Several months ago, during the Trump nightmare years, I changed the image banner for the Daily Kos community group for Star Trek fans. I didn’t ask anyone’s permission, I didn’t consult anyone. I figured the reaction would be that it was the least important thing going on in that moment.
There’s still a lot going on. The Chauvin verdict signals an opportunity for sorely needed police reform. Enbridge Line 5 could destroy the Great Lakes. Despite vaccinations, the coronavirus pandemic continues. Many other things.
But at least with President Joe Biden, there’s a feeling that we can also look after less urgent matters. And this thing with the group banner images is definitely not urgent.
For one thing, you’re probably not going to see those images if you’re coming at a group’s article from either the Recommended List or Community Spotlight.
So for the Star Trek fans group, I decided on an image of the USS Excelsior, NX-2000, in a sort of silhouette, sized just shy of 300 by 115 pixels, to be the group banner image. I thought it was nice, neat and unobtrusive.
More recently, I created the Board Games group. It’s so recent it’s still a group of one. Hopefully not for long. That group doesn’t have a banner image. But now I get a message telling me to add a banner image, and suggesting 1280 by 360 pixels “for best results.”
I have some ideas for the Board Games group banner image, something having to do with chess pieces and the Monopoly man.
A banner image should be nice, appropriate and relevant. Apparently any member of a group can change the group’s banner image. Theoretically I could change the Pro Choice group banner image to an ultrasound. It would be relevant but inappropriate (because it would send the wrong message), so I wouldn’t do that.
The Cranky Grammarians group currently has no banner image. Maybe something with some text on a slant, with editor’s marks in a red pen? Maybe some film showing the sprocket holes for Movie Review Group, which has no banner image right now either.
But before doing any of that, I should revisit the Star Trek fans group banner image: 1280 by 360 is half a 720P HD image. I could do something really nice.
I often complain about GIMP, it’s such a frustrating program, and I would rather use Photoshop 1.0 if I could. But I’m usually able to get done what I want to get done with GIMP after some struggling, and looking up things that I take for granted in Photoshop Elements.
So I whipped up an image of the USS Excelsior hiding in a nebula and got it to a point I really liked. I uploaded it and was a bit disappointed that in almost every context it shows up rather tiny.
It’s just fine like that on the Diary Queue page, the people who can see that page should know what it is. But on other pages that are more publicly accessible, people might think it’s just a tiny blob of random purple and yellow. Maybe I should revert it to the previous group banner image...
So that’s the specific question for this open thread: What do you think about the Star Trek fans group banner image? And more generally, what do you think about group banner images on Daily Kos?