Make this forum a better place - part 1

[shield132]

Hello guys!
As I see, sometimes people post images in threads and sometimes they open threads with a lot of images. As you know, it makes load time a little bit slow because images are high in size. To reduce the load time and make things more comfortable for everyone, I think it will be better if all of us compress images, this will save space and time and isn't hard.

1. For example, let's see the size of this Image 1 - Seems to be 171.8 KB. Normal but how far can we compress it?

2. First of all, compress JPG/PNG images without losing quality by using TinyJPG


As we see, we have 74% reduction in image size without losing quality and got 44.5 KB in size.

3. Can we compress it even further? Yes but for this we need to convert image into webp and compress in this format. You can't upload webp images on imgur, so have to use another image upload website.
For highest compress, we can use compress-or-die.

So, go here, click on select a file, then choose your image and upload. Then, you'll get window with settings for your image where you can change compression percentage and so on, but it automatically sets quality on 75%, so let's see the result (btw I resized the image):


I guess there shouldn't be any noticable difference on 85% compression, btw you can try it to see results yourself and do the same in future on this forum to help those who use mobile data to save network

Useful links together:
1. JPG/PNG only compression: https://tinyjpg.com/
2. Convert JPG/PNG and compresses into webp: https://compress-or-die.com/webp
3. GIF compression: https://compress-or-die.com/webp
4. Image resize: https://resizeimage.net/
Btw, good luck guys!

Will update the list in near future.

[Jet Cash]

Better still - don't post images unless they are essential. Consider posting a thumbnail with a link to a larger image. This doesn't apply to social interaction threads of course.

Even more important - please don't quote an image - we've seen it once, and that should be enough.

[mole0815]

Yes I would find it also good if images are processed in the size. So file size and also dimensions.
I find the point raised by Jet Cash even more important. No images may be retained in quotes
Personally, I find this much worse and more tedious when reading through a thread.

[NavI_027]

To be honest, kbs of data is not a big loss even for mobile users. If the data consumption while using your favorite social media sites doesn't bother you then what more for a single image here . You can't feel it actually. However, there's one thing which made me convinced on using image compression — the faster data transfer. My device is low tech and sometimes it's having a hard time to load the webpage especially when there are so many images on the thread I visit. That's why I think it would be advantageous for me.

Count me in dude! I'll try to compress images from now on though it takes more time on the process of uploading hehehe. 

4. Image resize: https://resizeimage.net/
Btw, good luck guys!

Nice but i think this code works fine.

Code:

[img width=xxx height=xxx alt=image loading...]*link[/img]

[NeuroticFish]

Nice but i think this code works fine.

Code:

[img width=xxx height=xxx alt=image loading...]*link[/img]

From what I know this only shows the image smaller, it doesn't make people download less data.

And I agree with OP. In some cases there are too many too big images, even for a computer. Just this don't happen too often, especially in the areas I use to read/post.

[Coin_trader]

From what I know this only shows the image smaller, it doesn't make people download less data.

Yep, it didn't compress the size but the appearance size only.


This topic is applicable only to thread starters that used lots of big image in there post, But definitely not on a simple picture reply in the thread. First of all, we should determine what is the ideal size of image so that it will load smoothly on mobile. By that being said, We can assess now how far we can compress the image size considering that the resolution of the picture will not gonna be severely affected.

I like the idea of OP considering that I'm a fellow mobile user most of my time here.

[Lucius]

I find the point raised by Jet Cash even more important. No images may be retained in quotes
Personally, I find this much worse and more tedious when reading through a thread.

I see this often and have never reported such posts, but I wonder if it would be desirable and what is the moderator’s position on the issue? Unnecessary use of quote is very widespread on the forum, and some members do not respond to warnings at all - although these are mostly the same ones who do not read the answers to their posts (shitposters&signature spammers).

Take this thread for example, we have Hero member who has not yet learned how to reduce the image to some appropriate size, and after that we have this :

Senior Member Reatim
Senior Member fiulpro
Full Member rodskee
Senior Member Gotumoot

I believe that after another 5 pages there will be more who will want to embellish their posts with an abuse of quote option.

Edit : Post from links are deleted by moderator after I report them.

[tranthidung]

From what I know this only shows the image smaller, it doesn't make people download less data.

It is incomplete solultion to display big images but size of images are not changed to smaller.
If people have software or tool to do image resize on their computer, do this instead of using online resize image websites. Those sites can store your data, and sell them or future data breach. It is risky for your privacy and sometime for your security if you use those sites for your personal images.

Use them with Tor whenever you can.
I agree with JetCash that don't abuse images on the forum. It was discussed years ago and from my memory it was raised by JetCash or JetCash was the one strongly supported the style "Don't abuse with images".

It is emphasized in Bitcointalk posting etiquette

[Rikafip]

I see this often and have never reported such posts, but I wonder if it would be desirable and what is the moderator’s position on the issue? Unnecessary use of quote is very widespread on the forum, and some members do not respond to warnings at all - although these are mostly the same ones who do not read the answers to their posts (shitposters&signature spammers).

Take this thread for example, we have Hero member who has not yet learned how to reduce the image to some appropriate size, and after that we have this :
Senior Member Reatim
Senior Member fiulpro

Yep, quoting posts with images is annoying AF, it should be a part of basic forum bon ton to remove those. Just went through recent post history of those two users and they constantly do that, that example you shared was not a coincidence, rather a rule for them. Zero fucks given. It would be good to hear mods stance on that, as some people won;t learn the lesson until their posts start  getting deleted.

Could that be somehow sorted automatically by forum, to at least hide images in quotes, if not completely remove it? Would that be complicated to implement?

[zasad@]

Many years ago, I disabled the display of videos and images in the browser because the traffic was paid. The main dump of images is in the bounty and ICO themes.
Internet traffic is now free or very cheap, so you don't need to create new restrictions for most users.
If you think that the user is abusing the insertion of images, click the "Report to moderator" button.
The forum should allow people to express their thoughts in any way and not limit them.

[Lucius]

Yep, quoting posts with images is annoying AF, it should be a part of basic forum bon ton to remove those. Just went through recent post history of those two users and they constantly do that, that example you shared was not a coincidence, rather a rule for them. Zero fucks given. It would be good to hear mods stance on that, as some people won;t learn the lesson until their posts start  getting deleted.

Of course, some things become a habit over time if no one reports them, and we start taking them for granted. This is why some members ignore entire boards and literally admit defeat in front of users who unfortunately haven’t even learned the basics on the forum over the years. I will try to report some of such posts to see if there will be any reactions, but we should always keep in mind that not all mods have the same criteria when it comes to moderating posts that literally do not violate forum rules.

[FIFA worldcup]

I see this often and have never reported such posts, but I wonder if it would be desirable and what is the moderator’s position on the issue? Unnecessary use of quote is very widespread on the forum, and some members do not respond to warnings at all - although these are mostly the same ones who do not read the answers to their posts (shitposters&signature spammers).

Take this thread for example, we have Hero member who has not yet learned how to reduce the image to some appropriate size, and after that we have this :
Senior Member Reatim
Senior Member fiulpro

Yep, quoting posts with images is annoying AF, it should be a part of basic forum bon ton to remove those. Just went through recent post history of those two users and they constantly do that, that example you shared was not a coincidence, rather a rule for them. Zero fucks given. It would be good to hear mods stance on that, as some people won;t learn the lesson until their posts start  getting deleted.

Could that be somehow sorted automatically by forum, to at least hide images in quotes, if not completely remove it? Would that be complicated to implement?

There are not many images being posted in the forum but there are few section where we see a lot of images being posted. One of those section is WO thread. Although many images posted there are relevant and interesting but its annoying when anyone quote post with the images and we have un-necessary duplicate images.

[Pffrt]

Take this thread for example, we have Hero member who has not yet learned how to reduce the image to some appropriate size, and after that we have this :

This is still a bit hard than quoting a part of a post rather than quotinh a whole post to respond a part of a post and if you spend a little time, I'm sure you will find a lot of high profile who do that most often.
While it's possible to create a post more eye catching or attractive, no one gives a fuck other than fulfilling the posting requirements.

[LoyceV]

As we see, we have 74% reduction in image size without losing quality and got 44.5 KB in size.

That's just because the image uses PNG instead of JPEG format.

(source)

In this case, however, JPEG is better.

To be honest, kbs of data is not a big loss even for mobile users.

On mobile data I have much more problems with embedded commercial videos than images, but Bitcointalk doesn't have that problem.
On desktop, in less than 6 days I've downloaded 115 GB. I don't think images are going to matter. With increasing bandwidth, this problem solves itself over the years.

[bob123]

2. First of all, compress JPG/PNG images without losing quality by using [...]

JPG already is a compression which deletes parts of the image (irreversible).
With the JPG compression, you are keeping all the information regarding the brightness of the pixel and shrink the color channels.
Afterwards a discrete cosinus transformation (DCT) is applied. Depending on the quality level (80-90 is usually chosen) you then further compress the tables containing the coefficients.

Long story short, you can not compress a JPG image without losing information -> without reducing the quality.

[gentlemand]

Even more important - please don't quote an image - we've seen it once, and that should be enough.

It is very irritating indeed but sometimes that can be the entirety of someone's post. It would be better if a quoted image were minimised but I've zero idea whether a forum can automate that.

[suchmoon]

whether a forum can automate that.

Yes. I mean it's doable, not that anyone will bother doing it on SMF, let alone EpochTalk.

Code:

div.quote img.userimg {
    max-width: 100px;
}

Edit: before anyone yells at me that this uses bandwidth for the full size image - not necessarily, it's likely cached at that point. Perhaps some cache setting tweaks on the server side would be needed, I can't be bothered to check.

[Pmalek]

Long story short, you can not compress a JPG image without losing information -> without reducing the quality.

Depending on what kind of image it is, I think most people wouldn't mind and wouldn't notice any significant differences.
I just did a test and found a random Bitcoin chart in jpg format. I converted it to webp.

Orignal JPG picture was 74 KB.
The webp converted image is 36 KB.

The converted image is over 50% smaller. The difference in quality is insignificant.

[bob123]

Depending on what kind of image it is, I think most people wouldn't mind and wouldn't notice any significant differences.
I just did a test and found a random Bitcoin chart in jpg format. I converted it to webp.

Orignal JPG picture was 74 KB.
The webp converted image is 36 KB.

The converted image is over 50% smaller. The difference in quality is insignificant.

The difference actually is huge.

jpg:

Code:

Image Size                      : 998x652
Megapixels                      : 0.651

webp:

Code:

Image Size                      : 640x418
Megapixels                      : 0.268

You scaled the image down.
You could also scale it down while keeping it JPG.
And if you want to have a worse quality to save space, one could use the jpg compression again with a quality factor of 70-80ish.

But scaling it down does not real count as compression. This can always be done and is independent from the file format.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Better still - don't post images unless they are essential. Consider posting a thumbnail with a link to a larger image. This doesn't apply to social interaction threads of course.

Even more important - please don't quote an image - we've seen it once, and that should be enough.

Good suggestions, all of them.  There were a few members who were making it a habit to post extremely large, unnecessary images when they created threads, much like mainstream media sites do--images that add nothing to the post and contain nothing useful.  I was so annoyed by this that I created a thread about it late last year.  Some of the members stopped posting those images as far as I know, for which I'm grateful.

And yeah, when someone replies to a post and quotes an enormous image, it drives me nuts--or even when they quote huge blocks of text just to make a short post.

I recently started a thread about my experience with using a bitcoin ATM and included images.  Initially they were huge, but I got advice from o_e_l_e_o about resizing them:

Edit: Change your [img] tag to [img width=500] (or a different number) to resize your massive images.

Not being very proficient in coding, I wouldn't have figured out how to do that without a little help and some constructive criticism from a helpful member.