Posted by Rick [Rick] on March 28, 1999 at 21:24:38 {FMFBt36XycG94.qcfz92MWXgIYA54YD7Q}:
In Reply to: ***Post Deletions posted by To Rick Please Ans. on March 28, 1999 at 18:03:10:
Answering both posters' issues:
1. JaneyJJJ emailed H2O's moderator (which goes through H2O, and being the admin online I saw the email to the moderator). She indicated she wanted to change the posts Name field from Janey to JaneyJJJ. The problem is, I barely have time to even keep H2O surving, I've sweated blood getting this FPP working, and the moderators don't have the capability of changing anything on server. Basically I believe it was an honest mistake, that only someone extremely dense would mistaken her postings for Janey's, and I've gone to considerable effort to put the actual User Name in brackets to avoid this very controversy and free my time. So, as it seems these petty things are more important than good board discussions, I'm not going to waste more time replying to similar complaints. By the way, I didn't see the posts by "Janey" with the "JaneyJJJ" inside the post, and I have seen them, so now I understand why the complaints. I just think it's extremely petty considering she's not posting as Janey now. I also think RickKKK or any other variation is fine if the content of the post doesn't attempt to misrepresent themselves as me. Further, the bracketed User Name helps reveal attempts at impersonating others.
2. The bandwidth of a linked GIF is at the expense of the site where the link exists, not at H2O's expense. Furthermore, anyone has the ability to turn-off graphics in their browser (don't ask me how, refer to their documentation as I don't have time to provide user support for Netscape and Microsoft corporations). You can also do the quick and dirty hitting of the "STOP" button to stop the graphics from loading in a post. The posting size limit in the FPP refers to the size of the post -- otherwise, how could anyone reasonably calculate the size without going to the third-party server and getting the webmaster to reveal the graphic's size?
The method of getting the posting size is to use the FTP link, look at the posting in the directory and note the size. If it weren't that easy, the FPP would be grossly unfair! It would require researching the link in the post and calculating its size in addition to the post's size. The FPP is "dumber" than that because it simply requires looking at the post size in H2O's FTP directory.
Linking is a matter of courtesy and netiquette, and should be used sparingly. Large graphics stall slow connections, and sometimes crash computers short of memory. Why would anyone, knowing this, use large links if they know that many people will not benefit from the post (but possibly have their computers crashed, or spend a lot of money in connect time)?
That is why I suggest everyone uses links to SMALLER graphics, and provides href links within the post itself to make a jump to the graphic (rather than src links which force a display of the graphic). This is common courtesy. Interestingly, many claim they that JWs are totally false and can prove it, and criticize the fact many JWs are not of strong financial means because of their religion. Then, they hypocritically create posting content that requires expensive computers (which their supposed target audience cannot afford according to them), and lots of bandwidth (which costs the one displaying the graphic, unless they STOP the graphic from displaying with the STOP button).
It's not an issue of wasting space, since links don't take up space on our server. It's an issue of "borrowing" some other site's bandwidth to display the link (which is causing many sites to create elaborate scripts to prevent linking to their graphics), and costing the user who is displaying the post time and possibly crashing their low-memory computer.
One other hint is that JWs often don't want to reply to posts with graphic links because the links are often on "apostate" sites -- and their I.P. is logged to those sites! JWs might be of poor means if they sacrificed schooling for pioneering, and they might have low cost computers with low memory and slow connections -- but they are smart enough to learn the basics of the internet. One of those basics is that when you display a graphic from a server, the I.P. address of one hitting graphic is logged as a "server hit". Since I.P. addresses are almost impossible to connect to real identities, it's not a big problem. However, if someone replies to the post and the graphic in original post is to an apostate site, the I.P. and reply could be connected someone to guess an identity.
I suggest if people who aren't JWs and come here are really sincere in wanting to communicate with JWs like myself, then "when in Rome, do as the Romans do." In other words, tailor your posts to being sensitive to people's needs who might have low-memory computers, slow connections, and concerns about privacy. Rather than forcing the link to display a graphic in the Optional Image URL field, why not create a regular URL link in HTML to that graphic and invite them to view it? They might right-click and copy the link itself and save it in a file, change servers to an anonymous server, then hit the link! Otherwise, they resent that they were forced to give out their I.P. and will not want to comment in order to tie any information to this I.P. Notice that posts with links never receive hardly any comments from the friends? Only those who don't care about their identities getting known seem to respond. By providing URL links to all graphics that are well labelled, you give your target audience the ability to visit that graphic on their own terms, anonymously perhaps. You show "good faith" you want to communicate with this audience, rather than sending a message that "if my target audience doesn't like my style, then so what?" as if to say you aren't really serious in posting. And if you're not serious, why the fuss when the post is deleted?
Rick