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What is hotlinking?
Since ML hosts nothing, there isn't really a thing to pull from the ML site. Sure anyone can link to a thread, maybe even a single post (can they?), but most web browsers won't download that text (it probably wouldn't display as desired inside someone else's site anyway.
Instead, those links would lead the clicker to the linked website, giving said website a full opportunity to give the viewer the whole picture.
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@Dashrender said:
Interesting that you don't see the use of someone else's resources as inherently (bad seems like to strong a word here). Costing someone else money while they gain nothing from that expense just seems wrong.
Stating it that way makes it sound bad, the implication being that it is "against their will or knowledge", which is not true. If you share something publicly, do you feel that is "bad" that someone takes you up on it?
Think of all of the websites that you visit without advertising (ML for almost two years, most blogs, Snapchap, all kinds of things)... do you feel it is wrong to use them even though someone put in the effort to set them up for the express purpose of being used?
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@Jason said:
Youtube was designed for embededing as well. Those images were meant to be viewed as their whole creation (the website design) the way the content creator intended. Just using one part of it rips it out of the context it was meant to be viewed in.
That can be true, but many sites don't even have that context. Some are nothing but images. That there is a context, that they are meant to be viewed that way or whatever is not universal. If they want to limit them to a specific context, they are able to do so.
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@Dashrender said:
Clearly that is not the case with most static images. The images usually enhance something else that is on that page.
Usually, yes, that's true. What's important is... not always.
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@Dashrender said:
Since ML hosts nothing, there isn't really a thing to pull from the ML site. Sure anyone can link to a thread, maybe even a single post (can they?), but most web browsers won't download that text (it probably wouldn't display as desired inside someone else's site anyway.
But they CAN. We have an RSS feed, for example, specifically for the ability of people to "hotlink" to the text if they want to consume it that way. Even though we offer an RSS feed do you feel it would be wrong for someone to use it?
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@Dashrender said:
Instead, those links would lead the clicker to the linked website, giving said website a full opportunity to give the viewer the whole picture.
Well, the whole picture is the image. It would be to give them much more than the image.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Interesting that you don't see the use of someone else's resources as inherently (bad seems like to strong a word here). Costing someone else money while they gain nothing from that expense just seems wrong.
Stating it that way makes it sound bad, the implication being that it is "against their will or knowledge", which is not true. If you share something publicly, do you feel that is "bad" that someone takes you up on it?
Think of all of the websites that you visit without advertising (ML for almost two years, most blogs, Snapchap, all kinds of things)... do you feel it is wrong to use them even though someone put in the effort to set them up for the express purpose of being used?
It's one thing to use it as intended, on their site, it's completely another to create a link on another source that will cause the object to be downloaded so many times as to cause stress/damage on the originating site.
A great example is Slashdot. It was (is?) common for small community/product sites to be crashed when a highly popular website makes reference to the small site. I heard that it was such a problem that small sites would hope they wouldn't be discovered by slashdot. Heck they might have even asked to not be featured because of the potential to crash the site.
I think on demand resources and things like Cloudflare make this less of an issue today at a much more affordable point, so it might not be as large an issue anymore.
Now should it be illegal for Slashdot to run these stories - No I don't believe that it should be, but the problem still exists.
I'm trying to think of a single other technology that would allow a person/company to become financially or otherwise damaged like a webhost can be by something like this.
Text messaging is the only example I can come up with. In the beginning, Texting wasn't free, the end device owners paid for both incoming and outgoing messages (generally). So someone could send me 100 text messages and suddenly my phone bill was $25 higher (plus taxes) because of someone else's behavior, a behavior I couldn't stop.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Instead, those links would lead the clicker to the linked website, giving said website a full opportunity to give the viewer the whole picture.
Well, the whole picture is the image. It would be to give them much more than the image.
not the image as the whole picture (unless you are saying the post was nothing more than the image itself) but the purpose of the website/forum/community/whatever.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Since ML hosts nothing, there isn't really a thing to pull from the ML site. Sure anyone can link to a thread, maybe even a single post (can they?), but most web browsers won't download that text (it probably wouldn't display as desired inside someone else's site anyway.
But they CAN. We have an RSS feed, for example, specifically for the ability of people to "hotlink" to the text if they want to consume it that way. Even though we offer an RSS feed do you feel it would be wrong for someone to use it?
You're creation of an RSS feed on your site is your permission to at least pull data from your feed to any other website that wants to. Simply hosting an image, you don't expect anyone and everyone on the planet to pull your hosted images.
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@Dashrender said:
You're creation of an RSS feed on your site is your permission to at least pull data from your feed to any other website that wants to. Simply hosting an image, you don't expect anyone and everyone on the planet to pull your hosted images.
First part I agree with completely. Second part seems to refute the first part and is what I disagree with. Both cases content is put up and published. The difference between the two is totally in the eye of the beholder. You say that when I put up content, the fact that I put it up is tacit permission. I agree and simply say that this logic holds true and does not stop randomly due to content type.
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@Dashrender said:
not the image as the whole picture (unless you are saying the post was nothing more than the image itself) but the purpose of the website/forum/community/whatever.
Who is to determine that purpose? You are putting a purpose on a file type that is not inherent to it.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
You're creation of an RSS feed on your site is your permission to at least pull data from your feed to any other website that wants to. Simply hosting an image, you don't expect anyone and everyone on the planet to pull your hosted images.
First part I agree with completely. Second part seems to refute the first part and is what I disagree with. Both cases content is put up and published. The difference between the two is totally in the eye of the beholder. You say that when I put up content, the fact that I put it up is tacit permission. I agree and simply say that this logic holds true and does not stop randomly due to content type.
NO, that's not what I'm saying.
When you publish an RSS feed - you are saying - hey world, pull stuff off my site and use it anywhere you like.
When you publish that same connect, but do NOT have an RSS feed, you're saying saying, please come visit MY site, see what I'm selling, when you want to see what content I have.
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@Dashrender said:
A great example is Slashdot. It was (is?) common for small community/product sites to be crashed when a highly popular website makes reference to the small site. I heard that it was such a problem that small sites would hope they wouldn't be discovered by slashdot. Heck they might have even asked to not be featured because of the potential to crash the site.
Okay, so you agree with my assertion that all linking is hot linking and the logic that says you should not reference a resource directly would logically be forced to be applied to a website.
And so, if I read your statements correctly, you feel that the concept of hyperlinking between sites is inherently bad regardless of the type.
I don't agree, but this is the only way that I see the logic of "references in websites are wrong" coming to a conclusion.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
not the image as the whole picture (unless you are saying the post was nothing more than the image itself) but the purpose of the website/forum/community/whatever.
Who is to determine that purpose? You are putting a purpose on a file type that is not inherent to it.
No I'm not. I would apply this purpose to any file type. Text file/picture/video/db, etc I don't care what kind of file it is, if you want to pull my content to be viewed within the context of someone else's site - that just seems wrong, unless I told you I was OK with that.
Youtube's embedded link listing, your RSS feed - those things specifically telling others that you grant permission for other sites to cause downloading of that content without the end user directly visiting their website.
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@Dashrender said:
Text messaging is the only example I can come up with. In the beginning, Texting wasn't free, the end device owners paid for both incoming and outgoing messages (generally). So someone could send me 100 text messages and suddenly my phone bill was $25 higher (plus taxes) because of someone else's behavior, a behavior I couldn't stop.
I showed earlier how this was not a possibly comparison. Text numbers and reception capability is forced on end users, it is non-optional if you want a cell phone (due to monopolies.)
Publishing a web site is fully at the discretion of the publisher and each time it is served out it has to be done so at the discretion of the server. There is always the option to not do it. So exactly not like the text message scenario.
Also, the standard use case of the web, the one for which it was designed, is to share data via references from other data. Sure you could use the web with a different intention, but the intention of its creation was for a specific usage that involved sites referencing resources on each other.
Even before the web we used Gopher for somewhat similar purposes. typically to large text documents back when a text document was thousands of times more expensive to download than an image is today.
Publishing a web site you expect people to avoid is like putting up a billboard and being upset that people don't shield their eye as you drive by,
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
A great example is Slashdot. It was (is?) common for small community/product sites to be crashed when a highly popular website makes reference to the small site. I heard that it was such a problem that small sites would hope they wouldn't be discovered by slashdot. Heck they might have even asked to not be featured because of the potential to crash the site.
Okay, so you agree with my assertion that all linking is hot linking and the logic that says you should not reference a resource directly would logically be forced to be applied to a website.
And so, if I read your statements correctly, you feel that the concept of hyperlinking between sites is inherently bad regardless of the type.
I don't agree, but this is the only way that I see the logic of "references in websites are wrong" coming to a conclusion.
Not in the linking itself - I'm totally fine with the linking itself - what I'm not fine with is pulling things outside of the context of what is being linked. This is most notably seen in photos. Someone posts a picture on a website, and people get the direct link to the object on that site, then post that link on another site in such a way that the end user can view the image without viewing the original source page where the image was discovered.
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@Dashrender said:
No I'm not. I would apply this purpose to any file type. Text file/picture/video/db, etc I don't care what kind of file it is, if you want to pull my content to be viewed within the context of someone else's site - that just seems wrong, unless I told you I was OK with that.
Youtube's embedded link listing, your RSS feed - those things specifically telling others that you grant permission for other sites to cause downloading of that content without the end user directly visiting their website.
But you just disagreed with yourself again. You said that all file types are the same - then try to say that it applies randomly one way to some files and differently to others. You are picking and choosing. It can't work that way.
You are, again, putting "intention" into some file types and a different intention into others by file type.
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@Dashrender said:
Not in the linking itself - I'm totally fine with the linking itself - what I'm not fine with is pulling things outside of the context of what is being linked.
Ah, so you are upset that most browsers and cache servers pull images and whole websites automatically without forcing the end users to agree to each pull manually?
Again, you are hoisting "context" onto file types that does not exist.
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@Dashrender said:
Someone posts a picture on a website, and people get the direct link to the object on that site, then post that link on another site in such a way that the end user can view the image without viewing the original source page where the image was discovered.
Well but that is not how it works. You are, again, injecting context. People host images. Some people who host images (most, I grant you) also host an HTML page that references those images. The hosting of the image is a fully hosted resource from that server, a peer resource with the HTML page. They are equals, peers. The context of one is a text file, the other is an image. But both are just files served from a file server.
Either resource can be restricted in how it is downloaded if desired or made available publicly. They are equal. The idea that there is a set context does not exist with the files. that is something that is added and is purely opinion and, I know for a fact, does not always apply.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Text messaging is the only example I can come up with. In the beginning, Texting wasn't free, the end device owners paid for both incoming and outgoing messages (generally). So someone could send me 100 text messages and suddenly my phone bill was $25 higher (plus taxes) because of someone else's behavior, a behavior I couldn't stop.
I showed earlier how this was not a possibly comparison. Text numbers and reception capability is forced on end users, it is non-optional if you want a cell phone (due to monopolies.)
Publishing a web site is fully at the discretion of the publisher and each time it is served out it has to be done so at the discretion of the server. There is always the option to not do it. So exactly not like the text message scenario.
Also, the standard use case of the web, the one for which it was designed, is to share data via references from other data. Sure you could use the web with a different intention, but the intention of its creation was for a specific usage that involved sites referencing resources on each other.
Even before the web we used Gopher for somewhat similar purposes. typically to large text documents back when a text document was thousands of times more expensive to download than an image is today.
Publishing a web site you expect people to avoid is like putting up a billboard and being upset that people don't shield their eye as you drive by,
But viewers looking at the billboard doesn't cost the advertiser more or less money - it has no effect on them.
I'll agree with the original intent of the web. Unfortunately, times they have'a changed.
Do you have the ability to setup a web server that can block who can and can't download an image? easily? for example - and option would be... someone could be forced to give a link to a website with an image posted there, instead of directly to the image. Then if you want to see the picture, you have to visit the whole website, not just choose to download one object from that site.
