to have the most successful NaPo possible.

I had a PM from a member who has an expert in the computer field as a relative who kindly offered a professional explanation in terms even I could grasp (mostly) of how the various pictures affect both our site and individual member's ability to load threads. I've gotten their permission to post it, as it was very helpful to me and perhaps will be the same for someone else out there.


Image sizes in perspective:

1 character is equivalent to one byte. Text doesn’t take up much space. Even a very small photograph will take up kilobytes or megabytes of space: it helps to think of a small photograph as the equivalent of posting a 5,000 word essay or longer.

Pictures linked to via the ‘picture’ facility (i.e. ones you can see directly)

When the thread is accessed, the board will be automatically directed to the picture’s host site, talk to the host site, and retrieve the information, then transfer it to the board.

Let’s imagine you’ve a thread with 10 pictures. Someone clicks on the thread. The board automatically sends out 10 instructions to 10 external servers, and temporarily downloads 10 sets of large files. That takes time. If you’re browsing with a low broadband speed, it could be very slow to load the page. If someone else is trying to access the thread at the same time, it’s slower still: to the point at which the board might have to queue requests or even freeze up entirely. Site traffic (by which I mean those multiple sets of requests) gets very high, and so everything will load slower.

Pictures linked to via a URL link (blue underlined text – click on it and it will take you to the pictures in a separate window)

Here, the request to retrieve information isn’t automated, so it is dependent on how many users are clicking on the blue links as to whether the site might have bandwidth issues due to high traffic.

Are photographs stored on site?

Once they’ve been clicked on they might be temporarily stored in ‘cache’, which could mean further strain on server space unless the cache is emptied frequently.

[HowardM2]

Re: #2 --

Certainly things will be sorted out thoroughly by next Napo; they're a bit confusing at the moment because the whole idea is currently a work in progress rather than a finished, finalized, completed, set-in-stone-tablets-embellished-with-decorative-curlicues-and-forceful-punctuation policy. Accordingly, as my former division chair/dean used to tell us, "Use your best professional judgment" in choosing how to respond for the present; personally, I'd prefer placing the responsibility on y'all than for the mods to concretize some draconian policy. Of course, if you'd prefer the draconian option, please inform us forthwith. Okey dokey?

[Sorella]

What? Draconian is not an option? Are you feeling quite OK, Howard?

Edit: I like it. I am just... taken aback.

[HowardM2]

Of course it's always an option.

And for that, go to your room, young lady. No crullers and tea for you.

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Hi Suzanne,

I don't agree with what this expert says, or I've significantly misunderstood him/her.

I always get a little anxious stating categorically that someone else is wrong, not least becauseI'd hate to say that and be wrong myself and look stupid! I'm certainly not an expert on the internet, though I do have an ageing doctorate in Computer Science, and a long time ago I wrote a couple of websites with databases, and I can't imagine the basic principles have changed that radically, or that I've significantly misremembered them. Still, I can't absolutely rule out either possibility. Anyway, some of what this person says makes no sense to me in terms of my understanding of how the internet works and the respective roles of server and client (browser)

As I have pointed out before, when a user adds an image to a post the server does not store the image only a link to it. It stores the URL (or web address) only. There are no user-posted images in the database or on the server. The size of the image is completely irrelevant because amount of memory needed to store a URL is minuscule in comparison: equivalent to a single line of text or less.

When you view a thread, your browser downloads the page as a set of html instructions. Among those instructions is an instruction to your browser to go off to another site and find a picture. I've checked this by looking at a couple HTML source files: what's downloaded is an instruction containing a URL and not a picture. This means that all the bandwidth taken up by the picture is your bandwidth, not PFFA's. The picture is downloaded from another site onto your computer by your browser. It does not go via the PFFA server. So when the expert says:

When the thread is accessed, the board will be automatically directed to the picture’s host site, talk to the host site, and retrieve the information, then transfer it to the board.

I'm confused. If by "the board" he or she means my browser then I agree: my browser is automatically directed to the picture host's site. However, if "the board" is taken to mean "the PFFA server" then I disagree, that just makes no sense. It's not the server's job to decode the HTML instructions, it's the browsers. Similarly here:

Let’s imagine you’ve a thread with 10 pictures. Someone clicks on the thread. The board automatically sends out 10 instructions to 10 external servers, and temporarily downloads 10 sets of large files. That takes time. If you’re browsing with a low broadband speed, it could be very slow to load the page. If someone else is trying to access the thread at the same time, it’s slower still: to the point at which the board might have to queue requests or even freeze up entirely. Site traffic (by which I mean those multiple sets of requests) gets very high, and so everything will load slower.

Ten pictures on the page may well slow down my browsing experience if I have a slow internet connection. But why would it slow the server? For the server that's the same as sending 10 lines of text (it is only sending text). It's my browser that follows the instructions to temporarily download ten large files not the PFFA server. And however much that slows my browser (if at all) that's not going to make the server/database freeze up, because the server is doing nothing other than sending me a list of links. There seems to be confusion here between the roles of the browser and the server, or I'm misunderstanding what's being said.

Once they’ve been clicked on they might be temporarily stored in ‘cache’, which could mean further strain on server space unless the cache is emptied frequently."

Now yes, once you've clicked on an image link and seen an image, it will be stored in a temporary cache on your computer. But not on the server. Why would it be on the server? The server is not downloading the pictures, your browser is. If I click a link on a PFFA page, my browser gets redirected to picture, this has zero impact on the PFFA server. Consider this: if the PFFA server went down and I still had the page up on my browser I could still click on that link and be redirected to that picture. That picture isn't uploaded to the PFFA server and then back down onto my browser. As I said above, the image data is not transferred to or from the server.

Anyhow, I could be wrong or be misunderstanding what's being claimed here, but I continue to see no reason why the use of pictures on this site would place any greater load on the database/server than a single line of text would.

-Matt

[Donner]

The main point is: NaPo, while fun and fluffy and a we're all in this together experience, is still about the poetry. Regardless the technical issues, don't assume everyone wants their NaPo threads wallpapered with images. Their preference should be respected. We've offered what we think is a reasonable compromise. We will add it to next year's guidelines. End of discussion.

Donner

PS - Yes, Sorella, it's ok to add your youtube links.

[prooftheory]

Another "professional computer guy" here to back up Matt. The person who PMed you didn't seem to be making a distinction between server-side and client-side processing. vBulletin is configurable so that it could save and host images if you wanted but the PFFA is not set up that way and so the pictures represent no more than a little bit of text for the server. The pictures could slow down loading a page but could not cause the login problems that we were having.

[Donner]

One more time.

Hashed, hashed rehashed. Now, go and play.

Donner