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.
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.
Edit: I do appreciate getting exemplary tags, but in the future please refrain from using it as a “super agree” button. I don’t think that’s what it is there for.
I'm an artist in a field where a key component of my work is in a visual form, and I couldn't agree with you more!
Exactly. In most online conversations images are used as shortcuts and as such they are a lazy form of communication. While other types of images can exist, the lazy/vacuous/sloppy category is so overwhelmingly ubiquitous that it feels like cancer to me. No matter where I go, I have to see images like that, a constant stream of them, all infiltrating my consciousness not matter how hard I try to fend them off.
Tildes is the only community online that I know of where I can have reasonable interactions with people and not get bombarded with sloppy images. @0x29A mentioned AI-generated images, and they certainly represent a new level of how utterly disappointing and void this form of communication can get, but even before gen AI became popular, I was already suffering from image slop overdose.
And it's not a solution that images would be hidden behind some clickable element. I would still have to encounter a bunch of posts and comments that are potentially indecipherable unless I click to see the image, which would defeat the purpose. The reason Tildes feels so safe and relaxing is because I can trust it to be completely clean of image slop. I can drop my usual vigilance that is active whenever I'm in any other online space. If images for some reason had to happen over here, then the only way for me to still feel safe would be a setting that allows me to not ever see any topics of comments that have images in them so I wouldn't have to expend mental energy towards what to do about them, but that would lead to the division of an already small community into factions that would no longer interact with each other.
Obviously, some conversations are only possible if images can be used - for example a knitting sub on reddit would be too cumbersome to participate in if we were unable to instantly see what the poster is talking about. But general discussions are much, much better without images because the effort it takes to put something in words makes people inherently more considerate wrt what they say, and when the interpretation isn't outsourced to the recipient as much, it becomes easier to write good quality replies so people do it more. And when there are no images anywhere, those good quality replies get the attention they deserve which further improves the incentive to write them.
The exemplary tag is currently the only image-like element on Tildes in that it draws attention to itself like an image would. It works exactly as intended, making valuable comments easier to find. If there were regular images in the mix, those would work in the opposite direction and draw attention indiscriminately to whatever random content the image happens to be a part of. This would not only be distracting but it would also create a misaligned incentive structure: it's easier to get more attention by posting any low quality slop image vs. writing high quality text content, so a lot of people would feel compelled to do so. Even if everyone here thinks they'd be above such primitive urges, humans are not actually that smart or self-aware.
The internet is already inundated with communities that allow images so wouldn't it make more sense that the people who like to participate in image-based or image-"enhanced" communication do so in one of those places? I just want one community where I can feel relaxed because my attention can be completely dedicated to reading and nothing else.
My impulse upon first reading this topic was largely pro image, but you make some great points, I think, and I'm leaning a lot more anti-image now. Initially I was reading your response thinking about what whether the same arguments would be applicable were you to replace "image" with "low quality/effort content", and whilst I think that's true for some of your points, you make a great case about the attention grabbing nature of images and the amplification/disproportionate weight they assign.
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.
I just want to push back slightly on the notion that the argument against images is "we can't because reddit has that". The argument is actually that we watched the rollout of images on reddit, and the effects were detrimental. It would be foolish not to look to historical contexts to anticipate the outcome of an action. I dare say it feels like an unintentiknal strawman argument the more time I spend with it, so I'll just leave it at that.
I watched it happen on several sites, and it always played out the same way. Twitter used to be strictly text, often with links. The addition of embedded images had an almost overnight change in user behavior, quickly becoming "scroll until image." Then instead of short text, everything became even shorter text on images.
Not the person you responded to, but I simply don't think that the history of rolling out inline images on reddit is actually that instructive in terms of how it would fare on Tildes, which is a different website with a different userbase and culture.
But then I also don't agree with the previously-stated observations about inline images immediately negatively affecting the entirety of reddit either. At least in my circles, everyone already used RES to display images inline well before reddit natively supported it, and I didn't notice an appreciable effect on the content I encountered in the subreddits I frequented after it was added as a native feature.
The flipside to this is that the comparison was made without due consideration to the proposal's changes/limits to what reddit did. Reddit didn't have a restrictive limit on how often you could use it.
If we're going to criticize one response for mischaracterizing the response before it, it's worth pointing out that the response before it was a bit of a mischaracterization as well.
Where such a limit could falter is that I think it doesn't really scale well with user base growth. If reddit had limits for example, sure there would be substantially less image spam, but there could still be pockets where it happens more because there's so many accounts and not everyone participates everywhere. If most people only comment in big political posts, you might see an oversaturation of inline images in comments on political posts because they aren't going around to other posts to include inline images. In theory, if more people comment in political posts, the inline images are competing with more comments overall, so it may not seem overly saturated, but the issue can be that images take up more space for potentially less effort.
I doubt it would be a huge issue on tildes, but part of what keeps tildes user growth where it is now is the design of the site isn't very friendly to some types of uses. If you introduce features that don't scale well with user growth but those same features also help increase user growth, well it may not be a problem initially but it could lead to the problem happening later on.
I don't think I agree with the idea of image credits at all, I'd prefer a system of unlimited inclined but make it so that if two or three people flag it it automatically de-inlines the image for everyone.
That being said, rather than giving people a credit every so often, you could do something like give people a credit every 10 comments they post or something similar. That would avoid the effect you describe.
This seems very counter to how I percieve the ambition for Tildes (but I'm most certainly misinformed).
If there ever are inline images, which I hope there won't be, I would rather that you get credit to post/use them if you haven't posted for a while.
Rewarding spammy behaviour with spammy tools feels inherently wrong to me.
And yes, I said what I said!
Yeah, that's a good point I hadn't considered; people might start spamming to get image credit/credit may be automatically accrued by people spamming.
I guess the intent of my suggestion was to reward high quality posting with trust, but it would be very hard to automatically assess the amount of high quality engagement a user makes!
I enjoyed that comment very much because it was a verbal representation of a meme I'd seen many times already (too many times). Thank goodness I didn't have to see it on Tildes too. It would have been even funnier without the explicit link to the meme because then I could have been certain that the author is making a dig towards the meme's overuse. The existence of the link makes it seem more likely that the author would have just posted the meme directly, were it technically feasible on Tildes.
Fair, though having seen this meme whilst also being less saturated by it, for me the link was necessary context to avoid having to ask, or else not being included.
I think that comment was fine the way it was. Would it really have been enhanced if the image was in-line? The user perfectly described the image they linked to, so I didn't have to click it or see the image to understand what they were conveying.
I can't think of anything the image being inline would have added to the comment, and I think it would have made the comment more annoying, but also just straight up less funny.
It reminds me of when I search for how to do something, and all I find is YouTube videos. I almost never want to watch a video that tells me how to do something, because I then have to have headphones in, or be in a place that I can turn the volume up, spend a bunch of time skipping around to find what I need, wait for the video to load, which may take forever if I'm in the middle of nowhere and so on.
It's similar with images. I want to just read a text forum, that's what I use this site for. I don't want to have to worry about reading comments in a public place and having some embarrassing or weird image pop up on my phone. I don't like the idea at all.
If an image is required for some reason, people can link to it, and readers can choose to click or not click on it. Is that amount of tiny friction really so detrimental to the sites usage for people who want images?
I honestly hate that a lot of how-to content has moved to video for the same reasons. They either waste my time because I have to dig through it or they waste my time because it was too short and didn’t tell me what I needed to know.
I feel similarly. I am personally completely opposed. Images are a shortcut that I believe will detract from conversation. For this community, in particular, I feel it will be a net negative. I like the idea that people are forced to describe things- and at absolute worst-case if an external resource is needed- link to them. But I find the lack of images likely incentivizes an increase in the overall quality of discussion just by having the first occurrence to someone to be to describe things and truly put themselves into their post rather than shortcut it out by just going "blah here" and tossing an image up as a substitute
Further thoughts, at length
I already interact with other communities with images and while it can sometimes be fun- those are communities with a different "feel" than Tildes has always had- so while it may fit in those places, it feels like it doesn't fit here. And even in those communities where it has always been present- while it makes for some good "jokes", it only sometimes makes for good conversation, and I'd even posit that even in those places it detracts from conversation. The thing is- those communities have entire sub-areas dedicated to images, so a lot of the stuff is contained within those walls- but it still ends up that conversations get interrupted, infiltrated with some thought-terminating cliche of a meme, or whatever else. It can get annoying fast.
I personally feel like the level of discourse and conversation on Tildes is elevated above some comedy-filled discord server or subreddit where memes are shared or whatever and I think wanting to preserve that, even strictly, is a good thing. We don't have to be like everywhere else. Just like I'm glad that the top 10 comments on every thread on here aren't just someone making some lousy joke to farm upvotes
But maybe I'm just an old man yelling at clouds, who knows. Maybe the community overall feels differently, I have no idea. I do know that my desire to be here and my interactions will be significantly reduced if images are introduced in any capacity. I truly cherish the text-only / plain text places that remain on the web as a beautiful, good thing- a way of doing things that we should see more often instead of less. As others have said- It's nice to have a refuge on the web for discussion / conversation that is more calm, less overstimulating, and easy on the eyes. I also find it nice to have it be low-bandwidth / fast to load, etc. Text-only is wonderful.
I also see it enabling images as a way for a particular type of low-effort images the web is inundated with in the past few years to start leaking their way here (trying to say it without saying it because I'm trying to avoid a discussion of the topic in particular- but I'll be explicit: the moment I see AI-generated images inlined here I'm out - unless the ability to block and thus completely mute users is introduced at the same time)
[NOTE: To head off any extensive conversations/debates about this beneath my post in particular- I'm posting my thoughts as this reply- but I'm not interested in being "talked out" of how I feel about this and especially not interested in any AI discussion, even with how it affects this topic. I'm not in a position to change my tune on this as "wrong" as anyone may think I am. Just wanted to express how I feel on this important "meta" issue, not an invitation for extensive debate]
Were it not for your disclaimer on wanting to avoid debate below your post, I would have posted my thoughts on this element of the discussion. That would not have been an attempt to change your mind, just me sharing my view like you shared yours.
I don't know if this in-and-of-itself constitutes discussion you didn't want to have, but I'm interested in why you you want to avoid debate; to me that seems counterintuitive to the topic at hand (reductive summary: images kill conversation). Discussion below your comment would be an opportunity to discuss the points you raise, whether that's with you or with others.
I understand the perceived "hypocrisy" in stating that I am not interested in debate or conversation while claiming that images will incentivize similar behavior
However, the difference I perceive in that is that to me, the feature of images broadly does this in a subtle, hidden, implicit way based on incentives
Whereas here, I am taking my own time and effort to explicitly make this request myself, in my own words, with my own reasoning, on a specific post/comment. It is isolated, it is explicit, it is individual, and has nothing to do with a behavioral incentive at large
I was mostly trying to express that I am not interested in someone trying to change my mind on this issue specifically. I don't mind further discussion of the issue at hand and I'm not trying to stop that- I just don't want it directed at me specifically
And truth be told, I should have not made my original post a reply either, doing so implies some level of conversation being had- I should have made it standalone
But maybe that's a fault of mine of just tiring of saying something and in certain topics not wanting to wake up to a few replies of counter arguments I am not interested in. It's very specific to the conversation or topic but at certain times I feel like expressing myself and just leaving it there, like a commentary more than a dialogue without seeing a bunch of reply notifications. Maybe that also goes against Tildes ethos tho and maybe going forward I will either not post at all, or ignore the topic to silence it after posting, rather than make a reference to not being interested in discussion- that way my points can be countered for everyone else's edification without me knowing and doesn't stop any discussion from happening
Overall, I apologize for probably acting in a way counter to the very things I am saying I like about Tildes. I'm not saying your criticism is completely without some core of truth, but I just feel this way explicitly on certain topics or comments
I think your reasoning and approach is very understandable and I don't see anything wrong with what you did :) From my perspective, I just wanted to understand where you were coming from and whether you were okay with further discussion between others, I didn't mean to imply hypocrisy on your part. Thank you for explaining, I appreciate it!
No problem- and no worries- I didn't necessarily think you were purposely implying hypocrisy in any malicious way- but on reflection of my own post and your response I definitely could see how it came across that way (to be fair me going "lets do things that incentivize discussion" immediately followed by me doing the opposite of that is certainly contradiction to an extent), so I figured it was worth clarifying.
Either way this has helped me reflect on my own behavior and approach to future posts, so thank you for choosing to respond instead of being deflected by my statement
I was going to possibly edit my original post now but given this conversation I will leave it exactly as is for full context.
This alone is reason enough to scrap the idea. What a can of worms.
What about ASCII tits?
≽(^•⩊•^)≼
（ ͜.人 ͜.）
This is not ok. Young Tildans seeing this could get a warped idea about anatomy.
The only solution now that you've done it is to allow real images to set the record straight about cat tits.
If we're talking cat tits, does this help with your concerns?
≽(^•⩊•^)≼
（ ͜.人 ͜.）
（ ͜.人 ͜.）
（ ͜.人 ͜.）
（ ͜.人 ͜.）
There's no denying it's technically less wrong
You're funny, I know in my heart of hearts that everyone on this site who isn't me is ancient
What like we're functionally immortal entities who are millennia old and play around with mortals to keep some joie de vivre/have servants who obey our every whim?
Psh ⋆.ೃ࿔.𖥔 ݁ ˖*:･༄
DefinitelyNotAFogey
Obviously not (˘･_･˘)
This is offensive to catgirls everywhere. Real cats have curves!
Oh my...this is... something. But you had me at ASCII
Honestly surprised this was not DefinitelyNotAFae’s comment 🙃
𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𓃠𖥧𓋼𓍊
Be careful with that! Or everyone ends up stepping through...
Actually never mind please feel free to give it any names you no longer need.
I don't prefer the word "tit" so you'll know it's me because I'll ask about boobies instead:
𓅰 𓅰
Who doesn't love a good boobie?
Now this would be a great time for an inline image
Actually, I think this counts against inline images now I've seen it in action. I think it would work, perhaps, if images were rendered as a small thumbnail, but a giant blue-footed boobie dominating the page here would be a terrible idea even if it seemed like a good idea to me not two minutes ago, now I think about it.
Boobies with feet. What a world.
There's boobies without feet? What are you gonna say next, they don't have wings and beaks too?
Please do not remove the feet from boobies!
That doesn’t look like a tit to me.
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
🌕🌕🌒🌕🌖🌒🌕🌕🌕🌕
🌕🌖🌑🌓🌑🌑🌕🌕🌕🌕
🌕🌗🌑🌑🌑🌑🌔🌕🌕🌕
🌕🌘🌕🌑🌕🌑🌔🌖🌑🌕
🌕🌖🌑🌑🌑🌑🌕🌕🌑🌔
🌕🌕🌖🌑🌑🌔🌕🌕🌑🌔
🌕🌕🌘🌑🌑🌒🌕🌕🌑🌔
🌕🌕🌘🌑🌑🌑🌔🌖🌑🌕
🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑🌑🌒🌑🌒🌕
🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌒🌕🌕
...You know, this might be the perfect modern take on ASCII art. The shape remains consistent on all devices with those emoji.
I did something like this for a college homework assignment once. We were supposed to write a program to model a forest fire spreading, using a series of rules kind of like Conway's Game of Life.
The assignment requirements wanted "three different characters" to represent trees, fire and empty spaces. The examples showed plain ASCII, but I used 🌲 and 🔥instead, resulting in a grid of those that would be cleared and reprinted as the state changed.
Sounds like a fun project.
Oh my god that's so cool! I've never seen anyone do emoji art like that before and it works so well!
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.
haha I assumed this would work and thought about posting ascii art more than once but I wasn't sure if it would be acceptable here.
I think this your time to shine! Take the opportunity, I don’t think a better one will come along any time soon.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Let me get that for you
┬─┬ノ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°ノ)
I think ASCII art would be appreciated on Tildes. I would only suggest that they are not too big.
I am in favor of more ASCII art on Tildes. Perhaps not as big though.
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
This is the first time I’ve seen this come up, so I feel like I’m missing something. The arguments in this post seem to boil down to it being cool.
I honestly don’t see how inline images would improve tildes or add to my experience using it. Aside from the legal concerns you bring up, it would mean added work for development, for moderation, and increased hosting costs. Moderation time is easy to brush off if you’ve never done it; it isn’t easy or straightforward and it’s a lot more time consuming than you probably think. The cost benefit isn’t clear to me at all.
Users are currently pretty good at making their links descriptive, it’s part of what makes the experience here so great for everyone. That includes users with vision challenges.
Quality alt text would absolutely be a necessity if images were added IMO. I don't actually want them, but if they exist I'd be arguing strongly against the idea that funny pictures are inherently low quality
It seems to me that Tildes users post descriptive, thought out comments because they want to. I think images wouldn't be a shorthand that would degrade the quality of discussion on Tildes simply because no-one is forcing people to engage in discussion and put effort into their comments. I think, in general, we're all here because we find this website enriches our lives (well, it certainly en-rich-es the lives of people I reply to 😉) and it is an active choice to post high effort comments; I suspect we'd see the same from images.
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.
I completely agree. I'd suggest the way to do it would be to automatically collapse images on posts/comments with the Noise label.
I would be in favor of allowing online images (unmetered) just in specific threads or topics.
In particular, I would like to see images in certain hobby-related threads, like those related to gardening and the like, where sharing images can greatly enhance the discussion. I would likely use Tildes a lot more if it had more features to support sharing hobbies and creative projects.
An interesting idea might be piloting it in one or two places. Seeing how that works for a good long while. Maybe we describe some KPIs (kill me) in advance of what community success in that test location is. Then measure and analyze if we think other places could benefit, or if it was a failure.
Generally I'm not into it. But I'm not opposed to trying it out.
Funnily enough, you mentioning KPIs helped me understand the "no images" perspective; the idea of setting out KPIs gave me the knee jerk disgust reaction that I imagine some people get from the idea of inline images 😂
That is an interesting discussion. However, adding to my other comment, I would like to stress that, in my opinion, the odds of Deimos ever implementing images on Tildes are essentially zero. He talked about that before, and many of his statements about Tildes made it abundantly clear that Tildes will never have images.
I mean, it would be pretty funny if Deimos randomly added images to Tildes. I just don't think that is ever going to happen, as images are antithetical to everything Tildes represent. So all this interesting discussion is also kinda pointless to be honest. Tildes is not a democracy.
Most discussions on the internet are functionally pointless. I think they're still worth having sometimes.
Of course!
While I agree that Deimos is vanishingly unlikely to ever implement either, I do think it's worth noting the difference between displaying images hosted elsewhere inline and actually hosting images when it comes to Tildes "having images". A lot of the technical and resource problems with images only apply to the latter, and the former is easy enough to implement that it could be an external plugin if someone felt like coding one (like how people used Reddit Enhancement Suite for this exact purpose before Reddit had native inline image support.)
I understand.
Personally, I find the absence of images on Tildes (regardless of who's hosting them) incredibly refreshing. Many websites overwhelm me with graphical stimulation. Icons, images, etc. That causes me mental fatigue and eye strain. I am glad Tildes does not display images.
I personally see Tildes as a constant opportunity to sneak in an interesting discussion before the Hammer of Deimos drops 😉
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.
I always use ibb.co. Works great and has an autodelete function.
postimg.cc for me
Interesting story as to how I found out about it
Funnily enough, I stumbled upon postimg.cc from reverse engineering how to post sudoku puzzles with custom backgrounds on sudokupad.org. I'd been solving puzzles on logic-masters.de for a while, and had come in to the habit of creating and posting a sudokupad version of puzzles I was solving for those that didn't have one. This is not an easy or intuitive process, mainly through the complete lack of documentation on how to go about doing so. At some point I came across a puzzle that had an image baked into it that was beyond the tooling to reproduce, and so I scoured the puzzle repetoire of a prolific author, ThePedallingPianist, who I vaguely remembered had posted a puzzle with a charming background, one [Orla the Octopus](https://logic-masters.de/Raetselportal/Raetsel/zeigen.php?id=000GWW) (a very cool concept where part of the puzzle involves drawing in Orla's tentacles using lines that have special interactions in the sudoku). I'd been digging in to the inner workings of sudokupad for a while and had discovered a lot about puzzle representation and formats, and how importing from other websites worked. Puzzles are basically stored as JSON with specific tags, and Orla led me to the discovery of background images within the metadata section, perhaps even the discovery of the metadata section in general. Lo and behold, Orla was encapsulated via the use of a picture hosting link, one postimg.cc link, a website I had not stumbled across before, and that is the tale of how I found a better image hosting option in the unlikeliest of places!I started using Lensdump when people complained that imgur was compressing too much.
If we ever do add it, I propose we have absurd requirements to ensure only the most trusted users can use it. Namely: they need to be a member for at least 3 years, they must have amassed 500,000 cumulative votes, and must have made 100 comments labeled "Exemplary" as labeled by at least 50 different individuals.
Will anyone meet those last two requirements? I have no idea, but if they do, I'd say they've earned the right to be trusted with images.
Also it'd be funny to see someone very obviously respected randomly post a meme image once in a while and see other people freak outAh, so
flippant and probably too soon joke
involve yourself in a JK Rowling discussion 😉I would really like for a weekly pets post where users could post images of their pets specifically on that topic only, or images of their garden on the gardening weekly.
Ive only ever wanted to post images like twice and both times it was pets related.
Any pics of anything else wouldn’t be content Id enjoy.
I, too, want to see everyone's pets
I love the idea of having inline images, but with the hard rule that they're under an accordion by default.
If you want to see the lolz (or whatever it is), you need to press the button. For those who don't want to see the image, it remains hidden.
On arguments that it changes posting behaviour, that's more of a challenge. Perhaps all images comments are required to have accompanying text?
Honestly this is my ideal solution. Have inline images, but require users to click to view them. It makes it no different than linking to an externally hosted image (which people can and occasionally do already do) for users who don't want to engage with images but allows for easier viewing of images in topics where they'd be particularly productive (such as the gardening topic)
I'd really love to share images of projects in working on and each time I'm compelled to post some, I realize that that Imgr account I made for this purpose 10 years ago isn't working... And I give up for lack of options.
Realistically I think the bigger pain point for me is not Tildes' lack of displaying inline images at all, but not knowing where else I can cleanly host the images without compromising my privacy or dealing with the cesspit that is imgur nowadays.
If I remember right, there were all sorts of photo hosting spots 15 years ago -- before the data mining began. That was the sweet spot for the internet, it was.
I don't know if it compromises privacy, but I use postimg.cc
@sparksbet
Yes I would also love to see your projects!
Projects, gardens and pets!
My idea is that we could just have weekly topics where images are allowed only on those topics.
Fully into that!!
That is perhaps a nice idea but Tildes will never display images.
I would struggle to think of anything more detrimental to the way I enjoy tildes and its general vibe. Consider me an extremist anti-inline-imageist.
I don't expect images on Tildes to happen anytime soon given that they were intentionally not included at the start. And I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other. I guess I lean pro-image.
But if they were to happen I don't think complicated schemes would be the best way to go. Just quick and easy moderation by superusers and the ability for people to turn them off for their account, maybe with some sort of visual indicator or "show" option where an image would otherwise be.
I don't think images would hurt the quality of conversation, a little more irreverance would probably be a good thing. It would probably be annoying sometimes but we'd all survive. And also I don't think the lack of images takes away anything important from what Tildes wants to be.
It would be really interesting, though, to see what Tildanians would do with more expression options. I guess in 2026 we'd see a lot of AI generated images.
Well. Now I don't want them. Ugh.
Now that would have been a great April Fools joke, adding a click to generate (image) comment button!
There's the security or privacy concern with allowing externally-hosted images: tracking, etc. Plus, that content becomes out of the control of the Tildes system, and could be switched or deleted.
I can see some utility to having embedded media be enabled for posts, especially if it’s always collapsed and requires accompanying text. I don’t think images should ever be in the main view, you definitely should have to click through to see one so the text needs to give you enough context up front to decide to do that click. Right now if someone posts a video it ends up just being a link with the description as a comment, which isn’t terrible but I think a little inelegant. Being able to see YouTube videos without having to link out would be nice. In particular, I’d like being able to save those videos to my YouTube watchlist without having to click out. Or even save them to a Read-it-later app like Instapaper.
But with comments I don’t know. I think it invites reaction gifs and other low quality interactions in the comments. Even if it’s metered, having a person who does only drive-by reaction gifs or image macros 10x a month and little else is also not quality engagement. Direct linking is probably better, and it gives equal weight to making a statement backed up by a paper or article rather than privileging pictures by providing less friction when seeing them. I would sure like to make an exception for charts and graphs, but I guess there’s no way to do that.
One thing to note though, is that embedded images and video are inherently much more difficult to moderate. It’s one thing to have nasty comments or even outbound links to objectionable content, you can just elect not to click those. But shock images, gore, CP, or even people spamming screenshots to try to phish you are all in your face until an admin can take them down. Even if it’s collapsed by default I imagine a lot of people just unthinkingly expand every collapsed frame. Spammers love these because they’re less likely to get flagged by automatic moderation tools.
Although thinking about the main way I’d benefit from embedded media in posts, what actually seems like it would be most useful to me isn’t videos or images but audio. I think being able to directly play .wav or .mp3 files from an embedded player without leaving the site would really improve discussions around music or anything else involving sound. But I imagine incorporating SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, etc. hooks would probably be kind of a pain to maintain.
I thought Tildes is not being worked on anymore? Just servers kept online and worst offending users taken care of. That that's it because it was some small sideproject or something.
Where did you get that idea? Tildes is a Canadian non profit, not a side project.
Seems like kinda both.
https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes
last commit: Andrew Shu authored Feb 3, 2025 and Deimos committed Mar 10, 2025
14 commits since 2024. 16 commits since 2023.
Altho tbh, what more does tildes need? It is a message board. It does that job.
I have no strong feelings one way or the other
We can already post links to stuff, and people can click on it. Inline images/media just removes that tiny bit of friction, and this proposal goes as far as allowing users to put that friction back. If tildes isn't doing the hosting, then they don't have to moderate the hosted content (just the comments/links, which they already have to do).
I suppose an argument can be made that defaulting to displaying images inline will encourage more images, but it doesn't actually enable anything we can't do already.
Damn filthy neutrals!