Re-revisited: photos per thread limit?

Thanks for all of the feedback so far. There seems to be interest in the thumbnails idea, not as a replacement for the quota of larger displayed photos (three at the moment), but in addition to it. Because we wouldn't want every photo to be automatically thumbnailed (as at NWH), this would mean that posters would have to choose the right IMG tag - standard for large photos, or a new thumb tag for photos in excess of the limit for large photos. I'm not sure if this would cause confusion, but I will take Tom up on his offer to help and learn some more about this. If this could be made to work, we could have a new policy of something like a maximum of 5 large photos, plus a maximum of 10 (?) thumbnail photos (which should be links to the larger versions).

One objection raised last year was to having to click to see additional photos beyond the limit of three, as is required when someone now inserts a link to additional photos. I'm interested to know what people who don't like the links to additional photos would think about the thumbs idea (given that each thumb would have to be clicked to see the full sized photo).

Jason mentions the inequity of a fixed limit on displayed photos regardless of whether the trip was one day or five, and I agree. Most of the trips posted are day trips, so it would be more logical to have the rule be "three photos for each day", but this adds complexity to the rules and I think we need to keep things as simple as possible.

jd proposes increasing the max. width of displayed photos to 1024. While I agree that this would be nice to do as photos that size become really impressive, I think the reality is that there would still be a large percentage of visitors who would have to scroll (both vertically and horizontally) to see all of the photo, and in addition to see all of the text in the thread. Someone viewing using a 1024x768 monitor doesn't end up getting 1024x768 of content space in a browser window, because of the edge space used by the browser itself, and then more edge used by the forum software. Stats I found from a year ago indicate that in the US, 52% of computers had a 1024x768 monitor, and an additional 14% had an 800x600 monitor. I think that allowing 1024x768 photos to be displayed would consign too large a proportion of visitors to horizontal scrolling, which everyone hates. In testing I did last year, 800 wide photos just barely fit into the space available in this forum's threads on a 1024x768 monitor without horizontal scrolling. An easy solution, of course, is to post an 800 wide photo with a link to the larger photo - think of the 800 wide photo as a very large thumbnail.

There are still a lot of people I'd like to hear from on this topic, so let's keep the discussion going...

Isn't there a way to specify the picture size in the img tag?  If that could somehow be done automatically, then that would avoid the problem of things on the page moving around as pictures are loading.  That means you could put lots of pictures in a TR, and someone with a slow connection could still read comfortably. 

I dunno if it's possible to do that automatically... I guess the TAY server would have to load the linked image, check its dimensions, and then hard code those into the img tags in the post.  And of course someone could change the dimensions of the linked image after the fact, but those people are evil and wouldn't be on TAY anyway

Charles, Thank you for your hard work!

1) I have never posted a photo because I do not know how to shrink my photo...my problem.
2) Photos are worth a 1000+ words...Thank you to all who do know how to shrink your photos!
3) Thank you to all of you for keeping this a ski specific, trip specific, on topic site who follow the rules and keep this a possitive, supportive, encouraging friendly Backcountry culture.

Thank You!
Pin!

What about three photos per calendar trip day (or two photos, plus one for every calendar day)? That'll accommodate anyone who's taken a multiple day trip, and also accord a few more photos to folks who've made an overnight/superalpine start on an epic day.

The three photo limit certainly encourages folks to strive for quality -- Furthermore, I'm much more likely to follow external links to photos from someone who's managed to find three exceptional photos to post.

No matter what changes are made in the photo policy, I believe having a policy and having it followed are key to maintaining a positive forum.  I am NOT a photo journalist, so I post the average “point and shoot” image that usually supports the trip report. 

Seeing the goal of this forum is mainly for snow related trip reports rather than a photo forum, I believe the policy on photos should support the goal of the forum

Allowing a fair quantity of thumbnails seems like a reasonable compromise to me. Quite often a thumbnail is a good test of photo quality anyhow - if you can't get at least some appreciation for the photo from the thumbnail, it's often because it's not that clear (and therefore communicative) photo. Not always true, but definitely a strong tendency. So this may help folks do a little more self editing.

I have found NWhikers reports to be a little richer than TAY's thanks to Tom's photo policy.

To repeat what I said in the former thread in condensed form here, I don't buy allowing more photos leads to inherently crappier reports. I've seen crapOla text only reports and great photo-heavy reports on other forums (and of course vice versa). The biggest contrasting impact is the one Charles is concerned about - load time. People will learn to communicate better with photos if allowed to practice a little and see some positive examples from others, just as they did with writing in elementary school... :