Allow images in biographies

endorphin

@alex_w @h_henna there is a Flarum extension which allows a member to upload images to their bio information. Currently bios consist of plain text, hyperlinks and emojis.

Given that signatures (with banners) are unlikely to reappear this would be a good alternative way of allowing members to jazz up their bios, providing noticeable individuality to distinguish themselves from other members.

What do others think?

i_am_sy

endorphin

Sounds good to me, I’ve chatted to @mrjeeves about creating a colour picker option to choose a different background colour to orange, and about having customer photos, I believe Ian has already been working on making a feature for this so it would just be down to the opinion of the community, and @alex_w @roxy_r to give the go ahead.

I think the only risk is for a member to put an inappropriate image there, but that’s the same risk as any community post or their profile photo, and it can be quickly dealt with by educators.

I think the feature would be a great improvement and allow people to be a bit more unique, we should go ahead with it.

ijustcantdoit

endorphin sounds a good option to me 😁

jaymailsays

endorphin What do others think?

As long as it doesn’t slow loading of any parts of the site, I can see having images in bios being an attraction.

bill48er

endorphin I’d be OK with this, but….
it would have to fit within the current sized box AND have a maximum file size/resolution so as not to slow down loading.

endorphin

i_am_sy thanks for your input.

I think the only risk is for a member to put an inappropriate image there, but that’s the same risk as any community post or their profile photo, and it can be quickly dealt with by educators.

Quite! I believe our community is quite vigilant and this risk is easily mitigated.

to choose a different background colour to orange

Hmm, your bio has a blue background for me (Firefox on Windows 10)...

thunderdragon

I’d support this! I like to use my avatar to express personal preference and personality (And we all well know I’m TGV Everything! 😛 ) but being able to add a photo of myself to my bio would be a nice addition! 👍️

Reference Signatures: Provided these were kept reasonable (Perhaps a text field with a 64 char limit?) I think text ones like mine could be included without causing too much hassle. I can see that Flarum already has a text substitution feature (I usually type “giffgaff” capitalised, but the forum always lower-cases it no matter what workarounds I try) so perhaps supporting the Wikipedia four tilde convention (~~~~) might be worth thinking about? 🙂

i_am_sy I think the only risk is for a member to put an inappropriate image there.

This is an inherent risk with any support for user-provided content, as this (Entirely work-safe) take on the traditional content of Page 3 shows… 😉

+++ 🚄 ThunderDragon 🤘 +++

i_am_sy

endorphin Quite! I believe our community is quite vigilant and this risk is easily mitigated.

If we can sniff out bugs we can certainly spot anything else that should be there, it maybe worth a report profile option under the 3 dots menu to make it easier to report anything though.

endorphin Hmm, your bio has a blue background for me (FIrefox on Windows 10)...

It's orange on the profile page on mobile, I assume the same on desktop, just the popup is different - so that's something that would have to be made to match across both if we did have a Ciolor picker and photo upload option.

endorphin

i_am_sy it maybe worth a report profile option under the 3 dots menu to make it easier to report anything though.

Yes, or failing that members can just report the matter using any of the offending member’s posts.

It’s orange on the profile page on mobile, I assume the same on desktop

Ah OK, yes it’s (bright) orange when viewing the profile page!

i_am_sy

endorphin Yes, or failing that members can just report the matter using any of the offending member’s posts.

If they have made any posts, else it would have to be a PD to an ed. Same applies to the profile information and profile picture though, so it would still be a very rare occurrence that anything would need reporting that way.

endorphin Ah OK, yes it’s (bright) orange when viewing the profile page!

Good I’m glad I’m not suddenly very colourblind haha 😃

endorphin

i_am_sy If they have made any posts,

If they haven't made any posts then no-one will notice their profile! 😛 🙂

But yes PD'ing an Ed would be the correct course of action then.

i_am_sy

endorphin If they haven’t made any posts then no-one will notice their profile! 😛 🙂

Unless they PD you a help request….or anything odd :/

But then you can report that instead haha

danwillen

endorphin If they haven’t made any posts then no-one will notice their profile!

Unless they had reacted to a post and you had viewed there profile from list of people who have reacted to the post (currently only available on preview site)

endorphin

i_am_sy in which case you can flag their PD. But it would be a very odd occurence!

endorphin

danwillen that’s the most left field scenario so far! 🙂

endorphin

danwillen i_am_sy I think it’s safe to say that any abuse can be reported.

i_am_sy

endorphin that’s the most left field scenario so far! 🙂

Yeah I think any risk is so small, and can be reported easily enough.

I can’t think of anything more left field lol

munglespoon

What is the need for this? There are many people who are happy to put big ugly graphics wherever they can, but this does not mean that the big ugly graphic adds anything to the experience. A person can set an avatar to follow them around the community and express themself. The text box on the profile is available but will turn into a clumsy scrolling box with anything more than minimal text. Maybe a little bit of text formatting and no scrolling box would be a better first step than freeform graphics.

endorphin

jaymailsays bill48er I suspect the bios are loaded when you view a thread as they're instantly available and I'd hope they're only loaded once per user no matter how many times the users has posted in that thread. So yes keeping the images small would be a priority if this idea were to be implemented.

munglespoon What is the need for this?

Individualisation/personlisation/fun. The avatars are OK but restricted in size and shape. No-one will be forced to upload images, it's purely their choice.

harrrrrry

endorphin

Most browsers will cache images, probably for about a month. That happens by default, unless the web page specifically prohibits the image from being cached or the browser is able to detect that the image has been changed.

endorphin

harrrrrry yes but I was talking about the initial loading of a page when the images in biographies haven’t been loaded yet. I suspect it won’t impact page loads noticeably.

harrrrrry

endorphin

Potentially, photos in bios should have less impact than images in posts, because browsers generally load photos after all body text.

Photos in the first posts are visible while loading, so they can give the impression of delaying the page load. Photos in bios would be unseen until requested, so you wouldn’t notice any delay unless the very first thing you did was to click on the bio. By that time it the bio photos would almost certainly be downloaded (and cached for future visits).