Is it a picture or an image? We can't decide



  • Craigslist can't seem to decide if an attached jpg file is a picture or an image.

    click for enlargification



  • Behavior is by design. Pic indicates an embedded image hosted by craigslist (with a tiny maximum size). Img means that it's hosted elsewhere.



  • @barfoo said:

    Behavior is by design. Pic indicates an embedded image hosted by craigslist (with a tiny maximum size). Img means that it's hosted elsewhere.

    Just because Craigslist sees a difference between the two, doesn't mean that there is one. Saying that it's by design doesn't change that. Maybe the design is shitty, ever think about that?



  • @barfoo said:

    Pic indicates an embedded image hosted by craigslist (with a tiny maximum size). Img means that it's hosted elsewhere.
    So, a picture is a tiny image, and in image is a (possibly) big picture.



  •  @barfoo said:

    Behavior is by design. Pic indicates an embedded image hosted by craigslist (with a tiny maximum size). Img means that it's hosted elsewhere.
    I thnk you're right and that makes absolutely no sense. A picture is a picture. Who gives a shit where it is hosted.

    What's really strange is that some categories allow you to host your pcture anywhere and use an <img> tag while other categories don't allow it and you can only upload pictures to Craigslist, and the pictures are displayed at a tiny size regardless of the size of the original.

    So, in a category lke Musical Instruments For Sale, where people probably want to see big detailed pictures, you can only get tiny thumbnails that can't show any meaningful detail. Meanwhile, in a category like Business Management Jobs where the only pictures you're likely to see are the company's logo or some meaningless stock photo of smiling employees -- there you're free you use photos of any size, hosted anywhere.



  • While it's a bit of a WTF, the way they distinguish between the two, it didn't have to be, imho. English isn't my native language but I think there is a difference between an image and a picture: a picture is something you take with your camera, while an image is simply a series of pixels/lines/etc. A picture is an image, but an image doesn't have to be a picture, for example in case of a drawing. Though as I said, English isn't my native language, so I might simply have my definitions off here.



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    So, a picture is a tiny image, and in image is a (possibly) big picture.
     

    Yep, and nobody cared to show the image size... Maybe because that's not really important.



  • @Evo said:

    While it's a bit of a WTF, the way they distinguish between the two, it didn't have to be, imho. English isn't my native language but I think there is a difference between an image and a picture: a picture is something you take with your camera, while an image is simply a series of pixels/lines/etc. A picture is an image, but an image doesn't have to be a picture, for example in case of a drawing. Though as I said, English isn't my native language, so I might simply have my definitions off here.

    You're quite right, an image is not really the same thing as a picture, if you look at them from a broader perspective than just the web. I don't know what your native language is, but if you look at a picture, what you see is an image. Like if you look at a sunset, that would form an image on your retina, and a photograph is a rendering of the image that was formed by shining light onto film (or these days, a CCD).

    If I'm wrong about this, you'll be able to tell by the comments below, helpfully pointing out my errors. :)


  • Considered Harmful

    I can see it being useful being able to differentiate between "this post has a detailed image relevant to the subject matter" and "this post has clipart / a tiny logo attached". Actually, don't even bother telling me that last bit (but in any case don't misrepresent the latter as the former).



  • @toon said:

    Just because Craigslist sees a difference between the two, doesn't mean that there is one. Saying that it's by design doesn't change that. Maybe the design is shitty, ever think about that?

    I suspect that there was a good reason for this distinction back when Craigslist was created: in the olden days of dial-up and of slow, metered mobile connections, you wanted to avoid opening links with lots of big images. Since Craigslist-hosted images max out at 300x225, you were safe opening an ad that only contained those, but you were taking a risk opening one with externally-hosted ones. In that context, it was a useful indicator. Like so much about Craigslist, it's more of a relic today.


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