Quoting Images: Let's Discuss.

In general, I have little to no complaints about the forum. Lately, I haven't been able to ignore one particular aspect of forum life. I am losing my mind with all the quoting of images and Youtube videos. It's an absolute eyesore to have to see the same image/video repeated three to four times per page.

I realize that most of this could be solved by people simply editing their quotes to only include the URL or the relevant words, but it seems people are unwilling to put in even a modicum of effort. People won't even bother to delete irrelevant parts of those frustratingly long conversations where people quote a quote of a quote of a quote. I understand if you want to reference a picture that was posted several pages ago, but there is no need to quote an image on the same page. And to make matters worse, often the whole post is just quoted to add something like 'lol' or 'so hawt! iagree'.

Don't believe me? Check out this thread or this thread or just take a quick look through any thread that has pictures uploaded.

Now, I know it is probably not feasible, but would it be possible to disable any images that are within the quote box? Not being a computer whizkid, I don't even have an inkling with how this could go about. I've been to other forums where you couldn't quote images (or at least you were severely shunned for vandalizing a board).

In any case, I really just wanted to bring this to everyone's attention so we can hopefully move away from this lazy attitude in posting.

[Astaroth]

I wouldn't mind that as a solution as well. I have another one that might be better too. When quoting an image or video, turn both into thumbnails within the quoted material. A little box that's only three lines of text high would be so much easier, and all people would have to do is click on the thumbnail in order to see it at full resolution. Just my 2 francs.

[Ben]

I don't think that quoting a Youtube video or an image is bad if your post is on a different page to the quoted image. I agree that it can be annoying though, but I don't know what technical stuff can be done to stop it.

[Pseudojim]

Originally Posted by Ben

I don't think that quoting a Youtube video or an image is bad if your post is on a different page to the quoted image. I agree that it can be annoying though, but I don't know what technical stuff can be done to stop it.

pretty sure it would only be a few lines of code.

[kettleoffish]

Originally Posted by Astaroth

I wouldn't mind that as a solution as well. I have another one that might be better too. When quoting an image or video, turn both into thumbnails within the quoted material. A little box that's only three lines of text high would be so much easier, and all people would have to do is click on the thumbnail in order to see it at full resolution. Just my 2 francs.

the problem with this is that to do it, EC would need to host the thumbnail, whereas the majority of images in a forum are hosted elsewhere (hotlinked from other websites, or on sites like photobucket or tinypic). It would take some considerable amount of coding, not to mention server space to implement something like that, good idea though it is.

[Techcompu2]

I agree with Numfarh on this one, I will every once in a while post in the forums asking people to remove the [IMG][/IMG] tags when quoting pics, as seen here, and as Numfarh mentioned, nobody seems to want to take the time to do so.

in my opinion, disabling the images in quotes would be a good idea. I am good at working with computers, but I am not very experienced with vBulletin coding.

No doubt someone will have made a plugin for vBulletin to solve this. They seem to have just about everything else!

[Techcompu2]

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=77173

will this work?

Out dated but its what they are looking for. I'm sure there is a coder on here that can work in PHP and use that mod to work on this version of the board.

[Techcompu2]

what version of vBulletin is on ec?

[Techcompu2]

after a little more digging, I notice that someone who wants to download/view the mod has to have a valid licensed version of vBulletin. aka: owner of website that uses vBulletin. If I had the coding in that mod, and the ability to look at similar coding, I am almost sure I could adapt it to work. I will keep working on finding another solution though.

[Martin]

EC is currently using version 3.7.

If a hack is found for that version then post the link here and it can be saved and looked into. I'm not sure when there will be an opportunity to get it implemented (will depend on Corny's availability), but should it be approved then it can be forwarded to him for implementation straight away. Unfortunately, getting it approved may take a while due to the busy festive season. I have compiled a list of things that need discussing with various staff in the near-future, so if somebody can discover a working hack then I'll add that to it and hopefully get it approved and sent to Corny.

Martin.

Edit: Never saw Techcompu2's post. Even I don't have access to that part of vBulletin's hacks, so I am unable to help you out there. The only staff I know who can access it are Paul and Corny.

Originally Posted by Techcompu2

after a little more digging, I notice that someone who wants to download/view the mod has to have a valid licensed version of vBulletin. aka: owner of website that uses vBulletin. If I had the coding in that mod, and the ability to look at similar coding, I am almost sure I could adapt it to work. I will keep working on finding another solution though.

Im sure that someone on EC has the license for vBulletin. Really its not going to be something HUGE all it will be is stripping the [img][/img] tags from the post. I really should be left to the Web Master/ Admin.

[Techcompu2]

Is this what would need to be used? it says version 3.7.3... and that the admin can choose which codes it removes...

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=191223

[Martin]

That looks perfect.

Thankies for finding it. I have now made a note of it. ^_^

[Martin]

Hey peeps,

As promised, this was brought up yesterday with the other Supermods and has been approved for the site. I'll pass the hack information on to Corny who will hopefully be able to implement it asap.

Once it has been installed and tested we'll let you all know.

Martin.

Huzzah!
This is a great Christmas gift. Thanks for taking the time to look over my suggestion; it really bridges the gap between moderators and the rest of EC.

[Martin]

Hey,

I know this request is about 9 months old, but it looks like the hack slipped through the net and wasn't set up when intended.

I've just got it set up now and a quick test shows it to be working. If anybody has any problems with it then let me know.

Sorry it took so long to get sorted peeps!

Martin.

[Owen]

I'm guessing this will only apply to future posts, since the old posts in the "post images which are high-larious" thread seem unaffected.

Just a quick question: how does this work? Does it just remove the IMG tag when someone quotes someone else, or does it disable that tag within a quote and/or replace it with URL? In other words, could someone edit their post so that it would include the image itself in the quote?

[Martin]

Originally Posted by Gamer am I

I'm guessing this will only apply to future posts, since the old posts in the "post images which are high-larious" thread seem unaffected.

Just a quick question: how does this work? Does it just remove the IMG tag when someone quotes someone else, or does it disable that tag within a quote and/or replace it with URL? In other words, could someone edit their post so that it would include the image itself in the quote?

Aye, it shouldn't have any affect on old quotes.

This hack only affects images posted in IMG tags and videos posted using the Youtube tag. When quoted the image will change into a hyperlink that says "Image", and the youtube video will become a hyperlink that says "Youtube Video".

As for your last question, I have no idea. I guess they possibly could, but I haven't tested it so I wouldn't really know. If that did happen then it would likely just be edited back to the way it should be (assuming it's disruptive for the thread).

Here's a demo of what it looks like:

+ YouTube Video