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Grex > Coop13 > #339: multimedia files prohibition | |
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| Author |
Message |
simp
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multimedia files prohibition
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Jul 4 18:30 UTC 2006 |
Hello!
May I please have a real explanation of why graphics and sound files are
prohibited on GREX websites? The only explanation I have found at the
GREX website was a vague, unsatisfactory allusion to "severely limited
bandwidth".
That just doesn't seem to pass the common senses test. After all,
doesn't my 1 Mb .txt rant about the 1953 Lower Ethiopian tiddlywinks
championship quarter finals consume more disk space (and bandwidth, when
accessed) than my 30 Kb .jpg picture of my son?
My intution tells me that that there is a real reason or reasons that
are not being mentioned, and that the bandwidth reference is just a
"placeholder" to avoid stating the real reaason or reasons. Please state
them.
The prohibition on multimedia files is no small matter. It is indeed
profoundly crippling and very severely limits the usefulness of user
websites. Indeed, this late in history, it makes them almost pointless.
And certainly doesn't help make GREX seem very inviting to potential
users.
Thank you for your response.
Additional note:
I am not happy (understatement of the year) about having spent hours of
my scarce, precious time trying to get this message to you. I ssh'd into
my account, got into Pine carefully crafted a thoughtful message, and
tried to send it to "staff@cyberspace.org", only to have it not sent,
and checking the inbox folder (where are the other folders, btw?), found
a snotty system message saying that I am not worthy to send "mail to
external sites".
WTF?
Why is staff@cyberspace.org an "external site" and not local to GREX?
And why did I have to spend a LOT of time tracking the (possible) answer
down to several obscure old posts in the forums? And why did I have to
resort to this way of contacting you? And of what use whatsoever is GREX
email if you can't email?!
That certainly doesn't make me feel very welcome. Community? Hah!
BTW, if it seems like I'm mad, It's because I am.
I would ask for a email back but, oh, I forgot - the email doesn't work,
does it?
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| 15 responses total. |
mcnally
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response 1 of 15:
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Jul 4 18:57 UTC 2006 |
Originally the prohibition on images and other "rich media" in web
pages WAS due to a severely bandwidth-limited connection. As the
years have gone by and connectivity has gotten cheaper we probably
could have relaxed that a little bit but unfortunately during the
same era another very serious problem has arisen -- phishers.
They're also, by the way, the reason that your e-mail didn't work;
we've had to disable outgoing e-mail from new users to protect the
ability of existing users to send e-mail because phishing scammers
were swarming to Grex for the free shell accounts and then
overwhelming Grex's e-mail capabilities with hundreds of thousands
of fraud attempts. Ultimately we reached a situation where our
e-mail was getting backed up so badly and so many sites were
starting to blacklist e-mail from Grex that we took this rather
extreme measure to protect our (at the time) existing users.
The e-mail block was always intended to be a temporary countermeasure
but we're unable to remove it until we can figure out a less intrusive
way to protect our e-mail.
You're right that it's not the welcome we would like to extend to
new users, and we're sorry to be put in that position by a legion
of selfish, destructive scam artists, but that's the situation we
find ourselves in.
One other thing you're dead right on is that everybody, new user or
not, should be able to send mail to staff to report system problems.
Staff mail is sent through another machine so that people can still
reach the staff by mail when Grex is down (which it hasn't been
lately, but which has happened with regrettable frequency in periods
within recent memory.) But the block which disallows outgoing mail
from new accounts should be superseded by a rule which allows anyone
to mail staff. I'll make sure your message reaches the whole staff
list so we can discuss that.
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simp
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response 2 of 15:
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Jul 4 20:46 UTC 2006 |
Mike,
Thank you for your explanatory reply to my query. It clearly explains
the reasoning behind the email policy. I assume that means that I can
forget about ever using GREX as for email.
But I do not see what multimedia files have to do with email "abuse". As
"a byte is a byte is a byte", I still don't see if someone can have 1 Mb
of text, why they shouldn't be able to have 1 Mb of sound and/or
graphics instead.
As stated before, that limits user websites to almost complete
no-usefulness (this IS 2006, and text-only just doesn't make it any
more)...
A response specific to this issue would be appreciated. Thanks.
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glenda
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response 3 of 15:
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Jul 4 21:50 UTC 2006 |
When the no multimedia files was put into effect, we also had limited disk
space and text files were also somewhat limited. We need to readdress the
whole issue.
But as a rebuttal: Some of us really do prefer a text only site. Quite a
few of us either telnet, ssh, or dial in and do not use the html/web side of
Grex. I have a graphic intensive, personal website. I do not have it here.
I will have a link to it here once I get around to asking the webmaster to
install the link. I have never thought of Grex as being a website, and
probably never will.
As for the outgoing email, once you have been around a while and proven that
you are a reasonable person you can ask a staff person to add you to the group
that is allowed to use outgoing email. Entering items like this go a long
way to being that proof.
Welcome, I hope that you stick around and look into the conferences.
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gelinas
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response 4 of 15:
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Jul 5 03:32 UTC 2006 |
There is also another problem with multi-media files: they tend not to be used
by only one person. If we allow *one* person to put up graphics or music,
then we have to allow others. Such sites tend to attract viewers, which
*would* overwhelm our available bandwith. As you note, text-only just isn't
as attractive.
BTW, glenda, it wouldn't be *that* hard to include a link to your other
site on your current page. I just added a picture of myself to my own
page here, just to show that it can be done.
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keesan
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response 5 of 15:
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Jul 5 14:07 UTC 2006 |
The explanation someone gave once for no photos was that grex had to protect
itself from accusations of porn. Perhaps there could be a single
staff-censored site for posting maybe 100K of images per member somewhere at
grex?
To get outgoing email, all you have to do is become a member for a month for
$6, which will help keep grex alive. Monthly expenses are posted monthly and
run $100 for colocation/web access, another $40 or so for dialup access, and
various smaller expenses, and we are down to only about 45 paying members,
who also donate periodically for new equipment.
If you have nothing to communicate that can be said in words, your website
is not likely to be worth visiting anyway.
You can post photos at a large selection of free sites elsewhere, such as
geocities or sdf.lonestar.org (which also provides email, for $1 one-time
signup fee), and link to them from a grex website.
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mcnally
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response 6 of 15:
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Jul 5 17:01 UTC 2006 |
> To get outgoing email, all you have to do is become a member for
> a month for $6, which will help keep grex alive.
It's nice to get more members, but the block on e-mail for new users is
*NOT* a gimmick to get people to contribute money to Grex and I strongly
object to tying the two issues together.
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nharmon
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response 7 of 15:
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Jul 5 17:42 UTC 2006 |
This response has been erased.
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other
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response 8 of 15:
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Jul 5 19:55 UTC 2006 |
>If you have nothing to communicate that can be said in words, your
>website is not likely to be worth visiting anyway.
This is an EXTREME view, and reflects extraordinary narrow- (or closed-)
mindedness, and frankly, as an avid supporter of the visual and
performing arts, I find it offensive.
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nharmon
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response 9 of 15:
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Jul 5 20:10 UTC 2006 |
Go Eric!
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cross
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response 10 of 15:
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Jul 5 23:56 UTC 2006 |
Regarding #3; It was supposed to be the case that anyone who asked to be added
to the outgoing mail group was going to be allowed to do so. Since when did
it become restricted to those who have "proven" themselves responsible?
Regarding #4; I don't buy that image files will make grex run out of bandwidth
any time soon. I can see your argument, Joe, but I don't buy it at the
moment. I think we'd have to see some numbers to make a more definitive
statement.
Regarding #5; Regarding your second to last paragraph, I'd hope you'd finish
that last sentence as, ``is not likely to be worth visiting anyway, at least
by me.'' You know, a picture is worth a thousand words, and what exactly is
the guy supposed to do, describe his son in words? Shesh.
You know, if someone shows up and is new, I doubt that they'll feel
particularly motivated to donate to "help keep grex going" or care if we're
only down to 45 paying members if the system is utterly useless to them when
they first join. Would you pay any amount of money to help support something
that didn't do you any good at all? That doesn't pass the laugh test.
I think the real answer here is that grex made a policy a long time ago when
it really did have real constraints, and just never decided to do away with
it. Eventually, it got sufficiently entrenched, and grex is so resistant to
change and new ideas that, like changing most things around here, it's going
to take significant time and energy to get people to buy into it, and unless
the inner-cabal decide to do it, it just ain't going to happen.
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nharmon
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response 11 of 15:
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Jul 6 01:33 UTC 2006 |
This response has been erased.
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sholmes
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response 12 of 15:
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Jul 6 05:34 UTC 2006 |
I visit plenty of websites of friends which are just photoalbums with zero
text content and it is worth every second of the long time it takes for the
images to load. Why do I keep finding cases of "personal opinion" being
marketed as "universal truths" in here these days ..
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naftee
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response 13 of 15:
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Jul 7 15:56 UTC 2006 |
unlucky
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arthurp
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response 14 of 15:
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Mar 26 10:11 UTC 2007 |
Seems like every ISP account provides 5 to 20 MB of personal web page
space allowing every kind of content.
I frequenltly post images in fora that do not allow image posting by
making the <img src> tag point to another site that will host the image.
As to file size. I once got in quite a bit of trouble here on grex for
posting a large text file in my personal web page here. I totally
killed the system. I was very embarrassed to have caused a problem.
But that was back when the Grex Internet connection was a 28kbaud modem.
That's all. Things are a bit different now.
I think the only thing we could reasonably fear of images hosted here
would be porn. Given the anonymous/free access nature of Grex we can't
just make people v-sign an acceptable use policy statement. And
policing the images would quickly become impossible.
I'd like to see the current policy change. I just don't believe that it
can.
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cross
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response 15 of 15:
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Mar 26 12:56 UTC 2007 |
Sure it can. There's no reason a `verified' class of users can't put images
on their web pages, any more than there's not reason a `verified' class of
users can't send and receive email.
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