Why do forums use Thumbnails for pictures?

[Bob Weisner]

Hi:

Does anyone know the reason why many forums use thumbnail sized pictures that you have to click on to make larger? Why not just have the full sized picture to begin with?

[Rob Russell]

Bob,

There are 2 reasons:

Network overhead on the SMC servers. Just the avatars in all the posts significantly bump up the bandwidth requirement.
Download speed for folks on dial-up connections. Not everyone has a high-speed link, and if all the pics were fullsize, it would really impact those folks browsing and participation.Rob

[Bruce Page]

Bob,

There are 2 reasons:

Network overhead on the SMC servers. Just the avatars in all the posts significantly bump up the bandwidth requirement.
Download speed for folks on dial-up connections. Not everyone has a high-speed link, and if all the pics were fullsize, it would really impact those folks browsing and participation.Rob
Both legitimate reasons but I still don’t like ‘em :(

[Bob Weisner]

Network overhead on the SMC servers. Just the avatars in all the posts significantly bump up the bandwidth requirement.

If they are doing this to cut down on the bandwidth useage, would'nt people still be using the same amount of bandwidth when they click on the fingernail picture to make it a regular sized picture?

[Ian Abraham]

If they are doing this to cut down on the bandwidth useage, would'nt people still be using the same amount of bandwidth when they click on the fingernail picture to make it a regular sized picture?<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

Yes but 1/2 of the viewers may decide that they dont need to view them fullsize, or may not blow up all the pictures. So thats halved the bandwidth used right there. And 1/2 the users are probably on dial-up, they will know about waiting a couple of minutes for a set of photos to load, even if you didn't really want to see them. Using thumbnails does make sense.

Cheers

Ian

[Steve Ash]

a question on this topic...

If I host the pictures on photobucket does that still use up bandwidth?

The reason I ask is because this same question was brought up on another forum I used to frequent, and it seems like the answer was if you hosted your own pics it didn't affect bandwidth.

I try to use the thumbnails but the pics are very small even after they are clicked on (something I am sure I am doing wrong) so I go back and edit, put up a regular size pic to show what I want to get across.

[Rob Russell]

Network overhead on the SMC servers. Just the avatars in all the posts significantly bump up the bandwidth requirement.

If they are doing this to cut down on the bandwidth useage, would'nt people still be using the same amount of bandwidth when they click on the fingernail picture to make it a regular sized picture?

It wasn't that long ago that I was on a dialup connection at home. I basically turned off any pictures showing because it slowed down my ability to move through forums with any sense of speed. My web pages were basically littered with little X's where there should have been pics. I could right-click on a pic and select Show Picture to see what I was missing. For folks on dialup, the ability to preview pics via the thumbnail is still pretty important.

There are folks on SMC who are literally running at 24Kb dialup connections because they live out in the boonies, can't get a landline broadband connection and choose not to spend the high monthly fees for satellite connections (which are expensive and still slow compared to cable or DSL connections).

[Rob Russell]

a question on this topic...

If I host the pictures on photobucket does that still use up bandwidth?


It wouldn't affect SMC's bandwidth, but if you have the images inserted into your posts it would affect the download times for those folks on dialup.

[Andy Hoyt]

I believe that Keith and Aaron feel quite strongly about preferring that we post the pictures directly onto SMC's server (which results in the thumbnail). One reason to do so is that if something ever goes wonky with the photobucket-like site (or where ever you're linking to) then no one here will ever get to see the pics.

[Rob Russell]

I believe that Keith and Aaron feel quite strongly about preferring that we post the pictures directly onto SMC's server (which results in the thumbnail). One reason to do so is that if something ever goes wonky with the photobucket-like site (or where ever you're linking to) then no one here will ever get to see the pics.

You're right about that.