When I read the rules about picture spam, my slow mind didn't connect up and realize that post styling could easily become spam. (My excuse is that back then the newborn noob that I was I didn't know gold was by word count and inserting an image would contribute to how much gold you earn. My bad. )
I'm wiser now but I've also got thinking. It would be really nice to be able to use post styling, obviously nothing too complex or that takes up too much post space.
But I really think there should be tags to wrap around text so that that text doesn't contribute to your word count. It'd be useful. I know I'm speaking from selfishness since I love styling posts according to my avi and stuff, and I also like the kind of post styling where there's a sentence quoted from somewhere beginning at the top corner of a post, going '...' and ending at the opposite bottom corner. But I'm sure it could be useful in, um, other situations.

Don't feel bad for suggesting something out of selfishness :) I mean it's something you'd like to have, you don't need to beat yourself up for wanting it because it's not something that's allowed.

Post decoration's a tough subject, always. We've always stuck with a flat NOPE! because otherwise the problem is always going to be where do you draw the line, you know? Coded support for it is a nice idea, but I don't know how viable that would be. I guess the problem here, as it is on any site where currency is earnt (and this is the view from our side of the fence here) is that there's always going to be someone somewhere who will abuse/exploit a system that's been put in place to allow a nice thing.

Say there could be coded post decoration options, we're dreaming here so flights of fancy are allowed, this doesn't have to be actually workable, lol >< So I'd want a system that enabled people to upload two images, a header and a footer, and yes, no gold earned from them. The system would check the size of those images; both the pixel dimensions, and that very important KB size, and tell you if your image exceeded any of them, and only accept it if it didn't. Because we'd have set specific size limits so people couldn't add massive and/or obnoxiously animated stuff to every one of their posts.

But! Even if we had such a system, that was full of failsafes to prevent people from abusing it, there's always people out there would would do what they could to still abuse it! Let's be honest here, all the more so when there's preventative measures in place, because some people are just jerks ><

All a person would have to do would be add those header and footer images manually to every one of their posts instead of using the provided system. No doubt creating an image that looked perfectly fine, but in reality used as much text in the URL as was humanly possible. Save it on Photobucket with a file name that's as long as your arm. Maybe make the complete image up out of thin strips of individually uploaded images, all with massive long URLs, so the end result looks totally legit, but in reality when they add these composite images to the top and bottom of every one of their posts, the combined ammount of URL text will gain them maximum gold every time.

This is the kind of crap people pull >< And it's often not discovered for a long time because nothing looks amiss. You only see what they're up to if you quote one of their posts and suddenly you're confronted by this monster wall of text in a post that only had one line of writing between two small and inoffensive pictures >< If it's a staff member who sees this then it's gonna get dealt with, but if a player sees it it might not register to them that there's cheating going on, they might not know if they should do anything about it, or they just might not care, a fairly small percentage would actually report it.

So yeah, there's your view from my side of the fence xD I feel there certainly is the potential for a controlled method of adding a strictly limited amount of decoration. But It could be abused, no matter how much coded support it had, and this is all pie in the sky anyway, because poor little Mene doesn't have the funds/make the money to warrant something like this being done. But think positive and look to the future, because it could happen one day!

I would love for mene to have some sort of thing that lets us have a bit of flair with our posts. I had a little pixel thing I made for that reason on another site. However, I can see where they'd be a problem. I hated seeing heavily decorated posts from people using things they didn't make or pay for. Dragon eggs and other "pet things" in particular bothered me. So I'm kind on the fence on whether I'd really want it or not. Then again you still see those eggs from time to time in peoples siggys.

For fun I'm going to style this post like I used to in the old days when I was super chatty and an active mod on another site. Clearly it's not something I'd do on a regular basis because of the rules. It' nothing crazy, just some basic stuff. I don't do it here because it takes is to long. Plus my blue isn't one of the "click colours." If we could somehow set a "fav style" within the quick post box it would be perfection.

The system Jelly was describing seems like a dream. And to be honest not that dissimilar to the way our signatures work. I'm curious though...Can two "photos" from photo-bucket really have that much of a bonus to gold? It doesn't seem right. Along those same lines something else I really don't get Why was it EVER such a crime to earn gold that way in the first place?

"Cuz RPer have to work soo hard for their gold and long posts so they deserve it moar"
" I typed SOOoo lots and only got half of wut pretty picture got *CRIES*"

That's what I've always heard from my side of the fence. Why are those users more valuable? People that make their words pretty aren't doing it out of spite or to hurt anyone, and certainly are not jerks. It's just trying to find a creative and easy solution to making more gold while having a friendly conversation that doesn't look like a book.

As for having text that might annoy other people. I look at it in the same way as I would someones physical appearance in Real life. Not everyone is going to like your style of dress. Some people look like librarians others like to look like clowns. Just like in real life it's a horribly petty thing to not want to know someone because of what they're wearing.

Thank you, Jelly and Nephila!
I see now I didn't really look at it properly and think about it deeply enough before posting this thread
There seems a lot to discuss though, so maybe this thread will be useful for discussing this more because I think it needs to be.
I really don't know what to think now, there's both sides to appreciate equally

I have to say, I saw one of dandy's posts in another thread, and my mod sense started tingling, but then I realized you had just formated it. It looks so seamless and pretty, your new posting style!

Oooh thanks! O///O
And I hope I never set your Mod sense tingling ever again

Dandy, we'll forgive you ;D You can't be expected to have thought of absolutely everything before you make a thread about something; plus there's be no conversation to be had if you did.

I feel I need to do some experimenting/put my money where my mouth is about the things I said people can do to cheat, but I'm not gonna post examples or anything. Might as well make a tutorial called jelly's guide to milking the system! if I'm gonna spell things out like that xDD

Originally Posted by Nephila

The system Jelly was describing seems like a dream. And to be honest not that dissimilar to the way our signatures work. I'm curious though...Can two "photos" from photo-bucket really have that much of a bonus to gold? It doesn't seem right. Along those same lines something else I really don't get Why was it EVER such a crime to earn gold that way in the first place?

Yep, everything I said is true and it's not just a few gold. For a normal image it would be, but if someone's intentionally abusing the system it would be max gold for every post because they would make damn sure of that, and that's the whole of the problem. So we have the "no decoration" ruling to stop that from being able to happen. That's the "crime", the small percentage who can and will screw over everyone else by selfishly exploiting something for their own gain. It's the way of the world, I know, and it's no different just because this is an online world

The RPer vs. Chatter thing, yeah . _. If you RP you're always going to have an earning advantage, that's just the way it is.

While I lay trying to sleep, and my brain was busy going that thing that they do in that kind of situation...I had an idea for a system that I don't think would be abusable. I'm thinking of a fully customisable post frame, using the same kind of adjustable settings that your profile has, though I think sliders for each bit would be better, like you have for your Sims and so on? So you could create a completely unique border for your posts. You'd have somewhere where you could save your favourite ones too, of course, with a 1-click application, and an alternative "use this one until I decide otherwise" option.

See I can't think of a way that someone could replicate a frame to benefit from it gold-wise, as how would they be able to type inside of it? There isn't a way to put images all around text. So I think that would be a good compromise. This is just more pie-in-the-sky thinking, of course. But when (not if, when, positivity\o/) Mene's making good money and Inso can justify doing some coding, I'll suggest something along these lines and wait for him to tell me why it wouldn't work >< It seems legit to me! but then it would wouldn't it xD It's easy to think that when it's your idea, and you know nothing about the logistics of putting it into practice.

Honestly, I've never been a fan of post styling with images and quotes and things. Changing the color or alignment is fine, but after years on Gaia, I really got sick of digging through people's post styles to find their actual post.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but for years I was under the impression that text contained with the square brackets [ ] doesn't add to our word count, since that's the format for BBC. I remember this being talked about from when the emote codes were changed from :: to [ ]. It was supposed to prevent people from making posts with just emotes.

But now that I think about it, we totally can make posts with just emotes. Now I'm confused.

I really don't like posts that are all blinged up, but that's hardly an objective opinion, is it ><

Chex, that was to hopefully prevent people from making new threads with nothing but an emote

Ah, I see, that's what I was remembering. So it it true, that stuff within brackets doesn't count?

Originally Posted by Chexala

Ah, I see, that's what I was remembering. So it it true, that stuff within brackets doesn't count?

Yep. :)

Chexala: That's why I think there should be limits too on how much post space your decoration takes up.
Jelly: Aw phew THANK YOU
I still feel like a dumbass permanoob but, I'm out of the onoops-pit.

Zoo-wee-mama! This is a long-post thread isn't it? I got scared just looking at the length of these posts.

Haha, we're making you READ!

I thought you said "we're making you BREAD!" and I got really excited and now I want homemade bread.

Sorry

I know that I'm not a massive fan of the posting decorations as I'm with Chexala on this one - I didn't like having to dig through people's formatting to find the actual response. And to me, most of the time, they seem a bit too cluttered for me, even if it's done tastefully.

But I also find posting decorations highly distracting from the actual text itself.

Homemade bread does sound lovely!

perhaps if the footer/header thing works out, there can be an option for people to hide it by default.

Ah, you've hit on something there, lina. If we ever manage to impliment any kind of controllable decoration, the means to hide it if you don't want to see it would be essential.

Looks like I learned something new; had no idea that text contained in brackets would be voided from making any gold. I kind of like that idea; might mess around with it for a bit when I'm feeling for it.

I think both arguments for it are fairly decent, but I never really cared for the idea of making more or less gold than anyone else. I just never cared. And as for marketplace control, I don't think it does much damage considering how there are so many hoarding marketers here in Menewsha. I mean...shit, have you seen some of those threads that post an inventory screen? They've got twenty of one item, and the market is at their bidding; more or less gold isn't going to make a dent.

Leaning to one side of preference, though, I'm not big on the excessive quotes where you 'can't' find the actual post content. It annoys me a little to re-read the same obnoxious quote each post because I couldn't remember that it's a post style. I also like content over aesthetics.

Ooh, ooh, the ability to hide them! Yes!! Then those of us who abhor them wouldn't have to see them. Also, then a few mods could hide them so if they suddenly saw decoration on a post they'd know someone had a cheatin' heart.

This is what I like about these discussions, good sensible options come out of them!