Quote:
Originally Posted by Merlin
Here's a few questions: - How many YouTube objects can a person embed in a post/sig? I hope there is a cap... and not a simple verbal one. There should be a physical cap. Same for IMG.
- Have you tested having a topic with 15+ YouTube objects on a single page for server load, page weight, loading times? A typical topic shows 15 posts, so one object per post on a given page.
- Are there any safeguards to prevent people from freely posting porn other than word-of-mouth? You think the bots posting links to porn sites are a nuisance, think again. Its bad enough Google AdSense is farked up.
- Can I filter out YouTube objects like I can IMG, Sigs, etc?
My main concerns are twofold: First, the lack of moderating that is already taking place coupled with the now large possibility of triple-X attacks is going to be a mess. Secondly, the page weight issue. HTML objects take up unnecessary space whether or not you have them set to automatically play. The player itself must be loaded into memory on people's computer, whether they want to view it or not. The more players on a page, the more being loaded into memory. While it might seem minuscule at first, not everyone wants to waste CPU cycles and volatile memory on things that we didn't even ask for.
I'm not saying you should remove the stuff, but those are definitely things that need to be investigated, not simply thrown under the rug. When it bites you in the ass, its already too late.
EDIT: I went ahead and decided to test my theory out and my results were quite appalling. While not scientific fact by any means, the numbers speak for themselves. I let each page load completely and then scrolled through the entire page.
The following is various RAM Memory Usages for FireFox based on listed settings. I used this topic(copied as to protect the original) to conduct the test, adding YouTube objects one-by-one and checking the memory usage based on a fresh load of the page including the browser itself. I had only one browser open and only one tab at any given time. I included the base number for observation sake since every computer could be slightly different on how much base memory is being used.
- 0 YouTube objects in a topic: 57,680 K
- 1 YouTube objects in a topic: 60,776 K
- 2 YouTube objects in a topic: 65,200 K
- 15 YouTube objects in a topic: 101,540 K
Yes... 101 megabytes of RAM being ate up for one topic. And no, you have no caps on how many I can put in one post. Notice also, none of the movies were actively running... thats just the OBJECT ITSELF. I find that rather troublesome. |
Wow, Merlin! So right, it hurts.
You're right about the possible "Page load". While I laughed off the thought of 15 embedded YT videos on a page at first, I thought back to that mariobros incident a few years back, thinking someone COULD do that with YT vids.
I personally think you're being WAY too pessimistic about it though. I would say "what are the chances?" but then I'd jinx myself.... aww crap.
I mean couldn't someone THEORETICALLY post several embedded YT vids in their sig and just multipost too? And about the porn. How is posting it in a topic and actual post different than registering it and posting it in a sig? We've allowed img code and even html in sigs for quite some time now, and have had very little problems (I can't actually remember the last time we had an all out porn problem, mostly stuff that's very risque). Plus with the way our forums are arranged, bots go STRAIGHT to General Gaming where IMG code is still turned off. It was one of the things I had considered and anticipated.
And in case you're curious, while yes we are lacking any kind of BB Code limit, there is an Image Code limit of up to three per post, and then there's a LIMIT to the kind of characters used. So I'm quite sure we're safe there (again, unless there's someone who comes along and starts posting as many bloated posts as possible).
Oh and for those savvy Net surfers like you, who like to keep tabs on their memory and stuff they don't want, that's what Grease Monkey is for, otherwise I don't think most people here are that finicky.