The catalyst for this was one post in the last week or so which had a few spoiler blocks with lots of images in each; so that if you'd opened the KawoShin block, and scanned it, then moved on to Asuka, more KS images kept popping into existence and reflowing the layout -- a combination of actual bandwidth being consumed and the number of concurrent fetches that the browser manages leading to a less than optimal user experience.

Bagheera wrote:But shouldn't images be cached after the first viewing?

For that session yes, but after that it depends on how the individual user has their browser configured.

For a personal example, I go through a LOT of images for my job and frequently have several memory hogging programs going at once as part of my workflow (say... photoshop, illustrator, firefox, skype, and multiple powerpoint decks all fired up at once is not at all unusual), so one thing I do to keep things running smoothly on my somewhat aging computer is to have it set to completely clear my image cache out whenever the browser is shut down. Thus just about every time I check on the pic thread (as I have to do frequently because it's such a damn drama factory) I have to load everything from scratch, with links from whomever is using "i#minus" seeming to take FOREVER to finish... and of course it seems to load preferentially from the top of the page down so I generally have to wait it out in order to properly check in on the latest editions. And don't even get me started on the massive delay that happens when I have to actually split anything out of there, which triggers my browser loading up the whole damn thread (not page, thread) all at once. I guarantee every time I have to do that it's sending time out errors to users across the board, so be thankful I keep weird hours like this.

...Ahem. Okay, moving on.

Also, if they click through a link won't that take them to the same number or more pictures?

I've already given a response to this as well as other reasons to favor using links.

Have any users actually complained about this?

Yes.

And with that I'm stepping out of the discussion. I don't know how to make my position any clearer and you guys are starting to make me wish I'd not bothered trying the softer route in the first place.

I mean this as a request, not as a threat: Please don't make me be the bad guy.

NemZ wrote:And don't even get me started on the massive delay that happens when I have to actually split anything out of there, which triggers my browser loading up the whole damn thread (not page, thread) all at once. I guarantee every time I have to do that it's sending time out errors to users across the board, so be thankful I keep weird hours like this.

Back when I had to regularly do splits out of the (image-heavy) 3.33 Things You Noticed thread, I would just click the Stop icon once the text had loaded so that it wouldn't even bother with the images, and then I'd get to business. You don't do that?

It's the pic thread. Often enough the problem involves the pics so without being able to see them it's hard to tell what needs to go where.

But, I love the large pic dumps!

hui43210 wrote:But, I love the large pic dumps!

Well, if they're messing with other users that's a bad thing. Spacing them out so there are fewer pics per page seems like a reasonable request in light of that.