March 31, 2017 at 11:27 pm

Alright. I’ll say this OUT LOUD!

(NOTE: Support – Please feel free to delete this rant and if you choose to ban me from the community for not speaking “nicely”, I’ll accept your decision.)
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Why have members in this community started abusing the “Featured Image” option?

I’ve been here at Literacy Base a while. This is a recent development. In other words, members weren’t doing this before. I don’t know why it’s being done NOW!

But it needs to stop because it can adversely affect the site. In other words, it makes the site look like CRAP!!

• First point: A Featured Image is not required; but recommended. It makes the post look visually appealing and attracts more readers and visitors. That’s a proven fact.

• Second point: If you’re going to choose an image, especially a Featured Image, pick one that relates to your post. Don’t say that you always use the same image over and over because you don’t want to get in trouble for using a copyrighted image or because you didn’t get proper permission from the owner to use the photo or the art. That’s not an excuse! There are way too many places on the Internet where one can find free images (like Pixabay and Wikimedia Commons) or images available for sharing with info on how to give credit to the owner (like Flickr). Also, if you have MS Paint on your computer you can make your own images!  By the way it’s not hard to get permission to use a person’s images.  Sometimes all you have to do is ask them.  They usually agree if you agree to give them their proper credit.
  

Yes there are many “learners” who are “learning” how to write a blog post, etc. But if you already know how to find an image and upload it as a Featured Image for your post, then you already know how to find more than one image and there is absolutely reason for you to keep using the same image over and over and over and over and over …

So I have to ask community members who are active bloggers:

• Do you want this site to be successful or would you rather see it fold up and closed its doors like so many other social sites that have gone belly up?

• Or … Do you want to make this site look like a trash can junkyard dump pile? Which would lower the site’s ranking in the search engines, adversely impact the site’s ability to generate revenues from advertising, and may cause the site owners to have to lower the amount of coins one earns for their activity here?  Worst case scenario?  The shuts down!  It could happen.
  

When have you ever done a Google search for one topic (say Trump and Putin) and then did a Google search for information on a complete different and unrelated topic (say potato salad recipes) and found the same exact image associated with both sets of search results???!!!  What’s that?  Did you say:  “Never.”  EXACTLY MY POINT!!!

But continuously linking to the same image to every post regardless of whether the post is about politics or pudding gives the appearance of STUPIDITY!

I know that not everybody in this community is American or Western.

I know that for many English is not their first language.

But I don’t think anybody at this site is STUPID!

But I can clearly see the Featured Image option is being misused, even abused. WHY?

April 1, 2017 at 6:08 am

I hunger for putting up images as I am a photographer and that having said why does the site allow putting a potato salad image on a political blog?  (lol)

April 1, 2017 at 12:01 pm

I personally think as long as people use pixabay, unsplash images then they are fine. But many people here are using personal and the google images. This can land the site in trouble if anyone gets reported by the photo owned by those sites. So I think it is better to play it safe and make use of the free images. And using free images from pixabay by any member as many times should not hurt site in anyway. People have low attention span as it is so make use of free images instead of getting into legal trouble.

April 16, 2017 at 5:48 pm

Thank you for clarifying this. I didn’t realise you didn’t have to use a featured image I thought you had to. I always put pictures that are relevant to my articles but I think I should be more careful about where I get them from.

April 17, 2017 at 10:16 pm

Yes. Do be careful. One member’s unintentional mistake could get the site owners in trouble and it would be bad for everyone. As for the members who are engaging in this practice, I’m not going to call them out. That’s up to the site owners to handle. Not my call. I’ve over this! The rant got it out of my system. 🙂 Hoping the site stays online and continues to be successful.

April 18, 2017 at 3:19 am

If I don’t put in an image, I won’t be published.  Sometimes, do to the glitchy nature I can’t dl an image.  Having written an item I have to find an image.  Some older images work… some… I have to… borrow

April 18, 2017 at 5:10 am

kaylar – Yeah. Sometimes mine don’t work either. Most of my images come from the same site so why can I download one and not the others?  I figure it’s my laptop was acting weird.  From what I understand it’s OK to borrow images.  Even if they are not free or public domain, but you get permission and give proper credit, you can use them.  Isn’t that right?  Or did I get it wrong?

April 18, 2017 at 6:55 am

There are many ‘public domain’ images.  Many are created and used all over the net.  Some are like Gettyimages which the name comes on the bottom for attribution.  I wouldn’t take what looks like a ‘private image’ … btw… did you see the porn pictures?  When I was looking through the already uploaded images I saw Porn.

April 18, 2017 at 7:58 am

Thank you for writing on this.  I’m also of the view that if someone want to use a feature image then it has to relate to the topic. More over there are a lot of free images on web one has to just search for creative commons. I  also use pixabay and credit it. It’s important that we have to protect this platform and uphold its value.

April 18, 2017 at 8:59 pm

Porn pics? Nope! Actually I don’t go through the images gallery much. It takes too long to search it. It’s easier to hunt down free images on the Internet.  🙂

April 18, 2017 at 9:02 pm

“Uphold its value”. I like your wording much better! That’s what we should do for this site. Uphold its value!!  This site definitely has value.  🙂