Question about signature ettiquette

[Father Bronze]

I was just wondering what sort of internet etiquette is generally followed when putting images in a signature.

If I find a picture from a "free use image gallery" (one that allows an individual to use pictures for non-commercial reasons -- mostly avoids the whole copyright issue) is it considered rude to place a link to that picture in my signature line rather than download the image and upload it to my personal home page.

My concern is this. I would think that just putting a link would cause a lot internet traffic to the original site and that the original creator of the image might not appreciate the fact that I am (in effect) using their host space for my own personal use.

Any thoughts?

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Most Subtle Official Straightman of the Laughing Hyenas -- Grammarian Brigade.

I understand your concern and agree.

If the site owner states that they have no qualms about anyone linking to thier site then there should not be a problem (other than the fact that some of cannot get some pages to even load because of internet traffic~not sure that is the cause but it is my main suspect!)

Some site owners will ask that you do not link to their site and will ask that you download the image to your own PC, upload it to your own page and link to it there. Their rights should be respected by all means.

Personally I made my own in a program called Paint Shop Pro and host it on my internet account's homepage space.

If your homepage is already dedicated to something you don't want marred by your signature, you can ask around and someone here will host it for you, me being one of them. We can also put our own ideas to work and make or find you one of you would like, we are just that nice

Love, Hugs & Peace,
Moni

[Throntar]

Originally posted by Father Bronze: I was just wondering what sort of internet etiquette is generally followed when putting images in a signature. If I find a picture from a "free use image gallery" (one that allows an individual to use pictures for non-commercial reasons -- mostly avoids the whole copyright issue) is it considered rude to place a link to that picture in my signature line rather than download the image and upload it to my personal home page. My concern is this. I would think that just putting a link would cause a lot internet traffic to the original site and that the original creator of the image might not appreciate the fact that I am (in effect) using their host space for my own personal use. Any thoughts?

FB--That's really cool of you to ask that question and think about the situation. Most people wouldn't give a crap what linking did to someone's web site. Basically, it is good general practice to upload the image to your own server space if you are going to remote load. Many free-hosting sites (Homestead, etc.) will not let you remote load and if they catch you, they shut yer' butt down. Essentially, every time you make a post you're using some of this poor guy's RAM to load the sig. If you take that and multiply it by 300 people doing the same thing...that guy's going to have all kinds of problems with his server bombing out due to lack of RAM.

Bottom line, I would always recommend that you *do not* link to his source file location, and *do* upload the photo to your personal page (as long as your provider doesn't mind remote loading). Hope that helps!

P.S. - Why have you been such a stranger lately???



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Now where did I leave that doughnut?!

[Sazerac]

Good question, Father Bronze. The practice of linking to someone else's image is called "bandwidth-stealing" and it's generally frowned upon for the reasons listed above. Yes, it's best to upload the image to your own site. Make sure it's public domain before you do, though! A good place to find public domain fantasy images is at:

http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/pictures/fantasy/

There's a lot of older AD&D/Dragon Mag pics in there, as well as some by fantasy authors and illustrators. It's a good place to start looking.

I think Ziroc's only stip on the signatures is that they need to be small (under 10K in size) and not so big that a person on a 640 x 480 screen has to scroll back and forth to see the image (and all the accompanying text!) A lot of viewers still sign in on "pay-per-hour" systems.

Thanks,



[This message has been edited by Sazerac (edited 05-04-2001).]

[Father Bronze]

Thank you for the thoughtful advice.

I assumed what all of you described above was the "polite" way of handling things. My concern started over when I started thinking about adding a picture to my signature. I had a feeling I should download and upload to a site of my own rather than just link.

I'll admit that part of my intention with thread was to clarify that others who are using signatures should not load images from remote servers without the hosts permission. I haven't checked all of the signatures, and I don't plan on it, but with so many pictures in so many signatures I can see the temptation of just linking to a remote site without permission.

BTW, Throntar, I haven't really been a stranger too much. I check the IWD forum daily. I've been glancing over the General Discussions from time to time. Yesterday my daughter went in for surgery, she got tubes put in her ears. It wasn't a big deal, but I wasn't at work yesterday and that is where I most often check up on the board. I really use my lunch hour and breaks to check the board from work, thus I don't post much over the weekend. I usually spend most of Monday trying to figure out what happened over the weekend, but by Tuesday, I'm back into the regular posting. Nice to chat.

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Most Subtle Official Straightman of the Laughing Hyenas -- Grammarian Brigade.

[Tobbin]

Originally posted by Father Bronze: Thank you for the thoughtful advice. I assumed what all of you described above was the "polite" way of handling things. My concern started over when I started thinking about adding a picture to my signature. I had a feeling I should download and upload to a site of my own rather than just link. I'll admit that part of my intention with thread was to clarify that others who are using signatures should not load images from remote servers without the hosts permission. I haven't checked all of the signatures, and I don't plan on it, but with so many pictures in so many signatures I can see the temptation of just linking to a remote site without permission. BTW, Throntar, I haven't really been a stranger too much. I check the IWD forum daily. I've been glancing over the General Discussions from time to time. Yesterday my daughter went in for surgery, she got tubes put in her ears. It wasn't a big deal, but I wasn't at work yesterday and that is where I most often check up on the board. I really use my lunch hour and breaks to check the board from work, thus I don't post much over the weekend. I usually spend most of Monday trying to figure out what happened over the weekend, but by Tuesday, I'm back into the regular posting. Nice to chat.

I'll admit that originally, I used to link directly to the host site. They did say it was ok to use their graphics, but didn't say yay or nay about linking though. It was a commercial site that had a drop off in traffic though, so I think they actually welcomed it. This is of course for the http://www.planescape-torment.com website. That's where I originally got the negative version of my signature. Other than that, I pull pics from other sites and post them on my own. I've had some problems because of that with Geocities and Tripod though. They don't like the traffic and will pull your account if you get too many visitors. I've dropped back to my family account on AOL and it's held up longer than all the others combined, so I think I'm ok for now. Eventually (hopefully soon), I will get my own website and will move everything there. It's all a matter of time. . . . .



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