Thinkpads Forum

Are we allowed to put up pictures of sale items? I thought I read we shouldn't post pictures in general. I would be willing to take some and forward them, but I would not want to violate any rules on this.

I just can't throw it away. (I give lots of books to the library, too. )

The rules explicitly state:

Rules of this Road wrote:4. IF you must add a photograph to your post, PLEASE limit the size to 50k or less and place a warning in the subject line.

FOR SALE advert. guidelines wrote:7. No photos for anything unless you put a warning in the subject line. And then, ONE SMALL photo. This will be allowed until someone abuses this rule.

You are always allowed to post pictures as long as you follow rules of the road and sale guidelines.

You can also post as many links to photo's hosted elsewhere as you like.

ryengineer, I remember reading this

4. IF you must add a photograph to your post,

and thinking "they don't really want you posting pictures." HarryC, good idea. I just don't have a site to do that with, kinda of a Cobbler's son story.

Another question on Picture Etiquette, what do you do when you want to PM a picture?

Last I checked you should be able to PM a picture. Again you still need to host it elsewhere. There is no upload capability here.

Thanks, HarryC. Now I get it.

rckrchrdsn wrote:thinking "they don't really want you posting pictures."

Basically, that IS the message.

In general pictures are tolerated to a degree, but for a variety of reasons ThinkPads.com is not intended to be a graphical extravaganza of embedded images everywhere, like some other forums.

Cheers,

Bill B.

Far from me to argue with a Cardinal (by the way, I watch herds of them eat in my lawn. I call them "herd" and not "flock" because they are on my lawn so long I think of them as grazing animals.), but I think someone of higher authority clipped this off the end of my ad. I suspect a moderator or even the admin, but you didn't hear it from me.

Okay, I have to ask. Why do all of you moderators have birds as avatars?

Why do all of you moderators have birds as avatars?

Because we hang out in a tree!

rckrchrdsn wrote:Okay, I have to ask. Why do all of you moderators have birds as avatars?

Not all of us do...

rckrchrdsn wrote:Okay, I have to ask. Why do all of you moderators have birds as avatars?

Bill Morrow, our estemmed forum owner is, as he likes to say, "kept by parrots". That is, he has varying collection of household parrots, many of which he has rescued and brought back to health.

For many years all the ThinkPads.com admins and moderators had a (mostly) common single icon of a Tucan (Bill Morrow still uses this Icon).

In mid 2007 I was in Florida for a technology conference, and was able to organise to meet up with Bill Morrow and his birds (one of the very rare occasions when any of the ThnkPads.com admins/mods have physically met), and to commemorate that event, Bill M. came up with a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo icon for me...... then subsequently expanded the use of icons to allow each admin/mod to choose their own.

In common with the original Tucan/bird theme, most have choosen to stick with a bird icon of some sort.

Cheers,

Bill B.

But no matter what pictures any of the leaders have, all of them are equally nice and funny.

I have learnt to appreciate what Bill Bolton have done in the past. haha.. He is a nice and funny person too.

Picture? Yes, you can post a picture but not so big until everyone must do lateral scrolling; and some forummers are using PDA to view this forum. Ooops, wait... and if you want to post a picture, *do* remember to tag a warning in your title if not you will attract Ms "mouse". (no offence to the "mouse")

In general pictures are tolerated to a degree, but for a variety of reasons ThinkPads.com is not intended to be a graphical extravaganza of embedded images everywhere, like some other forums.

There are cases where images are useful to explain something such as the appearance or location of a chip, or connections to it. I've had a couple of cases of this myself, and the image saves a lot of words and possible confusion. However, I agree that images as "eye candy" would be misplaced here.

I have been using thumbnails from Imageshack, which seems to work well and from what I see doesn't bloat the forum to any significant degree.

Robbyrobot wrote:

In general pictures are tolerated to a degree, but for a variety of reasons ThinkPads.com is not intended to be a graphical extravaganza of embedded images everywhere, like some other forums.

There are cases where images are useful to explain something such as the appearance or location of a chip, or connections to it. I've had a couple of cases of this myself, and the image saves a lot of words and possible confusion. However, I agree that images as "eye candy" would be misplaced here.

I have been using thumbnails from Imageshack, which seems to work well and from what I see doesn't bloat the forum to any significant degree.

I agree on the explanatory side of pictures. (I already found a thread where you can show your setup.) And indeed does an externally hosted picture add absolutely nothing to the bandwith of the forum in any way.


Not to question any authority, but why is TPs.com not intended to have more pictures ? (apart from the PDA/cell phone viewing of course)

Being a moderator myself, I am just wondering. On our forum (it's about cars), the demands get higher and higher and frankly, most eye candy is really sweet.

Or do you all still use that integrated 56k modem on your 640x480 screens?


R,


PS: If I missed the real reason, excuse me since I'm just a beginner. That is, on this forum

Basically it's all about presenting a professional-looking appearance. You go to some forums and all you see are huge images and flashing animations, in the body of the post AND in their .sigs. A one-line comment or answer is accompanied by two inches of screen real estate for the .GIF files. The "eye candy" you mention is exactly what is not needed in a site which is mainly here to present technical help with Thinkpads. Most of the time a properly worded explanation works just as well as a picture (sometimes better). If there's a situation where a photo is really needed, then the forum rules allow a small image in the post (<50KB), with the word of warning in the subject line. Note that this usually applies only to the originator of the thread since they can go back and edit the initial subject line and not anybody else, mods and admins excluded. You are free to link to externally hosted images as much as you want.

Personally, I haven't used a V.90/V.92 modem in years. I also don't have any data plan with my cell phone. But for the people who still use those types of connections, keeping the thread bandwidth down probably helps save them time and money.

Even on a decent connection it can still take some time for large images to load. Also you get into scrolling left to right. For instance if a thread has large images in one of the posts (or even long link) you wind up scrolling left to right to read the text. I think this forum is great the way it is. It is different. I'd say the overwhelming majority like it without pics posted in the threads.

The exception is the "Pictures of your thinkpad and desk setup".

Thank you for the elaborate explanation!

At our forum we have strict rules about the 'useless' pics: signature: no more that 100 pixels high and no animation or scripts and avatars are limited to 100x100. Because it's too much to ask for some users to resize their pics, we run scripts that do automatic resizing if neccessary. Pictures in posts are limited to 800x600 btw.


R.

thuur wrote:Or do you all still use that integrated 56k modem on your 640x480 screens?

ThinkPads are inherently mobile devices. Even with the best technology currently available globally, the bandwidth on some mobile data connections is going to be restricted for a whole host of reasons.

Minimising the presentation data load from ThinkPads.com is intrinsic to making the site practically usable for global mobile ThinkPad users.

Cheers,

Bill B.

Besides, it's not like you are going to put custom wheels or a sweet paint job on your Thinkpad. Nor are you going to customize your interior, Swap engines, suspension upgrades, etc. For the most part they all look like the ones on Lenovo.com. It anyone need to see one they have lots of pictures there.
A car site has way different needs than a Laptop technical forum.

I use the thumbnails from imageshack here too. They seem to work well. Just don't get carried away and put 15 thumbs in one post.

carbon_unit wrote:Besides, it's not like you are going to put custom wheels or a sweet paint job on your Thinkpad. Nor are you going to customize your interior, Swap engines, suspension upgrades, etc.

Now there's an idea

For the most part they all look like the ones on Lenovo.com. It anyone need to see one they have lots of pictures there.
A car site has way different needs than a Laptop technical forum.

I use the thumbnails from imageshack here too. They seem to work well. Just don't get carried away and put 15 thumbs in one post.

You're very right, thanks for the excellent analogy


R,

Actually, a couple of guys did actually do some custom paint\powdercoat on their LCD covers a few years ago. One was orange and one was yellow.Those pictures were worth more than a thousand words..
I used to hang out on some car sites and they would be totally worthless without lots of pictures.

carbon_unit wrote:I used to hang out on some car sites and they would be totally worthless without lots of pictures.

Because most Camaro drivers can do little more than grunt!

thuur wrote: I wish there was a serious successor to the TP570..

there IS..
its called an X300..

as for embedded pix, my reasoning includes but is not limited, thus:
eventually that photo being hosted someplace will disappear from the hosting site and it will leave a big hole in an otherwise well written post..

so, post pix if you must but it would be better to use links..
let the reader decide if he or she wants to download the photo..

BillMorrow wrote:so, post pix if you must but it would be better to use links..

Adding to what Bill said, make sure you follow the Rules of the Road (put a warning in subject line and <50k) if you choose to post pictures instead of links.