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[Dargor]

the admin's sure are quiet..

[thamarok]

the admin's sure are quiet..

Haven't they always been

The only one from the admin group who has been active lately is Lavene.. other than her I don't know anyone.. sure they do come sometimes, but they are certainly not very active here

[Dargor]

yea thats true, surely they must read threads though, I've had a few post deleted:). and this topic directly involves them. hopefully they are talking about it amongst themselves coming up with the best solution.

edit: not in this thread, ive learnt whats accepted.

[Lavene]

the admin's sure are quiet..

Well, Jeroen has already replied to this:

Tip: If you want to get something done from admins:


- Contact them the way they've indicated as wanting to be contacted
- Use a meaningful subject
- Don't just swear and such
- Give a reason why you request something



But well, in this case, I don't think you should bother, because the answer is very likely to be "no".

But swearing and insults does not really invite to a serious discussion.
It's a privately run server, bandwidth etc. and I'm quite sure that if a question/ request was made in a polite manner the policy would be explained. But being told to f**k off does not really trigger that helpful feeling

Disclaimer: The change in question here happened before I joined the admin team so I do not know the full background.

Tina

[Grifter]

But swearing and insults does not really invite to a serious discussion.

What discussion? There's been no discussion, just steamrolling the users. If there was any interest in a discussion they'd have asked the users for input _before_ dicking them around with this powertripping bully behaviour.

It's a privately run server, bandwidth etc.

That's a null point right now. Let me explain - Previously, people linked to their avatars on their own sites, that means bandwidth for the avatars did _not_ come from the forum server.

In conjunction with the anti-avatar policy, the forum was configured to _only_ allow avatars that have been uploaded to the forum, which of course means that _now_ the avatars are directly uploaded by the forum server.

The conclusion is fairly obvious, and your argument is mooted.

and I'm quite sure that if a question/ request was made in a polite manner the policy would be explained. But being told to f**k off does not really trigger that helpful feeling ;)

And you think being coerced by such fiercely oppressive restrictions triggers nice and warm feelings in me? I'm not seeking explanation, I'm seeking revocation of this indignation.

And you know what, it doesn't even have to be the old free-for-all, it's certainly understandable to have _some_ limits in place, what I'm saying is that the current limits are too ****** oppressive.

Disclaimer: The change in question here happened before I joined the admin team so I do not know the full background.

But you're an admin _now_ so help us fix this. Please.

[llivv]

'

[Dargor]

I would just like to point out that sigs that include more than one line of text and have any pictures are way more anying than any avitar, that this forum seems to have sorted out pretty well.

I think that avitar size isnt anywere near as anoying as sigs, because when reading posts its the sigs that you have to look over, the avitars are on the side out of the way.

sorry just got lost in the sigs inbetween some posts in a different forum and thought this was a relevant place to rant.

[thamarok]

Maybe we should open our own Debian community with a max avatar size of 640x480

[Fluenza]

Well **** you and the horse you rode in on.

This change that came about was the will of the elite, there was no voting, there was no polling of users' opinions, it happened because the powerful few _could_ make it happen and to excercise a powertrip over us mere mortals.

You sound like me and many of the residents of my town. For you, the issue is an administartion that is perceived by you to be oppressive. Although, if they were truly oppressive, they would have banned you for being the voice of dissent. They haven't, so it's possible that you're blowing things out of proportion... Maybe?

My personal problem revolves around a free-speech advocate who claims that only "she" is entitled to speak freely. Everyone else should be denied a voice, and placed under surveillance for seeking to be heard. That's my issue with Blackburn... I'll spare you the details.

Suffice it to say, it's important to maintain the high ground. And never, ever, ever, surrender when you're right! Never! And if it means that some powerful and elite person or person(s) look bad or lose face... Oh well, too bad for them.

[Optional]

I miss grifter's avatar.

80x80 @ 10kb is somewhat... er... thrifty... in terms of filesize/screen real estate.

Wide is bad; tall really isn't.

If morons insist on setting enormous (like, 1mb+) avatars, well... they're morons. What can I say?

[Jeroen]

Ok, let me go into a couple of points made.

About admin silence: There are only very few admins, and fortunately, not that much admin action is actually required. Lavene was added to the admin group because actually the other admins didn't always get around good enough to the number one thing being requested of admins: solving account issues (people losing passwords, not getting activation mails, etc), and she's been an enormous and appreciated help in this regard.

I'm happy that the forums are such popular nowadays, unfortunately, I have quite some other Debian tasks too, which are of higher priority -- as long as the forums run fine, and the moderator team deals with issues fine, I don't see why I should interfere. I do make sure that forums.debian.net keeps running technically fine, making backups, etc etc.

Anyway, as to the question of avatar limits: one needs to realize that avatar images are forced upon everybody reading topics of these forums. Dimension limits are in place because too big avatars distract from the content, and may ruin the layout. Also, it has happened several times that users that have some sort of offensive avatar or the like get a request from a moderator to please change the avatar. To the best of my recollection, we never technically enforced that, or maybe only once.

As to the file size limit: users browsing these forums are also forced to download the avatars. The pages are already pretty heavy, big avatars would severely decrease the speed pages will load on users with low-bandwidth internet.

Both limits are intended to provide users of the forums with a better overall experience. I've yet to see a good argument why it's really needed for someone to have a bigger avatar. Surely it doesn't impede anyone's ability to help others or to post questions on these forums.

I do not believe avatars are a required feature. They are a nicety to provide users with a bit of recognition, and as such, I'm fine with having them. As to free speech, eh, I've heard that argument too often, and sorry, it does not hold. Start your own blog/website/forum where you can say and show whatever you want, on forums.debian.net you get to abide by our (very liberal IMHO) guidelines, generally at the discretion of the moderator team.

W.r.t. annoying signatures, if some specific user's signature is annoying in any way, please either raise your concern with the user in question directly, or if that fails/you don't want to do that, send a mail to the moderator team at team@forums.debian.net, and we might request the user to adjust his/her signature if we agree. Actually, this is valid for anything that might annoy you on these forums, either try to resolve it directly, or contact the moderator team/admin team as appropriate. Complaining loudly in public is not going to get you anywhere.

[Grifter]

Dimension limits are in place because too big avatars distract from the content, and may ruin the layout.

Who the hell are you to say what distracts from content or not? Browsers can be configured to not display images, or you can choose a browser that doesn't display any images at all.

Also, it has happened several times that users that have some sort of offensive avatar

How does this have _anything_ to do with this thread?

As to the file size limit: users browsing these forums are also forced to download the avatars. The pages are already pretty heavy, big avatars would severely decrease the speed pages will load on users with low-bandwidth internet.

Again RIDICULOUS! People with too little bandwidth can turn off images in their OWN browsers or choose a browser that doesn't display ANY images.

Both limits are intended to provide users of the forums with a better overall experience. I've yet to see a good argument why it's really needed for someone to have a bigger avatar. Surely it doesn't impede anyone's ability to help others or to post questions on these forums.

I do not believe avatars are a required feature.

Well there's the problem. I guess it's all about you. What you like to see. What you like to download. Forget anyone else.

But you're quite right, this is your personal forum, and you get to dictate rules, so I'll take my shit and pack up.

I'm out.

[Jeroen]

The decision was made in accordance to consensus within the moderator team. And as to who I am to say what distracts and what not, let me quote a random mail we got last october about avatars:

Lavene mentioned limiting avatar size. I think this is a good idea. I don't want to turn display of avatar off because it can sometimes indicate something about the person posting and thus affect the "tone" of the discussion. However, when someone uses a large one in a post with a terse reply, the avatar size forces a large blank space to be used, wasting screen space and, presumably, forum storage space. I want to support Lavene's comment about 100x100 or some other logical small size.

So far, there has only been mail requesting avatar size limiting, and not a single mail being opposed to it. And well, honestly, I still don't like your way of discussing matters, so I don't feel terribly compelled to really get into discussion with you.

This will be my last message in this topic unless some really new arguments/whatever pop up.

[Pobega]

Jeroen, couldn't you just raise the avatar filesize limit? I mean, you can restrict the size so that it doesn't stretch the page but still give us enough room to be creative with our avatars (10 kilobytes is barely anything to work with, I actually had to work for a while to get my avatar to be under 10kb).

I understand the reason behind limiting the size of avatars, but I think the decision that the moderating team made was a little bit too drastic.

I mean, all browsers cache (Unless the user turned it off, but then it's his/her fault), so avatar filesize shouldn't be that much of a problem (A 50 kilobyte limit should do fine, in my opinion).

[mdevour]

Freedom of the press belongs to those who own the presses! That may not be all warm and fuzzy, but it is reality.

A forum like this is the private property of whoever is paying the bills. Unless they say otherwise in their Terms of Service, every one of us is a guest here and participation is a privelege that can be withdrawn at any time for any reason.

Not everyone understands this, obviously.

I'd support an increase to maybe 20 or 30k filesize. That ought to give most people enough pallette depth to do whatever they want in 80 x 80 pixels... but you can see how important avatars are to me!

Thanks for running the place for us, folks.

Mike D.