Don't be a bandwidth thief! Stop using other site's smiley's...

[Spark]

Ok guys, it's been brought to my attention that you have been using the smiley and winky .gif files from another site. Unfortunately, we are stealing their alloted bandwidth in doing so, and that's something I don't approve of.

By linking to an image on someone else's site, you are making them *PAY* for your use of the image here. That's not cool. So stop it immediately.

Spark

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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com

Insert witty quip here

 

[Mike Turber]

Hey Spark!

Why don't you load the smilies you made for that contest you won!

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Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
www.wowinc.com

 

[Bob Irons]

Yes, please load up some of those neat smileys!

I did say please!

 

[tek]

What!? People have been stealing smiley and winky gifs. Someone call Janet Reno and the FBI. I'm sure Al Gore would be mortified to see his beautiful internet abused in such a way (but then again how would you know?).

But you are carrect Spark this is poor internet etiquette, not to mention it slows down the speed with which threads load.

Travis

 

[stray]

See the software FAQ for "legal" stuff.

jeff

 

[Ken Cox]

I don't think I understand this.

If I use and emoticon, test emoticon here

, does it come from this site or somewhere else.

All these smiley's and frowny's look the same to me.

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Luke 22:36, John 18:6-11

 

[Ewok]

It's not the ones that are automatically inserted that are the problem. It's the ones that certain clever people have been inserting using

 

[Ken Cox]

Nice cat.
So did that load as a link to another site?

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Luke 22:36, John 18:6-11

 

[RadarMan]

Ken,
Right click on the kitty and click on properties. This reveals all

 

[Spark]

If this stuff keeps up, I'll just disable HTML and tags site wide, and that would truly be a shame considering all the posts that have knife pictures in them.

Spark

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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com

Insert witty quip here

 

[Wolf]

Spark -
I've got a question, but I'll take it to the Tech Support forum.
Wolf

 

[Ewok]

The cat, which is at my site (www.dnai.com/~drp/catrun.gif), is copyrighted by Richard Kapuaala, http://www.redshift.com/~kahunas. Commercial use is prohibited. If you open a gif file with a binary editor, there should be some info at the bottom of the file identifying its origin.

[This message has been edited by Ewok (edited 28 August 1999).]

 

[stray]

Gee Spark, explain in detail what the problem is with linking personal graphics as long as they're not too big. Thanks,

jeff

 

[Spark]

No problem with linking to graphics you own, but when you link to graphics you don't, you are essentially stealing them for your own use.

Case in point: The animated smileys that have been inserted into certain posts as of late. They don't belong to us, the belong to someone else. Since they are being linked to from another server, that means that every time they are displayed here, the person who owns them winds up paying for the bandwidth used to display them. I've watched it happen with certain people taking pictures to be used on Ebay: It racks up the bandwidth, and if I get hit with a bandwidth fee because someone else is too lazy to use their own image, I'm the one that suffers.

It's poor netiquette, and the webmaster of the site in question has asked for out help in stopping it from occurring on this site.

Don't steal someone else's graphics just because you want to be "cutesy", it's not cool. How would you like it if we had to shut down BladeForums.com because someone was doing the same thing to us and we had to cover excess bandwitdh charges? I didn't think you would.

Spark

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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com

Insert witty quip here

 

[stray]

Thanks Spark. Ewok, your cat's cool! No problemo.

jeff

 

[Cougar Allen]

I've been thinking about this too ... although we could avoid using other sites' bandwidth by posting them on our own personal websites or somebody could volunteer some space ... isn't this getting a little overdone esthetically? I'm as guilty as anybody; I'm not trying to pull a holier-than-thou attitude here ... I'm just thinking that although it was fun for a while, now that the novelty has worn off maybe it isn't so much fun to see all these images in the text -- especially animated and blinking images, which can be annoying.

Is it time to say okay, that was fun but it was enough fun, and go back to ordinary smileys? I don't know ... I think that's what I'm going to do.

-Cougar Allen :{)

 

[Mike Turber]

Her is part of the email we got so you guys understand where Spark is coming from.

Please instruct the users of your UBB to cease using the "blushie.gif"
and "winky.gif" smilies on your UBB forum immediately; they are linking
directly from my site, stealing 3319402 bytes of my transfer bandwidth
to date in August.


If you do not respond that you have adressed this theft on your UBB
program, I will replace the graphic with a notice the theft is
deliberate and that the site condones this; I will notify the artist
that you are using her graphic without permission, and notify your
host. The "stolen" graphics go up 24 hours after this message is sent.

------------------
Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
www.wowinc.com

 

[Ewok]

Yeah, I saw that letter on another site. Pretty rude. I don't suppose she could have sent a friendly reminder first? Good thing there aren't any vindictive hacker sorts around here....

 

[Spark]

Ewok, it's MORE rude that people stole her graphics in the first place. At least she gave warning first, that's more than many would have done.

It's wrong to steal the images, and that's that, there's no wiggle room there for argueing. If you want to use someone else's work, you can pay for it, but don't make them pay just because you think something is cool.

Spark

------------------
Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com

Insert witty quip here

 

[Hal]

EWOK, I am Not addressing you here, just ranting in general.


I feel a rant building up so I will try to be civil. Before you jump to the conclusion that I am a software person, rest assured that I put software right up there with a trip to the Dentist as fun.

Stealing somone elses' work is wrong. Some soul put some amount of effort into it. WAREZ is theft. Hacking is vandalism. SYN attacks and denial of service is a step beyond harrassment, almost to the point of criminal mischief.

If some POS decided to use your car because he thought it was cool how would you react?