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WAYWO usage

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We thought this would be a pretty clear little bit of netiquette, but perhaps it could be spelled out better.

In the What Are You Working On (WAYWO) threads lately, we've been seeing single posts with a ton of images in them. Or posts with very large not-well compressed images. 

We think this is a bit selfish, and not in keeping with the intent of the WAYWOs.

Why One Embed?

The point of posting in a shared thread is to share a quick update of whatever you're working on. You really only need one image to do this. 

Too many big images make these threads too slow to load for too many people.

Please be considerate of our viewers on mobile. Also, the longer people have to wait for your images to load, the less likely your work is going to be seen. 

    How Do I WAYWO, Dude?

    Embed a single image/video/sketchfab with a link to your own Topic so people can go see more of your great artwork, give you critique, etc.

    In your own Topic you can put as many images as you want, and make them as big as you want. (beware though, lots of people will close your thread if they have to wait for them to load, so be considerate.

    Within a shared WAYWO topic, one embed means one image, or one animated GIF, or one video, or one 3d viewer like Sketchfab, or one SoundCloud audio player, etc.

    If you upload a JPG to WAYWO we'd like it under 1000x1000 resolution so it will be an acceptable file size. It doesn't matter what compression you save as, since the uploaded image is re-compressed by our server. This is done for security purposes, to scrub metadata, get rid of weird headers, etc. 1000x1000 JPGs end up around 500kb, which is a pretty acceptable size for mobile peeps. 

    If you embed an animated GIF in a WAYWO it should be less than 2 mb.

    If you use an external image host (Imgur, Blog, etc.) your still image should be less than 500 kb in a WAYWO. 

    Avoid PNG format please. It often makes very large image files. PNG works well if the image is mostly large areas of flat color. However, saving a JPG converts a 8MB PNG down to a less than 500kb JPG, and it looks virtually identical.

    More embed tips in "Information about Polycount & New member introductions

    Merciless Moderation Mom-ness!

    Breaking these rules may cause merciless editing by a Moderator. Deleting all but the first image, replacing your giant PNG/GIF/whatever with a JPG screencap, etc.

    This is only done in the WAYWOs, because they're a shared resource. In your own Topic you can put as many images as you want, and make them as big as you want. (beware though, lots of people will close your thread if they have to wait for them to load, so be considerate.

    Make Your Own Topic!

    If you want to show more images, or to ask for feedback, please make your own Topic for this.

    Your own topic also allows us to frontpage your work more easily, and to get your work into the banner up top (if you're lucky!). 

    No one is going to post meaningful critique in a WAYWO thread, but they will if you make a Topic!

    Thank You!

    Thanks for your consideration in this. In the end this makes the WAYWOs more friendly to repeat viewers, which in turn increases your visibility. This also improves your own personal threads, which means people are less likely be impatient for image loading and exit your thread before seeing your artwork.

    It's all good!



    Replies

    • STRIKER
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      STRIKER polycounter lvl 13
    • beefaroni
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      beefaroni sublime tool
      The only thing I would add is maybe not quoting entire image posts just to say "badass!! or awesome work!!". Maybe just doing a @ thing instead?
    • PolyHertz
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      PolyHertz polycount lvl 666
      I stopped going to the WAYWO thread a while back (unless there's a front page image that catches my attention), just takes way too long to load. I don't want to wait for over a minute to view a single page.

      Aside from the image size issue, the default being 50 posts per page probably should be changed (there's probably some sort of account setting for this, but that doesn't change the fact that the default is too high for threads like that).
    • RobeOmega
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      RobeOmega polycounter lvl 10
      Are there any plans on limiting or removing images if they are above a certain file size threshold? Or add an option to make every image above a certain predetermined filesize hidden in a spoiler type thing where users can manually choose whether they want to see the images or not. Sorry if I have explained that badly.
    • Autocon
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      Autocon polycounter lvl 15
      I feel like the people who constantly add like 10 large sized images are the type of people who wouldnt read this post anyway :expressionless:
    • RobeOmega
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      RobeOmega polycounter lvl 10
      Autocon said:
      I feel like the people who constantly add like 10 large sized images are the type of people who wouldn't read this post anyway :expressionless:

       Agreed. While often I am hesitant to suggest to add hard limits on the forum side of things, it can be useful for people with slower internet and small data caps. Plus it can be an optional setting in the user's preferences rather than something that has to be forced on all users.
    • gfelton
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      gfelton polycounter lvl 6
      Is it possible we will see posts being removed due to people not following these rules?
    • Eric Chadwick
      Autocon said:
      I feel like the people who constantly add like 10 large sized images are the type of people who wouldnt read this post anyway :expressionless:

      Yeah you're right. But it's better to say something publicly, at least to have something to point to when we smash down their post.

      I've warned a couple people today. Edited their posts down to just one image, and sent them a quote of their original, in case they want to make a thread.

      But that's tedious work. 

      I'm also reluctant to enforce hard limits, or to recompress peoples' images automatically.

      I don't know what the solution is. This is kind of the first step though.
    • slosh
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      slosh hero character
      I totally agree...I love it when someone posts an 8k image that shows a model with very little detail...makes my day.
    • Eric Chadwick
      We've got a bunch of boilerplate warnings, easy to send those with a Warn. Maybe that's the way.

      But... we get a lot of new users coming in all the time. So that would just mean more warning work to do?
    • PolyHertz
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      PolyHertz polycount lvl 666
      Cant the forum software detect the file size of images being posted and throw up an error/warning that its beyond the max size the forum allows? Same with number of images, I've seen numerous forums that limit the number of images per post.
    • Eric Chadwick
      That requires dev time, which is a cost, above and beyond. We might commit to this. We're already doing it for various wishlist items anyhow.
    • RobeOmega
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      RobeOmega polycounter lvl 10
      Is it also possible to split pages of a thread depending on the amount of images and videos that have been added? For example whenever I want to see the latest post on this thread I often have to wait several minutes for the various images and videos to load before I can even view the new post. Threads such as the WAYWO would be exempt to this change if possible.
    • Eric Chadwick
      Robeomega said:
      Is it also possible to split pages of a thread depending on the amount of images and videos that have been added?
      That sounds like scripting work. Which means dev time.

      One easy fix would be to set a limit on the number of characters per post. Currently this is 40000, probably too high.

      But that doesn't limit # of images. Also setting the limit to something like say 1500 characters is likely going to piss some people off, and discourage some meaningful posts. Besides all the other unintended consequences a change like this tends to cause, which you don't find out until you get a bunch of users breaking it and getting pissed off over it. Haha, that's fun.

      It's just not an easy thing to solve. Those forums that have put solutions in place have done so with a considerable amount of fairly expensive coding time, or they have a code-savvy site owner with a lot of free time on their hands.

      We certainly throw money at Polycount, and will continue to do so, but we're smart about it and it has to have a limit. We're not going to do a Patreon or god forbid a Kickstarter. We all know quite a few who have gone down that road and not ended well.

      I've probably shared more than I should. But we've all been together a long time. Transparency is a good thing I think.
    • Eric Chadwick
      But these are also just growing pains. A lot more users now than it used to be. Which is a good thing in its own right. A stagnating community is doomed to fail. We'll figure something out.
    • Joopson
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      Joopson quad damage
      I do think the "spoiler" type treatment would be the best solution.
      If a file is above a certain number of MB, it's "minimized" by default.
      Slack does something similar to this, and it's a great feature.
      Though I do understand it would probably not be easy to implement.
    • Justo
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      Justo polycounter
      Noted, thanks for the tip Eric. Also +1 to what Joopson said.
    • DanaosC
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      DanaosC polycounter lvl 5
      Well said Eric, I may or may have not done something like that my first time when I posted there :3 Woops. Thanks for taking the time to write this, cheers.
    • Magihat
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      Magihat ngon master
      I agree with all of this, especially being on a bad conncection right now WAYWO is a no go mostly since a single png sometimes can take like half a minute to fully load. 
    • xvampire
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      xvampire polycounter lvl 14
      I tried PC waywo with my poor mobile phone data plan, it sucked dry real good  and fast. :(
    • MrHobo
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      MrHobo polycounter lvl 13
      I know part of the problem is that there are a constant stream of new people.
      So could it help if this sort of information was part of the general sign up process?
      Like on the sign up page or after they click the confirmation email they get sent to an info page like this, or before their first post.
    • Tekoppar
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      Tekoppar polycounter lvl 10
      MrHobo said:
      I know part of the problem is that there are a constant stream of new people.
      So could it help if this sort of information was part of the general sign up process?
      Like on the sign up page or after they click the confirmation email they get sent to an info page like this, or before their first post.
      This sounds like a good idea and something that should be easy to implement(?).

      @Eric Chadwick Please avoid limiting characters as it hinders having a decent discussion immensely. I don't know if you've been to a place with harsh character limit but 4chan has a 1500 character limit and it hinders having any meaningful discussion as you always have to make sure you can cram your point into a single post every time which just hurts the discussion more then it prevents whatever it's supposed to prevent. Anything resembling a guide would be impossible and posting links isn't something you do as they tend to be very long.
    • Eric Chadwick
      We have an Info thread that's a part of the signup process.

      But any set of rules is bound to be dismissed asap, it's just human nature. tl;dr

      I think ultimately a combo of plugins and regular enforcement is probably the way to go, along with some commonsense rules spelled out somewhere.
    • AtticusMars
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      AtticusMars greentooth
      I think the rules might get read more if they were formatted better.

      Like the original post in this thread, I'll bet "1 or 2 images max" got read more times than the bullet points explaining file sizes and using JPG/PNG.

      The big bold text should be the rule, the paragraphs and bullet points should be there just to explain/justify them.

      But yeah, in the end some sort of automated system is probably needed.

    • Eric Chadwick
      That's great. Please do help us format the rules better. Feel free to pm any ideas, or just reply here.
    • Handwiches
      I understand this is probably a pretty resource-heavy feature request, but wouldn't an automated compression upon attaching image files like on artstation or facebook (as terrible as facebook's is) be a possible solution? 
    • Fansub
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      Fansub sublime tool
      Displaying a certain message when someone will post/create a thread would solve this problem,but might require more dev.

      It's probably the best method because people would always see it when posting in the forums.This would also catch the attention of people who don't visit general discussion.
    • Eric Chadwick
      But how would you integrate that message into the reply field at the bottom of posts? This is where WAYWO posts are all made. 

      A popup when you hit Reply? I guess it would have to parse your contents, decide if you've gone over some attachment limits, then prevent posting until you fix it. Hmm.
    • Eric Chadwick
      Re-compressing attachments does occur, but the same compression is applied to all. We don't resize images, nor do we enforce an upload size limit. 

      But anyhow, even if we had limits or higher compression, image URLs from other image hosts won't respect any of our limits. So then should we limit it so you can only use our server to show your images? That would be unfortunate I think.
    • kaptainkernals
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      kaptainkernals polycounter lvl 12
      I'm not sure of how much control you have over your codebase on vanilla forums, or if they could help with this functionality.

      You could have a jquery function that checks if "what-are-you-working-on" is in the URL, and will then count attachments while a user is making a reply, and if the amount of attachments is greater than 2, it disables the submit button, and either has a tooltip on the submit button explaining the reason, or you have a popup explaining why it's being disabled, and how the user can remedy it.
    • Eric Chadwick
      Hmmm. I guess it could also check for multiple image URLs, and limit those too. Though some image hosts exclude an image filetype suffix from their URLs, so that would make it a little tougher.
    • Fansub
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      Fansub sublime tool
      Iirc,you can have a default message in the text field,right ? that would probably be the best solution imho and when people delete the text to write their own it would be like some sort of agreements of the rules.Tho i don't know how you could apply this to specific threads.

    • Alemja
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      Alemja quad damage
      Perhaps the easiest solution right now is to have the first post stickied. I think a reason a lot of the rules are broken is because people never bother to read the first post, and probably don't feel like they should on a thread that gets up to 100+ pages. Having it stickied makes sure people see it when they enter the page.
    • Eric Chadwick
      That's easy. Done in 3d waywo. We'll see how that works.
    • erroldynamic
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      erroldynamic polycounter lvl 18
      slosh said:
      I totally agree...I love it when someone posts an 8k image that shows a model with very little detail...makes my day.
      It's even better with at least 10 different angles.
    • Joopson
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      Joopson quad damage
      I think the post should be considerably shorter. Like, as short as possible, while conveying the message.
      At the moment, when I land in the thread, the top post is all I see, until I scroll down, which isn't ideal, I think.
    • Eric Chadwick
      Great suggestion Joopson. And your brevity helped, Fansub. Shortened!
    • Joopson
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      Joopson quad damage
      That's great now! Thanks!
    • FishMan
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      FishMan polycounter lvl 11
      Polycount become bureaucratic
    • Eric Chadwick
      Yeah, that's what happens when you get a bunch of selfish ass-hats posting selfishly.

      If noone mods it, then the community just falls apart because no one wants to deal with it anymore. Benevolent dictatorship seems to work OK though.
    • MrHobo
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      MrHobo polycounter lvl 13
      Slight discrepancy between whats here and whats in the waywo sticky:
      "Downsize your images to 1600 or less before attaching or embedding."
      and
      "Images must be less than 1280 wide"
      Hopefully the 1280 was a typo because I don't like the idea of having to save out an image for my thread and separate image for waywo.

       
    • Eric Chadwick
      Not sure what size to go with. Embed display size is about 900 pixels wide. Lightbox is screen width. The larger we make it, the slower the downloads become.

      What max size do you people think is good? 1280? 1600? 1680? 1920?
    • ZacD
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      ZacD ngon master
      I think max embed size (900px) is fine for WAYWO, there's already a ton of images and if you want people to see it full sized, just link it in the rest of the comment. The pages are already full of tons of images loading up at the same time, keep it as small as possible and reasonable. I don't browse WAYWO on mobile because of the large download sizes (and sometimes lag from huge imges), but I would if there were limits. 
    • Segreto
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      Segreto polycount sponsor
      Are there any rules regarding embedding sketchfab models? I don't really know if that increases load times for people or not.

      I kind of like the 900px limit idea. It's already the display size.  It's fairly small, but it would generate more traffic through mobile, and it would be nice for desktop browsing as well. People can dump their 12+ 4k images in their personal thread if they want.
    • MrHobo
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      MrHobo polycounter lvl 13
      My comments were in reference to the size that you get when you click the image. I think what we naturally see when scrolling the thread is fine.
      And my following comments are also in regards to what you see when you click.
      I think 1500px is a happy medium for when you click. 
      I dont think an art focused image based site should be pushing such a tiny limit like 9000px especially not in 2016. If not then whats the point of having a nice lightbox feature built into the site if we're not going to use it in the most popular thread?

    • Eric Chadwick
      MrHobo said:
       a tiny limit like 9000px 
      :D

    • MrHobo
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      MrHobo polycounter lvl 13
      Hahaha woops I meant 900 :)

    • Green Pirate64
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      Green Pirate64 polycounter lvl 9
      Thanks for this! Save the bigger images for personal threads.
    • Tenshi
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      Tenshi polycounter lvl 13
      Summing up everything said here.
      Suggestions:

      -Stick this post with a Bold Red font at the top of polycount.
      -Embedded 900px images or 2 pictures at max 1600px?
      -Simplify rules at SignUp with bold and red color.
      -Dev stuff. (many ideas).

      ps. does the green rounded and happy guy have a name? I never thought about that.


    • Eric Chadwick
      Segreto said:
      Are there any rules regarding embedding sketchfab models? I don't really know if that increases load times for people or not.
      Sketchfab creates a 1024x576 jpg for the embed preview. Even though the preview filesize is really small, I think 1 Sketchfab per WAYWO post is plenty.

      WAYWO is supposed to be about sharing an update, not whoring a ton of stuff.

      Tenshi said:
      -Embedded 900px images or 2 pictures at max 1600px?
      ps. does the green rounded and happy guy have a name?
      Undecided about WAYWO image size limit. If we make a 900px rule, we have to enforce it.

      Enforcing is potentially a lot of work... these are high-traffic threads, the policing would have to be done every day. It's also a bit emotionally draining, constantly telling people they're wrong, and getting occasional backlash. At least, policing the Work sections is like this already. 

      You can read about our Greentooth here.
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