We don't know the reasons imgur did this, we're only speculating.
They may actually be fine with the heavier images like screenshots and gifs. Those are things that make sense for their site. The type of images that would make sense to embed in another site, to share or discuss, which is why they provide embed code.
I suspect their issue is with the "graphics" people use. They're not nearly as heavy in terms of load, but they also don't add any value to imgur. A chapter heading image for example doesn't make any sense on their site. No one is going to share it, or discuss it, it's just a graphic.
We are working on solutions as I said. It just may require some authors to dial it back a bit in terms of graphics, such as a limit on total size of all images in a guide. This is something that would benefit readers anyway. We're still gathering data but for example, one of the heavier guides I've found so far is over 70megs in images.
They may actually be fine with the heavier images like screenshots and gifs. Those are things that make sense for their site. The type of images that would make sense to embed in another site, to share or discuss, which is why they provide embed code.
I suspect their issue is with the "graphics" people use. They're not nearly as heavy in terms of load, but they also don't add any value to imgur. A chapter heading image for example doesn't make any sense on their site. No one is going to share it, or discuss it, it's just a graphic.
We are working on solutions as I said. It just may require some authors to dial it back a bit in terms of graphics, such as a limit on total size of all images in a guide. This is something that would benefit readers anyway. We're still gathering data but for example, one of the heavier guides I've found so far is over 70megs in images.
R.I.P., my guide is chock full of graphics. I hope some solution comes or else I'm due for a long day of file transferring.
It's frustrating that they would do this as they haven't really made it so people who make signatures can actually be part of their community. I would gladly contribute to their community in a meaningful manner (I have tried before), but there's no real place to share signatures in (there's 42 total posts with "forum signature" as a tag and less than 400 total that are tagged with signature at all) and if you do post them despite this, you mostly get trolled by a bunch of toxic *******s.
Pretty much every single signature of mine will be broken then :/
I will have to port all my graphics to DeviantArt, as Amanda has done.
@ Matt, a lot of authors mainly use chapter headings. Could MobaFire generate headings with images? I've suggested this before, but if the author sets a skin for the guide cheat sheet, that artwork could become the background of a thin header with the text from the table of contents (all done on MobaFire's end without the author having to do any graphic work or coding). Quick example below.
I will have to port all my graphics to DeviantArt, as Amanda has done.
@ Matt, a lot of authors mainly use chapter headings. Could MobaFire generate headings with images? I've suggested this before, but if the author sets a skin for the guide cheat sheet, that artwork could become the background of a thin header with the text from the table of contents (all done on MobaFire's end without the author having to do any graphic work or coding). Quick example below.
@ jhoijhoi that is something the team has brought up with us a few times, and it's something we'd definitely like to do. Some guides put their entire content in a single chapter and do a custom TOC and custom headings, we'd really like to improve the system such that authors don't feel the need to do that any more. It is on my list but maybe in light of this imgur issue I'll bump it up higher.
The question is... If it doesn't replicate their current chapter headings perfectly, will authors just ignore it and continue to put their guide in one giant chapter. If we do end up having to enforce limits on "total guide download size", then that might compel authors to use such a system to keep their guides pretty but still reduce the overall download size.
Lots to think about.
The question is... If it doesn't replicate their current chapter headings perfectly, will authors just ignore it and continue to put their guide in one giant chapter. If we do end up having to enforce limits on "total guide download size", then that might compel authors to use such a system to keep their guides pretty but still reduce the overall download size.
Lots to think about.
@ Matt I would personally move from one giant chapter to smaller chapters if the headers were premade for me in such a manner and if the table of contents floated to the right of the screen instead of being stuck at the top.
If it's an issue of needing to crop each splash to fit the guide parameters, I'm sure a few of us here could help out with that, seeing as it's a relatively small job if split among a lot of people.
If it's an issue of needing to crop each splash to fit the guide parameters, I'm sure a few of us here could help out with that, seeing as it's a relatively small job if split among a lot of people.
Hey all, I'm doing some testing with imgur embed and it's being sketchy. You can try it out yourself like this;
[embed=http://imgur.com/something.gif]
For example;
Let me know if it does or doesn't work for you. It's difficult to test but it seems to be working.
As you can see (assuming it's working for you), the border around the image renders it useless for graphics, but it should be fine for embedding large gifs and screenshots. If this is consistently working for people then we will do some more work to see if we can control width/height and positioning.
More to come, still working on additional solutions.
[embed=http://imgur.com/something.gif]
For example;
Let me know if it does or doesn't work for you. It's difficult to test but it seems to be working.
As you can see (assuming it's working for you), the border around the image renders it useless for graphics, but it should be fine for embedding large gifs and screenshots. If this is consistently working for people then we will do some more work to see if we can control width/height and positioning.
More to come, still working on additional solutions.
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Might want to contact other places people host images for free. If imgur deem this site too heavy for "free" then other hosting sites would just get an influx of mobafire users hosting their images there. Would paint a bad picture for the site.
I don't know the under-the-hood workings of image embedding/server costs, but if one place as big as imgur thinks we're big enough to black-list, then other sites will to.