What happened to Personalization?

[Matt400]

I see that I can't add a pic to my signature or have an Avatar. Many other Dodge sites allow this and it makes for some interesting personalization, in particular I like to see a pic of the posters rig. Its much more friendly to view and read a post when a pic is included.

With no pics its kind of like turning the lights out for the conversation.

Why can't we have pics here at TDR also?

 

[Whitmore]

I read that it was taking up to many gigabangers in the computer storage box You know what I mean



But I like the fact that right under the posters name it has a spot to click for readers rigs to see what that guy or gal has, and you can see everything in their gallery too.



Cheers, Kevin

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

It's a bandwidth and speed issue. We initially turned off avatars because we were having performance problems with the server. When we turned them off we found that our bandwidth usage went down by about 30-40% (don't remember the exact number) and we felt that bandwidth could be better used for other purposes. Also, we have many users on dial up connections and we received lots of responses from users praising getting rid of them because their performance was so much better when browsing the forums. As pointed out I put a link under each users name where you can click on it and get straight to their reader's rigs gallery so if you put pictures in there you will see all of them.



-Steve St. Laurent

Webmaster

 

[Matt400]

Originally posted by Whitmore

I read that it was taking up to many gigabangers in the computer storage box

Sounds like a bigger box is needed then, I like TDR a bunch but the other non-pay sites seem to have the room.

I like the fact that right under the posters name it has a spot to click for readers rigs to see what that guy or gal has

Me too I like that feature of a link to their Gallery and have been trying to use that to associate their post but its too time consuming. I wanna see what you or your truck looks like Kevin when I am reading your post. Its what makes picture phones so much better IMO. I think your sig would be way better like this:



#ad




Wait just a minute…you mean that I can’t even post a pick manually??? The above should have showed up, not as a link. I am not getting what is going on here, are we not trying to bring people together? When you post Kevin I wanna say oh- the dude with the cool stacks! While we post back to each other.

I don’t want to have to click on your gallery or remember what you look like all the while keeping the lights out.

 

[Matt400]

Originally posted by Steve St. Laurent

It's a bandwidth and speed issue.

Can that not be corrected?

Also, we have many users on dial up connections and we received lots of responses from users praising getting rid of them because their performance was so much better when browsing the forums.

I have dial up and never see above 26. 4kbps, yes it is slow but small pics in a sig or an avatar are no trouble on other sites. Its when a poster puts in a pic that is as wide or wider than the screen that things start to slow down. You know you can always put a limitation on the size to police things.



I hope it is something that is not in stone, TDR IMO is the best Diesel Resource and should not be showed up by others that are gaining popularity.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Yes you can post a picture from the gallery manually, you just have to use html to do it because the gallery is in php. As a matter of fact there is a link below each picture that says "forum codes" that if you click on that it will give you the exact code that you can copy and paste to have the picture show up in a post and there's several to choose from for the different resolutions.



There is no problem with the space on the server - we have plenty. It's a bandwidth and speed issue. We had at least 30 people thank us for turning off avatars for every 1 that complained. We felt that we could use that bandwidth better for other features on the site that would be used more as well as catering to the wants of the users of the site (speed).



Take a post such as this for example - https://www.turbodieselregister.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=79242 . That page is 232k which on your 26. 4k connection will take approximately 70 seconds to load. If that same thread had avatars on it based on the average avatar size when we had them that page would be 712k and would take 215 seconds to load. Our users saw a big enough difference in performance when we turned them off (which was originally going to be a temporary thing) that the overwhelming response from users was to leave them turned off.



BTW, I just did a search and we turned avatars off over a year and a half ago. In the last year you are the first person to mention them.

 

[Matt400]

Originally posted by Steve St. Laurent

Yes you can post a picture from the gallery manually, you just have to use html to do it because the gallery is in php. As a matter of fact there is a link below each picture that says "forum codes" that if you click on that it will give you the exact code that you can copy and paste to have the picture show up in a post and there's several to choose from for the different resolutions.

So I could sign my post like this:



Matt

#ad




Thats cool, don't think I would take the time to do it that way each time plus if you are right about everyone that don't like it then I would be just upsetting most everyone.



From what you are saying it sounds like it is something that will not change anytime soon.

 

[Joseph Donnelly]

I use dial up (typically 38-40K according to my isp) and appreciate the speed from no avatars. I would like to add that most of the avatars that folks used in the past were basically cartoons or other non-essential stuff. Now, a Ram doing a burnout is (right, Steve) but as he pointed out, there are ways to get to the pictures without sacrificing speed. When you come onto the board almost every day and see 150-250 (or more) new posts/threads to chase, speed matters.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

I really liked mine !



#ad

 

[Fireman Dave]

That was one heck of a videographer who caught that, eh Steve?

 

[Matt400]

Originally posted by Steve St. Laurent

I really liked mine !



#ad

Wow!!! that is sweet, now I am almost sorry I brought it all up cuz that is a teaser of how it coulda been. :{

 

[MCummings]

#ad




I think mine is pretty accurate of me.

I am on a cable modem, so speed isn't a concern, but, it is nice to access the TDR as fast as you can access your own computer...





Merrick Cummings Jr

 

[Jff24Gordn]

DSL would be nice, so would a speedy dialup. I see a best of 21 and once saw 2. 1kbs. Avitars are nice, but it is also nice when you can brouse TDR in under 2 hours.

 

[Matt400]

Originally posted by Jff24Gordn

Avitars are nice, but it is also nice when you can brouse TDR in under 2 hours.

Speed is very helpful for sure, I used the feature of "subscribing" to a couple of the forums I am interested in but nothing happens? I see in my profile that I have subscribed to those but what does that mean? I thought I would get some sort of summary in my email on what is going on in those forums. Anyone know how the subscription option is supposed to work?

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

That's all it does, put it on the list on your control panel screen. I guess their thinking behind it was to allow someone to make a custom list of forums that they wanted to read. Seems useless to me, I hardly use the control panel. Same thing with the buddy list - that's another feature I never use but maybe someone does.

 

[radar doctor]

Slow ISP in the Sticks

Sometimes when we are just logging on a header or picture comes up and if there are many it takes forever to get on to the TDR. I'm sorry we are slow out here but we love the TDR and we vote for leaving it as it is... ... ..... Oo. Oo. Oo.

 

[Matt400]

Originally posted by Steve St. Laurent

Take a post such as this for example - https://www.turbodieselregister.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=79242 . That page is 232k which on your 26. 4k connection will take approximately 70 seconds to load.

Don't know where you got that info but I just clicked on that link and got the whole page in 8 seconds at 26. 4

BTW, I just did a search and we turned avatars off over a year and a half ago. In the last year you are the first person to mention them.

Well that is because I am a newbie here and just wondered what was up with the format since I ventured over from other forums that have them. I didn't mean to sound like I was complaining, I like the info on TDR and I just didn't feel it was a friendly with no pics in the sigs or avatars. I will go with the flow... .

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

You must've had that page in your cache because just the raw text is 164k. Your 26. 4kbps connection is 26. 4 kilobits per second and the 164k is 164 kilobytes - there's 8 bits in a byte. Now if you have a page in your cache then all bets are off and it can load up very fast.

 

[Matt400]

Originally posted by Steve St. Laurent

You must've had that page in your cache

Nope, never seen that thread and just for fun I clicked on page two of that thread and it loaded in 7 sec. at 26. 4 connection.

 

[Matt400]

Originally posted by Steve St. Laurent

That's all it does, put it on the list on your control panel screen.

Oh I see, that may be fine too, I could just put up my control panel as a direct link to the forums of interest instead of using the main page. Thanks