anildash's dashboard

There are lots of little scripts and things out on the web that you could try to use to disable right-clicking. But, on the whole, these won't be effective. There are a few reasons why.

* All of them rely on JavaScript. Anyone who wants your image can just disable javascript in their web browser and then grab it.
* Images, by necessity, have their own web addresses (URLs). There are may ways to simply view the web address for a particular image on your page (every single web browser supports View Source to see the HTML that makes up the page), and then that address can be entered into the browser and the image saved that way.
* There are *many* uses for right-clicking that *don't* involve stealing your images, and disabling right-clicks frustrates all those regular readers of your site. From opening new pages in web browser tabs to using Internet Explorer activities to simply copying-and-pasting content that they might want to share, you'll be antagonizing the 99% of people who have no intent of stealing your content.

In short, the web is designed to share whatever's been publicly posted to it. Anything that works around that isn't going to be effective, instead it'll likely be seen as just an obstacle to route around for anybody who's motivated to do so. And most importantly, human nature always shows that saying somebody *can't* have something is a really, really effective way to make people want it.

What you're trying to do, it seems is to encourage people to ask your permission to use your photos. Fundamentally, that's not a technical problem, it's a social one. That means the best solution might simply be a clear explanation on your site (a Notes TypeList on your sidebar is great for this) that explains that you prefer people not take your photos and reuse them. And you can accompany that with clear, friendly messages to the other sites displaying your photos that you haven't given them permission to do so.

Encourage your community of readers to do the right thing, and to help you watch over misuses of your content, and you won't run the risk of frustrating them with a technical solution like blocking right-clicks which wouldn't cut down on photo copying anyway.

Hope that helps!

Hey Josh, the issue is that Delicious' blog posting hack (still experimental after 3 years -- what's Schachter been doing?! :)) uses the old MetaWeblogAPI. If he were using Atom, which is, ahem an actual standard, it'd work just fine with Vox.

The MT-based method Jay describes would work, or you can take a Delicious linkroll and put it on your Vox sidebar.

There actually is a one-time hack you could do, by going to your list of Posts in your Library: http://www.vox.com/organize/#source:Post

From there, if you click "Import" and put in the URL of your delicious RSS feed, it'll import all your past links. But that's a one-time import, not an ongoing one.

Clearly, the long-term solution is that del.icio.us should just fix its cross-posting feature. ;)