SearchIRC Updates - IRC Images

Jason · Posted: Aug 01, 2003 9:27pm Post subject: SearchIRC Updates - IRC Images

Launched today is something I've been thinking about for a while now, but finally found the time to code.

IRC Images is a page that displays the 50 most recent channel topics that contain images. Since the database is updated in chunks every 60 seconds, the content is different almost every single time you hit reload on the page.

Due to the nature of IRC, and those who are on IRC, the IRC Images page is one that should be approached carefully.

First consider that the database is almost always being updated. Therefor anyone visiting the IRC Images page is likely to be viewing a unique page that no one else will see (e.g; if you load the page, the contents displayed will likely be different than your friend who connected a minute later).

Second, consider that since the pages are almost always unique, and that the content is always being updated, it's impossible to check the content beforehand, to weed out the broken links, or to remove graphics that are just too damn big. So sometimes you'll see broken links, and crappy images that are huge... on the other hand, a lot of the pictures are funny, amusing, and insightful.

What you have is unmoderated content. The images could be anything. Because of this, you should not view the IRC images page if images of a sexual nature offends you, or you are under 18, or sexual images are illegal in your location. Also keep in mind that there are undesirables out there who will put stuff like iframe exploits and virus' into a channel topic (named as a graphic), which also means that you should be running anti virus while visiting this (and any other) webpage.

All in all, I think it's a very amusing way to kill some time when bored, as long as you can handle some of the sick photos that keep popping up... feh :)

iigor · Newbie Joined: 18 Jul 2003 Posts: 86 Location: Toronto, CA

its very sick.

Please!! get rid of it!

ed · Posted: Aug 02, 2003 10:56am Post subject:

Jason · Posted: Aug 02, 2003 5:29pm Post subject:

I've made a few tweaks to how the IRC Images page functions.

- Smarter graphic processing. No longer will a topic string of "askjdjkl||asdhttp://site.com/grin.jpgsdfo|asdasd" fool it, it will extract the proper graphic string "http://site.com/grin.jpg" from it.

- Random graphic display. Rather than pulling the first graphic found in a channel topic, if more than one graphic is found in the topic, it will randomly pick one to display.

- Less duplicates. It now stores all graphics that it has displayed to you on a page, so that if another channel has the same graphic filename, it will not bother displaying.

This will hopefully make the page a little better to use, less dups, more pictures, and less broken graphics.

Jason · Posted: Aug 02, 2003 8:51pm Post subject:

Clicking on an image will now copy the image URL to your clipboard.

Not sure if the javascript works on anything besides MSIE though. Since IE amounts to about 95% of all our hits, I don't think that'll be a major issue.

U · Eleet Joined: 18 Jun 2003 Posts: 521 Location: IRC

I don't know if this is such a good idea-I could see channels noticing this feature and trying to 'one up' each other by putting urls to absoloutely disgusting or offensive material up for that very reason.

Though it may be "at your own risk" I could see it being abused.

Jason · Posted: Aug 03, 2003 11:36am Post subject:

It's very difficult to time your topic to appear in the listings here.

Imagine this situation: You're on a network, your channel info is downloaded every 20 minutes to 3 hours.... your channel info is downloaded and stored into a file, which is loaded every 60 seconds into the database. Only the LAST 50 channels with graphics in the topic appear.

The chances of your channel appearing are pretty small, it's really a grab bag, random pick of images.

Sure you can put a url to something disgusting, but... that also has to sit in your channel topic, for maybe days, and if/when it gets listed on SearchIRC, it will be replaced with other channel topics within 60 seconds at the next database update :)

Hardly a worthwhile endeavor ... which makes it "unprofitable" to attempt. Anyone trying to do it, for at most 60 seconds of fame, is going to get bored quickly :)

U · Eleet Joined: 18 Jun 2003 Posts: 521 Location: IRC

Nevermind, I get the concept now, I thought the pics would come from each individual server and only list pics from topics on channels on that server. Now that I see its ALL servers and channels, yeah, you're right.

Jason · Posted: Aug 03, 2003 11:54am Post subject:

I think this is what everyone thinks the first time around:

U · Eleet Joined: 18 Jun 2003 Posts: 521 Location: IRC

There are some.....odd photos up, definetely.

Its a interesting view of a slice of IRC definetely.

iigor · Newbie Joined: 18 Jul 2003 Posts: 86 Location: Toronto, CA

maybe you can filter it, jason.
for ex. all links that contain sex xxx ass pussy and other keywords would not be shown. if the link is www.java.sun.com/micro.jpg.. it would not be porn.

Jason · Posted: Aug 03, 2003 3:02pm Post subject:

I do have limited filtering in place - e.g; no tubgirl.jpg :)

As time goes on, I can add more, but remember the only info I have to go on is the url itself, which is very easy to be mislead with.

Jason · Posted: Aug 04, 2003 9:18pm Post subject:

NEW! IRC Images now has 10 pages. Each page displays ~30 images. I can't say for sure how many images appear on a page because some filters kick in after the channels are selected, so if the latest 30 on page 1 contains one dup, and one tubgirl.jpg, you'll only see 28 pics.

Because the data is being updated almost constantly, you should see new stuff all the time, regardless of which page you visit.

Jason · Posted: Aug 05, 2003 1:24pm Post subject:

NEW! IRC Images now displays 20 images per page, with 10 pages to pick from.

Images no longer take over the screen, they are displayed in thumbnail form -- clicking the image will launch a popup with the full sized image for you to view.

I think this really helps clean up the page.

Jason · Posted: Aug 05, 2003 6:39pm Post subject:

Due to the smaller thumbs, rather than displaying a random one image, I can now show all images that the topic contains.