Blog:This image is an animated GIF! What happen?

I know that you got here because you saw the following message:

Observe the following images:

There is a history behind all this and why animated GIFs are preferred in galleries than static images in PNG/JPG format.

In summary, it is for the following reasons (each one will be explained in more detail and briefly):


 * 1) Before Miraheze was the home of Giantess Wiki, Wikia (now called FANDOM) was the home of this wiki. Wikia had technical limitations (that is, hardware) far superior to what Miraheze has. This means Wikia could better process heavy animated GIFs with much higher resolutions.
 * 2) The galleries based on animated GIFs were better received (and preferred) than the galleries based on static images in PNG/JPG format.
 * 3) The project of the GTS tropes requires that there are many animated GIFs to be able to carry out a more meticulous study.

Reason #1: Wikia was our old home
Before Wikia became an obnoxious wikis farm with policies in favor of political correctness and for highly lucrative purposes, it was the best option to host a wiki.

Wikia offered us several advantages, such as increased traffic, and its high limitations allowed us to have animated GIFs of great weight and resolution that would also be animated GIFs.

We stayed in Wikia for almost 3 years, in that period we made many galleries based on animated GIFs.

We had reached an agreement (in secret), so that if we brought traffic to Giantess Wiki (that is, more visits), they would earn more money, so they would give us the chance to survive for our wiki (and that they do not eliminate it). Do you know why the Spanish version of Giantess Wiki was eliminated? Because he did not have many visits (this one had less than 10% of what his Anglophone counterpart earned).

Despite having complied with the agreement, having complied with its terms of use and being politically correct (because they demanded it), by the beginning of 2019, they betrayed us and expelled us. That's why we stayed at Miraheze, which has no lucrative purpose and its engine is based on the latest version of MediaWiki, although with lower technical limitations.

We managed to save 100% of the written articles, and 87.5% of the images (the remaining 12.5% was discarded because they were of poor quality). However, the format of the written articles was already structured in the Wikia format, we had to do a great job to adapt all the articles to the Miraheze format. One of the drawbacks we noticed was that the galleries with many animated GIFs did not have animated miniatures (in most cases).


 * NOTE: I just found out that the technical limitations of Wikia (FANDOM) have dropped, which means that heavy animated GIFs will no longer be processed as well as before.

Reason #2: Galleries are better with animated GIFs
This data we obtained when doing surveys, when we used to be in Wikia. Most preferred the gallery based on animated GIFs (90%, as I recall). This survey was saved (but not the results) and you can see a copy of it here:


 * Alice in Wonderland (1951): New Gallery vs. Old Gallery
 * Seijuu Sentai Gingaman - EP39: New Gallery vs. Old Gallery

Reason #3: GTS Tropes
This project that aims to study the patterns that appear in the works created by the GTS community has some cases where you can "visualize" better when you have animated GIFs. In other words:


 * In terms of information, a static image is worth a thousand words, but an animated GIF provides much more information.

Just think of tropes like tremors, growth or destruction. They will obligatorily demand that there be animated GIFs, the static images would be almost useless.

Provisional solution #1: Imgur
We can host the galleries in parallel there, in order to better see the animated GIFs.

We've done some tests about it:


 * Advantages:
 * 1) Possibility to see the galleries directly with their animated GIFs.
 * 2) Technical limitations well above Wikia, since Ingur specializes in images.
 * 3) Possibility of downloading all the images with a single click ("Download Post").


 * Disadvantages:
 * 1) The galleries do not have animated thumbnails.
 * 2) The galleries directly use heavy animated GIFs, which occupy a large portion of the screen and massively increase the consumption of RAM memory.
 * 3) Miraheze tolerates perverted images (even pornographic), but Imgur does not.

Provisional solution #2: Have a smaller alternative version for each heavy GIF
It's like the example that was given at the beginning of this blog post:


 * Advantages:
 * 1) Galleries will have a very close to 100% chance that their thumbnails are animated GIFs.
 * 2) Visually spectacular, as it used to be when we are in Wikia.


 * Disadvantages:
 * 1) While these GIFs are an alternative and the original (heavy) will still exist, it is likely that the casual visitor (who does not know how this place works) does not know what to do to get to the file with the original animated GIF. Unless each image is assigned below a link where it takes the original GIF, but that would be laborious to do and I do not know how to program that (if you know, tell me).

Provisional solution #3: Your ideas
If you can think of a better solution to those mentioned above, let us know in the comments.

12.5 Megapixels is the limit of Miraheze

 * If an image in JPG or PNG format exceeds 12.5 megapixels, your thumbnail will not be processed.
 * The case of animated GIFs is similar, but the number of pixels is equal to the product of their width, height and number of frames. If it exceeds 12.5 megapixels, it will be processed, but will not be animated and will keep its first fixed frame.

Next, we will see the maximum number of frames that an animated GIF can have according to its dimensions (it is enough to divide 12'500,000 by the product of the dimensions, and then process the result with the "floor" function):


 * If the animated GIFs are adjusted to the standard size of the galleries (236px), these would be the results:

Therefore, it is seen that the second provisional solution is convenient (and thus not resort to Imgur).