Alright now. Let's not forget the points Dark0ne brought up initially and the glaring difference between them and the topic discussed here now.
Like I said earlier, before there were images posted in the image share sections to collect armies of supporters and direct them to this thread to voice their disagreement with the 1 point Dark0ne threw into the room how the points he brougt up earlier 'could' be taken care of the easiest, like... "8" pages back already now (?!). Just wow...
What were the points again? Oh, yes, "site performance impact" and "gash layout destruction".
The 2nd point, "layout destruction", alright, is something only the people viewing the actual pages/descriptions really can be concerned about in the end. And then, as it is with mods already, the saying always goes "don't like it? move on". Nobody is 'forced' to look at the description, or to let the pages like aok's I tested and reported back load for over 5 minutes on 16k DSL until all images are in.
This is not exactly Nexus site business or concern. And if it is in their eyes, they could easily fix it for example by making the BB-Code "img" tags in file/image descriptions automatically down-scale the images when the IPBoard software translates these into HTML-Code "<img>" tags before pumping them out to the client, OR, like they already do, let the staff clean up the really glaring misconducts among the descriptions when they stumble across them.
Now, the 1st and significantly more important point from where the Nexus site is concerned, "performance impact", is something which only comes into play when we're talking of putting images into the descriptions which are "also hosted on Nexus", i.e. linking to the image share itself, "on site".
Due to the nature of the IPBoard software used, directly translating the BB-Code "img" tags into HTML-Code "<img>" tags right before sending the page to the client's browser, any "performance" issues produced by those descriptions only impact the viewer. The impact on the Nexus servers when "off-site" images are used in the tags is exactly "0". It isn't like the forums or site servers are first loading all images refered to in image tags down to themselves somewhere and then send them to the client's browser. Staff correct me, if I'm wrong. But that's not how BB-Code works.
However, using images "hosted in the image share" in those tags, especially when following the suggestions to mark your images "hidden" then use to them in your descriptions, produces a massive, and I mean 'image/file server shutting down from overload'-type of massive, impact on the server performance with the numbers of images in descriptions we are talking of here. 50 images simultaneously requested be 1 single page load, multiplied by the simultaneous views of this one page by an increasing number of users, and you will inevitably run into the max. number of simultaneous connections to the image/file servers or their gateway(s) over time.
As the most of you image story tellers are definitely not doing this but using "off-site" hosted images instead (photobucket or similar 'dedicated' image hosts), your stories and your massive use of image tags inside your descriptions will only ever concern the poor users having to cope with the several minutes in loading times your pages do have to them, or simply opt to not view them accordingly. This is up to them and has nothing whatsoever to do with Nexus server performance the slightest. Again, Staff correct me, if I'm wrong.
Alright now, having said that... again... after "8"(!) pages of repetitive "same, same" and blowing things out of proportion, basically, only because of the 1 "idea" Dark0ne brought up shortly after mentioning his 2 points repeated above...
I, too, must admit that turning 'all' image tags into links in descriptions is a rather 'drastical' solution to the issues brought up. But what most in here seem to have forgot is, it was still only an "idea". If you know Dark0ne's and the devs' doing for as long a time as I do (joined when it was still Tessource and was automatically migrated when it became Nexus, but doesn't matter, just to give an idea of how long a time I'm talking of here), and even if not, you should already know by now, no such decisions will ever become "final" behind your backs or without listening to your opinion on the matter.
It was just an 'idea', and I think we can safely say by now Dark0ne does have had more than enough voices against it to know a different approach will be more welcomed. Now give the poor man some time to have another say in the matter.
There was no need for a coordinated 'call to arms' from the image share section to literally flood this thread with that many vocal opposition, now even derailing to attacks on moderators for voicing their own personal opinion in defense of potentially required methods to preserve the site's primary functioning, if it really can't be helped any other way in the end. It was only "1" idea brought up by the site owner, and if you go back and actually read the post this uproar is all about, you will see this was all just blown out of proportion remarkably by now.
...more than "8" pages and still going, getting more and more hostile each post, or just repeating what others already said... don't you think Dark0ne should've noticed your opposition to his proposed first naive approach by now? Give him some time to answer now and come up with one of the other approaches he had up his sleeve back then... could you? This is about finding a solution, not continuing an unneccessary and needlessly disproportioned uproar.