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Photobucket third party hosting issues as described by Nicodemus

Discussion in 'Ideas, problems and feedback' started by Karak Norn Clansman, Jun 30, 2017.

  1. Karak Norn Clansman
    Troglodon

    Karak Norn Clansman Well-Known Member

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    Breaking News.

    I propose that the good members of Ulthuan.net knock their pointy-eared lordly heads together and initiates an image salvage operation to save the very best Photobucket-hosted pictures from inactive members. The works of old masters are in danger of being lost forever, courtesy of Photobucket! See more here for Chaos Dwarf Online's unfolding initiative on the issue:

     
    Ritual likes this.
  2. Karak Norn Clansman
    Troglodon

    Karak Norn Clansman Well-Known Member

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    Can't edit above post. Errors will have to stand as they are. Best regards.
     
    Ritual likes this.
  3. n810
    Slann

    n810 First Spawning

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  4. The Red Devil
    Stegadon

    The Red Devil Defender of Hexoatl Staff Member

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    *Shivers*
    You normally do not want to do this process manually...

    Took a look tonight and found a flaw in their "3rd party" protection system, so got an automatic process running now that parse all of our posts and download images from photobucket. Will write some more code one of the first days, to go through the posts and add same images as attachments.

    I see you guys run a different forum system, so the code would need some changes to run on your site, but if you guys have any developer onboard running the site, I can share the code with you, just send me a PM.
     
    PhoenixTheCat, Nefertem, n810 and 6 others like this.
  5. The Red Devil
    Stegadon

    The Red Devil Defender of Hexoatl Staff Member

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    Karak Norn Clansman likes this.
  6. Karak Norn Clansman
    Troglodon

    Karak Norn Clansman Well-Known Member

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    OK, redundant on Lustria, but just to mention it everywhere:

    Stopgap fix to Photobucket images under lockdown (my emboldening), from Warseer's Captain Brown:

    Those who have not yet replaced their own Photobucket pictures with identical pictures hosted elsewhere, may want to scour their army blogs and other hobby threads. However, adding ~original to the address lines will not make the linked images compatible with more advanced solutions!

    Note however that we cannot consider this a permanent solution, only a stopgap option. It is possible that Photobucket may come to block this fixture, transform itself beyond recognition or go down altogether as a site.
     
    n810 likes this.
  7. Karak Norn Clansman
    Troglodon

    Karak Norn Clansman Well-Known Member

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    Redundant on Lustria, but you can spread the word to other sites if you like.

    Update: Photobucket has reverted their pay policy and restored most of their old 3rd party content for free. This means most of the dead threads on hobby sites such as this one can be enjoyed once again, without moderators or users doing anything.

    [​IMG]

    While this is a fortunate boon to hobby forums, it should be remembered that many imagehosting sites have folded or changed beyond recognition (incl. Imageshack), while the once-default choice of Photobucket itself has proved unstable. While the large website of Imgur remains dependable for the moment being, things can change fast, as we saw with Photobucket. Digital storage is insecure and fragile, yet brilliant in its outreach.

    As such, do consider these following two steps to backup hobby pictures and artworks for public view:

    1. Upload your own hobby pictures into one or more Google Drive folders (or similar), set access to share, and insert a link to this folder in your hobby log(s) and showcase thread(s). That way, even if whatever imagehosting site(s) you are using folds in the future, or play 3rd party hosting rodeo, others may still be able to access your work, admire it and be inspired through this backup folder, even if you yourself have gone inactive.


    2. Search out those old treasure threads which you know of, where masterclass work of conversions, sculpting, scenery making, miniature painting or artwork were created by very talented people. Save a selection of these images yourself, upload to both one or more imagehosting sites like Imgur, and to a Google Drive folder. Then you can either pool your and others' backup folders of the best of the best in some common thread, or perhaps commit thread necromancy (if this is not frowned upon on a particular forum) where you share links to these backup albums and folders in the thread in question - or send these links to an active moderator to have inserted into the first post of inactive treasure threads (if threadomancy happens to be frowned upon).


    Note that this can be organized as a group endeavour, where a bunch of active members name and link the very best which their hobby site has to offer, and split salvage of these different inactive members' pictures between themselves. If this is done, then it may be advisible to avoid repetitive images, most WIP pictures that lead up to a finished result, pictures of sprues and so on: Salvage selectively, save the very best and don't maximize your voluntary burden.

    Other ways of backing up images of others and sharing them publicly are possible - and please talk about them here or elsewhere - but the point to stress here is that inactive members do not save their own pictures for sharing: That is up to the active members to do, if they deem a particular hobby work or artwork worthy to save for future years to inspire themselves and others.

    At the moment of writing, a majority of older wargaming hobby pictures online have likely been shared over Photobucket. We have been granted an unexpected reprieve with their reversal of the pay-to-share debacle*, meaning all those dead hobby logs are suddenly up with visible pictures again. A reprieve which we should all consider exploiting while it last: Now is your chance to salvage the true gems of others and help save the very best pictures for the future.

    __________________
    * Which is why one shouldn't even consider to delete one's Photobucket account unless one have already backed up the images and re-uploaded those one wish to share. Redundancy is key.
     
    NIGHTBRINGER likes this.
  8. NIGHTBRINGER
    Slann

    NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

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