Hmm, interesting point brought up here.
There are some pro's and con's.
Here's the deal, a person posts in the Market section with the intention to sell their hardware. In order to sell them, he needs a clear image of the product, which is a must. In normal circumstances, where its a shopping site, one image of the product is enough. However, in circumstances where you are selling old hardware, chances are you would like to convince the person on the other end that you have got an undamaged product which is good to go. Thus, you end up with a few pics in your sale thread.
In places where the author selects the title properly, this is a very reasonable condition to post high quality and high resolution images. However, thats not the case, not everyone has just one product for sale. Most of the times its multiple products. So, how does a prospective buyer decide what he wants in such a case? He has no option but to open the thread. Consider the case of a buyer who wishes to purchase one of the things mentioned in a list of say 5 items. Each of these items, has 3 images of high resolution and big image size (Read imagesize above 250kb). That makes it 15 images he/she has to load in order to check out the product he/she wants!!
Add to that the pathetic state of internet connections here. Lets face it, while most of the users MAY be on unlimited plans. Many are students and are not earning. As rightly pointed out above in the posts, their parents must be footing the bill. Or for that matter, take a member who is working. Now chances are that he/she is not too well off in terms of finance, I am sure the person has a limited connection in that case!! Fine, lets assume he has an unlimited connection, but its slow. Loading images in one thread for about a few Mb's is going to take a lot of time. May even fend off the buyer.
One cannot say that 'x' number of users are on xyz kbps speed connection. You have to generalize. Ren's suggestion of one big image and the rest as thumbs is perfect. Take multiple pics of the product, see the one thats the most appealing, put that up as a big pic. Not everyone can afford or has a fast connection or an unlimited one. It's possible that the person doesnt wish to spend so much for a connection. However is willing to spend that extra money for a product off the market section. Dont you end up loosing a prospective buyer in him if he see's that the images take ages to show up. If the market section had one or two threads it would be fine. However, look at the number of threads and products up for sale, the bumps etc. Its not only the seller who wants the products to go, its the buyer also who needs to consider everything.
An average buyer is not an impulse buyer (no, I am not a MBA student, but I think its pretty obvious). So, if the reason for putting up large images is to attract an impulse buyer, then its totally not justified. However, if it is to provide a detailed view to the prospective buyer, then just like the buyer would like to see the detailed images, dont you think that the buyer would actually go and click on the thumbs to see the detailed images? After all, its the buyer who judges that the deal is worth the effort or not? So, one image for each thread in decently high resolution should be fine, rest can be kept as thumbnails.
This is just what I think
Renegade said:
Consider XT, he had all images turned off on forums all the time coz he was on a limited connection. Tell me what good a mod is he if he cant even see whats happening on the forum :bleh:
Well, I still have the avatars and the sigs turned off to load my pages faster. I am on an unlimited connection, but am also on a 128k conn. It not that I cant pay for a connection thats faster. I just find it useless.
Just because I wish to purchase something off the market section in the future isnt sufficient a reason for me to get a faster connection. :bleh: - No offense to anyone!!
I may be a mod who is no good when it comes to cases of images, but I am fast when it comes to matters of text. :bleh: Compromises. Life is full of it. Some go your way, some go the other. A balance has to be maintained well to keep things in place.
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