Talk:Graphics Interchange Format

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[edit] User:Motter

User:Motter (contribs) insists on adding links to to this article that lead to his website, at least according to his talk page, quoted below:

like 5 months ago somebody put a link to my free gif making site on the wiki gif page. I didn't put it up there but it has been removed by some person that thinks they are the almighty ruler of wikipedia. I don't really care how cool you are with wiki lingo or how often you check an article that doesn't interest you in the least the better the "community". What I do care about however is offering a totally free service to the users of wikipedia that are searching the internet to find a way to create gifs. leave the link alone Ub3|2N3|2d!

His reasons for including the link therefore appear to fall directly into Wikipedia:External_links#Links_normally_to_be_avoided. I and several other editors have remove the link and warned him that it is spam. His responses have included deleting other links from the article and consistently adding his link back claiming that it improves the article or stating that he was fixing it.

User:Motter has been invited to discuss his concerns on this talk page. GDallimore (Talk) 10:44, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

gifninja is a free .gif site that offers tools and over 50,000 free animated .gifs and rising. You just aren't going to convince me that the site isn't relevant.

As for the site being affiliated to me. I wasn't the person to list the site originally. When you came along and removed it cause you felt like it, I repaired your vandalism and intend to continue to do so.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Motter (talk • contribs) 00:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC).

I have removed the link to the "removed" site from the above comment since that defeats the point. I also does not consider that the number of gifs on a site makes it an appropriate link for the article for the reasons already mentioned above. I recommend you read through those guidelines carefully since, although wikipedia is an open encyclopedia, it is not an anarchy. GDallimore (Talk) 00:48, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok.. fine, for the purpose of this article I don't care if it is hyper linked or not. But I put the url in plain text for others to see that site and see that it is relevant to the article. I also removed the word "offending" from your passage cause there is nothing offending about it.

Look, Wikipedia has guidlines because WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_anarchy. When it comes to external links, these include the following:
  • Links mainly intended to promote a website
  • Links to social networking sites
the main purpose of the site appears to be to create (extremely basic) animated gifs for MySpace
  • Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject:
the site has tools for making gifs but has no useful information about gifs, it is therefore only indirectly related to an article about gifs
  • Advertising and conflicts of interest
Motter is apparently the owner of the site. The fact that he didn't add the link originally is irrelevant.
The site also meets none of the requirements for Wikipedia:External_links#What_should_be_linked:
Finally, take a look at Wp:not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_mirror_or_a_repository_of_links.2C_images.2C_or_media_files and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam#Common_spammer_strawmen for why your protestations of non-spam are not found to be acceptable by me. GDallimore (Talk) 10:25, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
As a second opinion, I am afraid basically GDallimore is right about this. Your site is good, free and offers a useful service to people wanting to convert formats but it does not qualify as a reliable reference site giving more information on the article content. So I am afraid it shouldn't be listed here. I suggest you submit it to the open directory or somewhere which is a list of useful links: Wikipedia is not. --BozMo talk 10:41, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
User:Motter. Some valid concerns have been raised. There are substantial WP:COI and Advertising and conflicts of interest issues. Asside from the link being Links normally to be avoided, The link that continues to be added to this article is not appropriate as it is not a resource about the subject.--Hu12 10:43, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] External Links

The animations in this article do not seem to work in Firefox: GIF Animation on the WWW - technical explanation of the GIF89a format and how it allows animation —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bitbut (talk • contribs)

They all move with firefox, (well iceweasel), v2.0.0.11, but this .gif animation of a nanotube, stays still. The same nanotube .gif moves in iceape. Linux box, FWIW. --AC (talk) 06:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GIF format may now be used freely

GIF format may now be used freely? Can we really jump into conclusion like this? I'm not so sure of this issue, it doesn't seem very clear for me. What about country not mention on the list? What about specific international patent trades ? --201.35.201.122 11:49, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, it's true - the only patented part of GIF was the LZW compression method and the patents on that have expired. Just don't go using newer compression methods or you might get into trouble. Secondly it's said in the sources such as the "burn all gifs" site so it's not us coming to conclusions. The countries listed are the only countries where there were patents. I have no idea what you mean by "specific international patent trades".GDallimore (Talk) 11:57, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] PIG

This article should include the additions currently, i.e. after the rejection of APNG, under discussion to embed PNG in GIF, called PNG-in-GIF (PIG) and RGBA-in-GIF, whether they are accepted in the end or not.


[edit] gallery

can we link to a gallery of all of wikis .gif images? do we have such a gallery?♠♦Д narchistPig♥♣ (talk) 00:14, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GIF with > 256 colours

The following webpage shows a > 256 colour GIF - it seems that GIFs have a limit of 256 colours per block, but a single GIF image can have many blocks. The article does not seem to take this into account

http://phil.ipal.org/tc.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.127.209.199 (talk) 13:35, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes it does: Graphics Interchange Format#True color. --Zundark (talk) 13:59, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
"The dithering process used to overcome the format's 256-color limitation makes the image appear coarse-grained." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.237.176 (talk) 20:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I see your point; saying in that caption that there's a "256-color limitation" is somewhat inaccurate. We could say "256-color limitation for single-image/unanimated streams" or some such. —mjb (talk) 01:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Actual format?

There's no actual information in the article about how the format actually works. == Actual format? ==

There's no actual information in the article about how the format actually works. I mean it says it's 8bit and that there can be frames but I would like to know what a GIF file actually has in it byte by byte. The link oto the spec has the info but that's more detail than I need. Wikivek (talk) 19:03, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tools

How exactly can one create a animated GIF from scratch? And which tools?Anwar (talk) 20:35, 9 May 2008 (UTC)