Requested feature: Flash Thumbnails

Why it would be useful: It would be way better than the normal "Download" thumbnail. Also, it would be nice to know what flash i'm about play rather than clicking one and then having to wait for it to load before I know which one it is.

Seeing you used the template, did you mean to post that here?
https://e621.net/forum/show/30573

Aside from not being in the right thread, that would entail selecting a timestamp for the thumbnail. If you wanted anything but the loading screen, the upload process would be needlessly complicated.

I think this idea was put down due to something about the servers...I think

They're working on something to fix this, last I heard.

123easy said:
They're working on something to fix this, last I heard.

Right now we can fix broken or mismatched thumbnails on regular posts, but at the moment there is no way to change the flash icon and we have no plans of changing that until we find a way to do it that would be manageable

Rainbow_Dash said:
Right now we can fix broken or mismatched thumbnails on regular posts, but at the moment there is no way to change the flash icon and we have no plans of changing that until we find a way to do it that would be manageable

There's definitely ways of making it manageable, I've already proposed at least one way in the past. The biggest problem we have is simply getting around to doing it.

Rainbow_Dash said:
Right now we can fix broken or mismatched thumbnails on regular posts, but at the moment there is no way to change the flash icon and we have no plans of changing that until we find a way to do it that would be manageable

Last time this was brought up, Tony said he was working on something for the future, I thought.

123easy said:
Last time this was brought up, Tony said he was working on something for the future, I thought.

What if tony is working in a time travelling machine?

On topic: This idea has been proposed several times with nothing more than a bit of discussion. I, too, proposed the idea that if thumbnails can't be done at least a 'title:' metatag would work (displaying the title below the post's statistics when viewed as thumnails). If I can find that I'll link to it here

You could let the users upload their own thumbnails for flash things, only let them be a certain resolution and such. So maybe they could put a pic there describing what the flash was...

AmericanExistence said:
You could let the users upload their own thumbnails for flash things, only let them be a certain resolution and such. So maybe they could put a pic there describing what the flash was...

That was shot down too because it could lead to abuse by putting a misleading image

Xch3l said:
That was shot down too because it could lead to abuse by putting a misleading image

the way we handled it with furryplay was to allow trusted users to upload thumbnails of what they thought best described the image.

Ouroboros is actually capable of handling flash thumbnails extremely easily, it's more of a administrative problem then a technical one.

Aurali said:
Ouroboros is actually capable of handling flash thumbnails extremely easily, it's more of a administrative problem then a technical one.

The way I see handling this is we have a mod queue for flash thumbnails just like we have a mod queue for post approval. We get far fewer flash submissions per day than other file types so this seems to me like it'd be easily manageable. Could also have a "lock thumbnail" option for posts like we currently have "lock rating" if necessary.

Char said:
The way I see handling this is we have a mod queue for flash thumbnails just like we have a mod queue for post approval. We get far fewer flash submissions per day than other file types so this seems to me like it'd be easily manageable. Could also have a "lock thumbnail" option for posts like we currently have "lock rating" if necessary.

We should just have it use a thumbnail provided by the uploader and have the flash turn a different color in the mod queue to indicate it is a flash and needs to be opened to watch

Char said:
The way I see handling this is we have a mod queue for flash thumbnails just like we have a mod queue for post approval. We get far fewer flash submissions per day than other file types so this seems to me like it'd be easily manageable. Could also have a "lock thumbnail" option for posts like we currently have "lock rating" if necessary.

What about this: the uploaded thumbnail doesn't show up unless it's been approved so it would mitigate the effects of misleading thumbnails and reduce the abuse of the feature in general. (not my idea)

EsalRider said:
What about this: the uploaded thumbnail doesn't show up unless it's been approved so it would mitigate the effects of misleading thumbnails and reduce the abuse of the feature in general. (not my idea)

Right, that's the idea. :) By default the post would still have the generic "Download" thumbnail it has right now until the thumbnail the user suggested for the post has been approved.

Approving a thumbnail should probably also only be a one-time thing since there shouldn't ever be a need to approve a new thumbnail for a post, but I'm sure there'd end up being a situation eventually where that'd make things harder.