I find myself reporting things like this a lot. Too much. It's trouble for me, and, more importantly, trouble for mods -- who have enough trouble.
So, I thought I'd try this preemptive reminder.
From
Rules For Posting To This Board
Quote:
8. Hotlinking
Try to avoid putting in links to images directly from someone else's website. This can add a lot to their bandwidth, and then the host has to pay for it. In other words, if you see an image you like on an astronomy site, put in a link to that site, but don't use the [IMG] tags so the image loads into your post from their site directly. If you really want an image in your post, put it in a public site someplace and link to it from there. One exception would be from sites like NASA or universities, where bandwidth is not such an issue. If you own the image, then you can upload it to the board yourself.
|
For example -- purely for example and not to pick on the member -- there is today this hotlinked image of a cup of Starbuck's coffee in
an article in topic Basic sugar found outside galactic center. The example may go away, if it's in violation, because I reported it.
I don't even know if this is an example of an invalid hotlinking. If the poster owns the image, or got permission to use the image, and the hosting site is OK with its bandwidth being used for this purpose, then the image is fine I guess. In that case though, the poster should leave some statement that such use of the image is OK. It's not clear here.
When I see such possible violations of the rules, I report them -- because such images can harm the forum and administrators. And then a mod has to investigate. And a mod almost always has to turn the inline image into a plain text link.
It's what is going to happen to your article, so you might as well do it at initial posting time.
Just to make it easier for you to remember to think: I promise whenever I see a questionable image, I'll report it. I always hover the cursor over every inline, non-attachment, image and examine the URL. If it's not from a public-type site, I do hit the alert button.
1) Make sure the site doesn't mind your using their bandwidth.
2) Make sure you have permission to use the image.
Otherwise:
Don't do it.
(Yes, I'm sure I've done it, too. So don't bother. I was wrong.)
Thanks.