Forum:Gifs in Articles

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Tucker's Creator here. So I've found myself visiting Tumblr more often than I think I should, and I find that many of the Halo fans there post up some pretty excellent Halo .gifs. Gifs of the cutscenes, of the gameplay, of important moments, etc. I noticed so far that we keep gifs relegated to solely the gallery sections of articles, and never in-universe parts. And the Image policy has nothing to say on them.

I think that gifs could be useful in detailing some parts of the articles, especially level and trailer transcripts, since they often have to describe pictures with a thousand words. For some parts, like the Didact's awakening in the level Forerunner, gifs could be useful in illustrating. On the other hand, on biographies and other descriptions there may be the opinion that they'll look unprofessional there, which I find myself leaning towards. Either way, there are positives and negatives.

So what do you guys say? Yay gifs, or nay gifs? Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 03:12, 17 November 2012 (EST)

Comment, you miscreants!

Yay. I don't see any problem with putting gifs in articles.--Spartacus ^{Talk • Contribs} 11:17, 17 November 2012 (EST)

Absolutely! As long as the gifs are relatively small (for those with lesser connections) and can still display a scene with good quality (both definition and editing), I see no problem with this. Grizzlei ♥ ツ

You would want gifs, Grizzlei-of-the-crazy-Tumblr. Thanks! If you see any, be sure to upload them too. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 20:29, 17 November 2012 (EST)

Gifs should be used in articles, when available. I have already used a couple of them and don't see why we shouldn't use them. Take the assassination article, for example. Gifs work great on it. --ShadowDancer ^|contribs| 12:40, 19 November 2012 (EST)

My excuse to post this. I regret nothing. On one hand Gifs depicting certain events should be long, around 30 seconds or so, if we do implement them. On the other, it could be an eye-sore when one is reading an article. In my opinion however, it just seems a bit to unprofessional. But hey, whatever the community wants. -Killjax (talk | contribs)

Mind you, a 30-second long gif with even the poorest, yet visibility appealing quality would be a very large file. Grizzlei ♥ ツ

O definitely. Gifs are cool. I, of course, have no idea where to find any (yes i know he mentioned a place) This is craZboy557, signing off. 20:32, 20 November 2012 (EST)

I'd just put them for brief snippets, to go along with a transcript. Having a long clip would just interrupt the flow of the article. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 21:09, 20 November 2012 (EST)

Having seen them in action in Epilogue, I have to say that gifs look incredibly distracting in the article body. Not just that, but for me their excessive use gives off an unprofessional impression - this is an encyclopedia, not someone's Tumblr feed. I have no problem with using gifs with discretion (as I interpreted the original proposal), mostly for things that are best demonstrated by animations (e.g. the Forerunner weapons' assembly animations or the like), but having a gif of every shot out there that might as well be portrayed by a static image (like the Chief walking in slow motion) comes across as gimmicky and quite frankly, completely unnecessary. It doesn't help if the gifs are of a quality that would get them deleted if they were normal static images. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 09:56, 17 December 2012 (EST)

I thought they demonstrated some aspects like the last shot very well. But others did look kinda messy. The main problem is that most of them were used in photosets, so they're very small and short. Now, I expect that will improve as I contact people with ability to make longer ones, but there's gonna be a bit of trial and error. It's not worth throwing out yet, but review will be needed for the first ones.

As for the gif quality, some of them are small by necessity. I recall larger ones take longer to load and stop moving if they're made to look too small on the page. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 11:09, 17 December 2012 (EST)

I don't think it is necessary to use GIFs in lieu of video. Especially in that article Jugus linked, it can be better presented if we replace the GIFs with a Youtube video. Also, the rule of thumb should be "to use GIF only when it is necessary to do so". Best examples being the Brute with its circular shield in the Jiralhanae article and the looping Energy Shielding for the Elites. — subtank 01:00, 18 December 2012 (EST)

Those work, but they were being relegated strictly to the gallery. I was asking here about whether they should be posted in the main article body. Also, I expect they would look better in a longer transcript. Epilogue and Prologue are both very short, thus two gifs nearby looks messy. Just one in a huge wall of text, though, might go a long way, especially in very visual parts like the Didact suiting up. I guess our policy should be something that can only be described clumsily in words, and a picture alone doesn't suffice. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 01:48, 18 December 2012 (EST)

I don't think it would look any better even in a long transcript. Static images or a transitioning image (like the one on the right) works way better than a GIF. You don't get that abrupt stop at the end of the loop unless you're using GIF. That and the fact that GIFs does not have dynamic colours (limited to 256). If this is about presentation, GIF is definitely the worst form to present an animated picture.— subtank 02:08, 18 December 2012 (EST)

Is that image supposed to be changing into something? I don't see it altering in any way.

Even for shots like the very end of Halo 4 or the Didact suiting up? Like I said, with discretion. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 02:19, 18 December 2012 (EST)

Then the question becomes at whose discretion? Also, the image on the right works only in Firefox and Opera.— subtank 02:28, 18 December 2012 (EST)

The community's. This is a community wiki, after all. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 02:57, 18 December 2012 (EST)

While this is indeed the Halo community's encylopedia, that is still awfully wide and the community's discretion essentially means inconsistent styles used throughout the wiki... As for the "shots" examples, it is still far better to use videos instead of GIFs. They have audio. Without this, it as if you're looking at a poorly-made silent film... except that this one is in 256 colours than in greyscale. — subtank 03:17, 18 December 2012 (EST)

What I mean is that anyone is allowed to edit or remove the pic if it is deemed to not work. That's what I mean by "the community". That's what we did with Prologue, and it was deemed to not work in that manner yet.

A Youtube vid can't be watched simultaneously with the transcript. You have to close out the page, wait for it to load (wait even longer because their awful new update), and whatever shot in question would have benefited from a gif will now be drowned in the video as a whole. As for the colors, most of them are going to be kept to small sizes anyway. I don't see many gifs having to exceed 250 pixels in size on the article. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 03:38, 18 December 2012 (EST)

Under a persistent connection of 100kbps test using three common browsers, you can still have a Youtube video playing without buffer and read the page at the same time. On that point, Youtube's HTML5 format (or, "awful new update") actually helps to reduce the buffer issue. It is better to use GIFs sparsely, that is only when all other options is not available and it is the only necessary way to present the scene/shot. — subtank 04:21, 18 December 2012 (EST)

Got it, then. Sparsely works. Does it really reduce buffer? I've found that since the update 80% of Youtube videos I look up don't even load unless they're very short, part of a playlist, or if I cheat by playing them on Infinite Looper.com. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 04:41, 18 December 2012 (EST)

Why is there a picture of flood mode? This is craZboy557, signing off. 14:58, 18 December 2012 (EST)

@Tuckers: Compared to Flash player, HTML5 crashes less (in the sense that it doesn't load) and runs slightly faster though these are negligible to most users.

@Crazyboy: Try it on Firefox or Opera and you'll see.— subtank 21:12, 18 December 2012 (EST)

Don't have either of those. Can you just tell me what happens? This is craZboy557, signing off. 06:27, 20 December 2012 (EST)