lets talk about this forum...

[Danny Tan]

what is with the weird setup of this forum? Private messages are disabled, quoted text looks confusing and a bunch of other stuff. if you are trying to save bandwidth, maybe your should take out the "Who's Online" at the top since there is one already on the bottom. you can get the mysql database optomized, prune out old search strings, delete non active members, change some graphics to text, get the dot folder optomization patch thing, and a bunch of other stuff if you look for it. but private messaging needs to be enabled!!!

[Jeff Donald]

Why?

[Danny Tan]

because some people might want to contact another person and ask them a question? instead of making an entirely new thread just to ask them... and AIM, MSN, ICQ contacts are disabled too o_O

[Danny Tan]

and also, why not!? you can limit the ammount of private messages a person gets also...

[Jeff Donald]

Part of the purpose of the forums is to foster the idea of community. E-mail exists for the private communication of members. However, if the majority of the communications go off the board the whole point of the community is lost. The community grows and attracts members because of the open exchange of knowledge. If the group knowledge is not available to all the members what is the point?

I get, on average, 10 emails a day asking questions that have been answered before or the answer would benefit the community. It takes away from the group if I answer only private emails. Yet, I don't have the time to answer every question on and off the boards.

This board is setup on the idea of fostering the technical discussions of DV Production and Post Production. The board, because of the technical nature, tries to limit meta discussions. For complete information on this topic see the DV Info FAQ.

[Dan Brown]

I would like to have the ability to post images using a format like:

[img]URL[/img]

It works on some other BB's that use this engine, and I think it adds a lot of information, without using so many words.

IMHO.

Cheers.

[Dan Brown]

Uhm, that was:

[open bracket]img[close bracket]URL[open bracket]/img[close bracket]

If that makes any sense at all?!?

[Danny Tan]

yes, like this: [img ]images link [/img ] without the spaces. this would be very beneficial in the sections like the Film Looks sections while it could be disabled in other sections. and why does quoting someone use <<-- -->> ? why not just use the <hr> html tags???

[Jeff Donald]

The bandwidth requirements for image posting is too costly. DV Info Community does not have any banner ads, pop-ups etc. to distract from the discussions. Therefore very little income. If the images are compressed the quality is the compression comes into question. Therefore professionals have little to gain by seeing compressed images. Full bandwidth, uncompressed images are too large in file size to affordabley host.

[Edward Troxel]

Jeff, If you DID use the IMG tag, would you not have to host the images on your OWN site's space? The bandwidth hit would be to the person posting the image, NOT to DVI. This is because no poster has the ability to put images on the DVI site.

Now I CAN see how it could slow down the display of the pages. It would also show unfound pictures once the original poster deleted them from THEIR site. These are valid reasons for not allowing pictures but it shouldn't affect DVI's bandwidth.

[Jeff Donald]

Edward, you brought up the other issues, that I hadn't gotten to yet. Many of the people would expect DV Info to host the picture. Then we face the issues I mention. If people choose to host it themselves or use a service, we face the issues you point out.

Many users are on dial-up. The board operates in a streamline mode to facilitate the use by members and guests around the world. The multi-national makeup of this board necessitates these considerations.

[Imran Zaidi]

The thing I love is that DVi doesn't have any inline images. If someone wants to link an image, they can put it on their server, and this forum allows for making clickable links.

Whenever you look at forums that allow inline images, it always makes it such an awful read. People always align them in different ways, some use HUGE images while others use images that are too small. It would instantly make DVi look like amateur hour.

Thanks all you Wranglers for keeping this forum clean despite any pressure.

[Dan Brown]

<<<-- Originally posted by Imran Zaidi : The thing I love is that DVi doesn't have any inline images. If someone wants to link an image, they can put it on their server, and this forum allows for making clickable links.

Whenever you look at forums that allow inline images, it always makes it such an awful read. People always align them in different ways, some use HUGE images while others use images that are too small. It would instantly make DVi look like amateur hour.

Thanks all you Wranglers for keeping this forum clean despite any pressure. -->>>

Your point is well taken. Images and referenced sites are a hypertext link away, a single click. It keeps the forum very clean. I retract my prior suggestion.

Thanks to the moderators for the hard work they do too.

[Robert Mann Z.]

the only improvement i would like too see is that when you click on a message it would take you to the first unread message, that would be nice...i know you can go to the first message, and you can go to the last message but the first unread is not there...

i also noticed when you go to a message with multiple pages there is link on top to go to the first unread message, but that requiers two clicks which double bandwidth...

[Edward Troxel]

When you see any list of messages, there is a down arrow beside any "unread" messages. If you click on that down arrow, it will take you straight to the first unread message.