Forum Moderators: phranque
We all know forums can be huge bandwidth hogs, and putting pages out there with graphics on them certainly seems like the wrong way to go. Despite this, most popular forums include quite a few graphic page elements, including little buttons for profiles, e-mail, PM, etc., not to mention provision for user-selectable or uploadable avatars.
However, browser caching should come into play - it shouldn't be necessary to download multiple copies of repeated elements. Logically, in a forum environment most will be repeated, both on the same page and on other pages. So, perhaps the bandwidth demands aren't that much of a problem... or are they?
I've got a fairly busy forum set for new software implementation soon. I have a chance to upgrade the user experience vs. competing boards, but I'm already into extra bandwidth charges and don't want to go through the roof. I'll develop some savings from limiting page displays (now, topics and threads can grow and grow into very heavy pages), but I'm not sure how negative extra images could be.
One thing you didn't mention was use of images from other sites. For example, you may only allow users to use avatars or graphics in their signatures that are from other sites. A slightly modified way of doing this would be to place some of your graphics on another domain that you own if you have some bandwidth to spare elsewhere.
I noticed that Brett turned off smileys by default here a while back - I guess if you get enough views, even the tiniest of graphics are worth restricting.
