Half-baked idea for metered inline image allowances
This is totally a half-baked shower thought of an idea, and not one that even I am personally persuaded by, but I’m curious to gauge what others think of it.
Sometimes it might be useful to allow images to be inlined in topics or comments instead of requiring users to link to them. If that ability were unrestricted, people would probably use it for frivolous reaction GIFs, memes, etc., which are not wanted here on Tildes. But if we restricted how often people could do it, if we made it costly, they’d be less inclined to waste it.
We already have precedent for metered functionality to discourage abuse: Exemplary labels. That seems to be working pretty well. What if users received one image credit per month? We could allow them to rollover/accrue but maybe cap them so nobody can have more than five(?). That’s certainly scarce enough to make me think twice about wasting them.
We could make them collapsible so they can be hidden with a click (though I’m not sure if it’s feasible to make per-image collapsed states persistent). We could also have a user setting for people who don’t want to see the images. Maybe call it “Inline Image Display” with these options:
- Always show
- Always collapse
- Always collapse unless in
<details>blocks - Render as link to image instead
If we wanted to be really cautious we could default to that last option (basically current behavior) so nobody would be opted-in if they didn’t want it.
I’m not suggesting Tildes should get into the free image hosting business. This idea assumes that the images being shown are already hosted from a place that permits embedding on third-party domains. We might be able to validate that before running the form submit, to surface a warning when an image is inaccessible so people don’t find out it’s broken until after spending a credit for it.
We could also allow these images only in new topics, and not in comments where they’re more likely to be used flippantly. Or charge two credits instead of one to do it in a comment. Or in that user setting we could add “Always show in topics and collapse in comments” as an option.
If we wanted to get fancy we could also allow users to flag whether an image they’re sharing is NSFW, and add a couple additional options to that user setting, to exclude those if desired.
Of course now that I’m thinking about NSFW images in 2026 I’m reminded that all this age-verification hysteria could be brought to Tildes’ doorstep much faster if we directly displayed user-originated images on the site. Not really a battle I’d chose for us (read: Deimos) to fight so that risk alone might render the idea DOA.
I’d still be interested to hear what others think though.
This alone is reason enough to scrap the idea. What a can of worms.
I’m very much against this, honestly. Inline images would fundamentally change the quality of conversation. I remember when Reddit started doing it and it felt like the entire site dropped down by 20 IQ points in a single day.
But it’s not entirely about “image dumb”; it’s really the ancillary changes inline images would bring. Having people talk and describe concepts reveals things about what they believe and why. If they can just post a diagram or infographic it puts another barrier in between the reader and writer. I believe that this happens even with hyperlinked images, even if it’s not to the exact same extent, so images in general should be discouraged, not encouraged.
While I do think there's a little bit of "reddit-fication" on this site, probably because most of us come from reddit, this still isn't reddit. I don't like the idea that we can't do things because reddit does it. The userbases between here and there are so vastly different, I don't see how we can look at changes and results on reddit and think "Yeah, that'll happen here, too."
Being on this site for years now, I think it's clear that all of us here try not to let redditisms slip in too much. That we can be mostly responsible adults online (or at least on this site).
This is another that I don't buy into that strongly. Sometimes a funny image says it all. Not every comment on this site has to be super serious discussions and deep understanding about some topic. I think this recent comment is a good example.
Even on serious topics, sorry, I'm not going to describe an image of a graph if I can just link to the image.
Honestly, I don't even feel that strongly about having inline images. We obviously haven't had them, and probably won't have them. That's fine. I just tire of the notion that we shouldn't do because reddit. We can chart our own course here without always have to have look back at reddit over our shoulders.
Personally I have an amazing gif game and would only use mine for exquisitely selected gifs.
It's probably not a good idea.
Now it actually sounds like an even better idea! Gif it up, I need it.
Gifs are high effort from me. I just have to settle for emoticons instead.
¯\_(☯෴☯)_/¯
And image wise… there are options
𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊
I tend towards simplicity (and never quite trust that ASCII will look right to everyone)
But I think even the most perfect gif choice would annoy folks. I hardly ever even use an emoji so as not to detract from the vibes.
I like the idea.
As an aside, what are the image hosts people are using? I typically use imgur, but that seems to have caused some consternation here in the past due to geoblocking and I guess just people not liking imgur. I am not interested in setting up my own image hosting, so which are you guys using?
cubeupload.com when I'm at the computer and not in a hurry. Otherwise, imgur.
I don't actually have one since I'm mainly just active on Tildes and we don't do that here. I used to think Imgur was great but I'm usually behind a VPN and these days they do their damndest to block me because of that.
Tildes supporting inline images is an excellent idea. It would neither "fundamentally change the nature of the site" or be particularly expensive/difficult to host.
Every time this idea has come up before, people come out of the woodwork to post what, to me, feel like habitual and immediate negative reactions. I've often felt opinions on this idea have been short sighted or needlessly oppositional in the past. Lots of "this isn't reddit (the website) so no" type stuff.
I don't think metering/credits for images is worth the hassle. The ability to include images in a post or comment should just be a permission that users can be granted, like the ability to edit topic tags. No reason for arbitrary limits.
There should be a hard "no fluff" rule for images though. I don't want Tildes funding to go towards hosting reaction images and memes. That's ultimately Deimos' call, but also easy to enforce. If someone abuses their ability to include images in their posts, that privilege can be taken away.
The only legitimate reasons to not support inline images in topics and comments are technical. Everything else is a moderation problem that's trivial to solve by requiring people to request inline image permission first, and taking it away if they abuse it.
Trust people, but punish abusers:
I like the idea of letting users configure how images are shown to them by default.
Discord servers, Mastodon and Lemmy instances, and thousands of forums across the internet right now let anyone attach an image to their post and those communities are not exploding.
I don't think there is a serious argument to be made that Tildes, by selectively giving users who ask for it the ability to include images in their post, would be made worse in any way.
That is perhaps a nice idea but Tildes will never display images.