New AboveTopSecret.com Image Hotlinking Policy (updated again)

I agree that it is a noble cause.

However the solution proposed I feel should be a viewed a short term solution; a patch as we come up with something better. To remove viewable cited external images from a website over bandwith issues is shortsighted and represents a compromise rather than mutualistic solution.

We should employ our server to track which images are causing burden. And then, temporarily host them on the ATS server while the subject matter is causing drain; and pertinent to member conversation. When the image in question is no longer being hyperactively viewed by members of our site the link should return to the viewable-but-external source with appropriate citation below.

Computers can solve issues like these and macros can be established.

A picture is worth a thousand words and we are trying to convey ourselves to one another when we meet on discussion boards.



I am,

Sri Oracle

Well done for implementing this guys!

Kind of a variation of the slashdot/digg effect!

I was going to post on the conspiracy board about my web server suffering a denial of service attack initiated by abovetopsecret.com

Another win for ATS in my book, this policy shows a lot of consideration for others.

As a side note, are there any image hosting services that you would reccomend to users or that are 'endorsed' by ATS?

Maybe all such images could be hosted in house, with an advert preceeding them? OK, I will stop before I am lynched by the others!

Second side note, well a question really, I wanted to put a l33tsig in my signature on posts (it shows the stats of my computer and all that kind of nerdy stuff there), but was unsure if the little link would violate the terms regarding advertising third party sites. Could you possibly clarify your position regarding this for me?

All the best.

denial of service, is that like being banned, or is that me just reading into this message posted when it was.

Hello Redge,

A denial of service attack is where so much network traffic is sent to a computer through the network, that it ceases operating properly.

In the case of hotlinking images here, so many people can visit a thread with a photo on, it can cause a punier web server to go offline. This is an inadvertant denial of service attack, although it could always be a conspiracy

Here is a link to the wikipedia article on the slashdot effect, I hope it explains better than I can.

en.wikipedia.org...

I saw a list of similar terms on that page, and wonder what the ATS effect should be called, maybe 'tin foiled'?

Here is a link to the wikipedia page on denial of service attacks:

en.wikipedia.org...

Although I may suffer the type of denial of service attack you mention, if I keep on posting very bad puns and jokes here

I think the main concern of the ATS site owners here is that other sites aren't big enough to support the thousands of additional hits. Kinda like when you host a small party for like 10 people and all of a sudden a few thousand show up all at once just to look at your vase.

so they politely are just asking you to host them yourself on photobucket or here or elsewhere and then linking to that. ATS servers can handle it but littler sites cant. The hosting sites like photobucket and imageshack can handle huge amounts of hits they don't care.
'
its it or as mechanic32 says JUST CLICK THE LINK THE PICTURE IS STILL THERE.

And as for respect to the copyright owners intellectual property...

it would be just nice of a person to acknowledge other peoples art or pictures. but it rarely happens. I think the site owners are just saying play nice. all you got to do is give the proper credit where credit is due.

But I don't think I can speak for the site owners. Just what my impression of what SkepticOverlord was talking about.

[edit on 10-1-2008 by radiodjguy]

Exactly, this traps us arguing in the left-brain prison. Pictures and symbols need to be seen side by side to make connections. If it's just a bunch of "external image" links, awesome posts become completely ordinary.