Thumbnails for links?

[Grifman]

How come we have thumbnails for YouTube links but not for other website links? Would be nice if we had those IMO.

[The Meal]

Alternative viewpoint: the forum would be better without social media integrations.

And to foster what I'm getting at, it's very rare for me to actually interact with "drive by" postings to other, non-forum member, opinions. If there's a particular hot take which appears in the blurb, I'm prone to interacting with the "headline" attention grabber, but still not so much in terms of reaching out to what has been linked.

I think forums work better when information presented also comes with additional content by the actual OO forum poster. Be that some hook (to make me interested), some expression of opinion of their own, or some deeper thought. Links to off-OO content work much better when they are supplemental.

Thumbnailing social media posts do not foster *any* of what makes a forum good. (They'd be great if this were the BillboardOverlords website, however.)

[Blackhawk]

I think forums work better when information presented also comes with additional content by the actual OO forum poster. Be that some hook (to make me interested), some expression of opinion of their own, or some deeper thought. Links to off-OO content work much better when they are supplemental.

While I do like the embeds (they're not really thumbnails, they're the actual content housed within the post), I do agree with this point. If someone posts in a topic with "Look what Franklin J Commentator had to say on this" and embeds a 20-minute YouTube video, I'm not watching it. I need to know that it's something I have some interest in before I change my plans to work in a long video. (The dedicated video post threads are an exception, of course.)

It's worth noting (and correct me if I'm wrong, Piscean Pantaloons), though, that all of the one that I know of that embed content with just a link (Steam, YouTube, Twitter) are that way because the site in question provides the functionality. It isn't the forum software going and actually getting YouTube videos and adding them to posts, it's YouTube offering special links that will add the videos. The forum software just needs to support that sort of embedding.

[Punisher]

I think you're right about youtube at least.
I've just posted a straight link without using the link option and it will post the thumbnail except for certain videos whete it says not allowed.
If I use the link option in the forum, that same vid thumbnail doesn't show up.

[Blackhawk]

Right. My understanding is that TwiX, Steam, and YouTube added code on their sites for embedding content. When a link to them gets posted, the forum software knows how to take the link and display the content itself, embedded in the page.

For other random site, no such functionality exists (as far as I know.) Without it, the forum software would probably have to go to that site, take an image of the front page, then bring that back and host it. And it would still just be a static image for the link, not the content itself like the other sites (IE, like how you can play YouTube/TwiX videos directly in the browser, or clicking on the name in an embedded Steam link takes you to the game page, while clicking on 'buy' adds it directly to your cart.)

[Grifman]

Alternative viewpoint: the forum would be better without social media integrations.

And to foster what I'm getting at, it's very rare for me to actually interact with "drive by" postings to other, non-forum member, opinions. If there's a particular hot take which appears in the blurb, I'm prone to interacting with the "headline" attention grabber, but still not so much in terms of reaching out to what has been linked.

I think forums work better when information presented also comes with additional content by the actual OO forum poster. Be that some hook (to make me interested), some expression of opinion of their own, or some deeper thought. Links to off-OO content work much better when they are supplemental.

Thumbnailing social media posts do not foster *any* of what makes a forum good. (They'd be great if this were the BillboardOverlords website, however.)

While I understand your points, sometimes people, including myself, just want to post news updates. With just a link, I also have to post a sentence describing the link, which is a pain, when the embed would have the headline and a catchy graphic. Not having the embed is not going to change my posting habits, I'm not going to give a 3 paragraph opinion just because all I can post is a link.

I should note that the the QT3 forms have embeds, and the quality of discussion doesn't seem to suffer over there. So I don't understand why we can't have it here.

[ImLawBoy]

I should note that the the QT3 forms have embeds, and the quality of discussion doesn't seem to suffer over there. So I don't understand why we can't have it here.

The short answer is that they use different software for their forum.

[Rumpy]

I think forums work better when information presented also comes with additional content by the actual OO forum poster. Be that some hook (to make me interested), some expression of opinion of their own, or some deeper thought. Links to off-OO content work much better when they are supplemental.

Agreed. I've unfortunately witnessed forums dying due to some particular posters just doing a mass-link dump without clear context. IMO, it doesn't encourage discussion, and in fact ends up looking more like a forest of links, and the end-result only made the forums feel like a cold unwelcoming place, so it's no surprise they end up dying. IMHO, it's never been the delivery being the problem, but the contents of said forums, and I still feel BBS software like this one remains being one of the better ways to communicate with like-minded groups of people. I don't think they'll be dying off anytime soon as long as posters keep posting good content.

[Blackhawk]

We're starting to see a little of that now (usually news links or XtXwXiXtXtXeXr posts), but only by a very few people. Most people still actually write something and support it with links, or they post the links with commentary. You know, discussion rather than a news feed.

One big change in this area I've noticed on OO is that it used to be absolutely verboten to post entire articles/stories, and that happens pretty regularly now, usually as a way to get around paywalls.