Photobucket Third Party woes as described by Nicodemus

[Karak Norn Clansman]

Late, since my original registration didn't make it through and you've probably been over this, but anyhow, just in case, here is some copy-paste warning and information pulled from other sites regarding the Photobucket crisis:



Breaking News.

I propose that the good members of this site knock their heads together and initiates a 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:

We risk an almost complete breakdown of continuity in images

With the recent Photobucket trouble we'll have to ask ourselves what legends of old should be targeted for photo backup? This is a disaster to continuity and it seems we have scarce time to act before the old photos go completely unavailable. As of now, it is possible to right-click pictures under lockdown, choose view image in new tab and copy it from there.

Remember that Imageshack has already robbed us of archive material, and the Photobucket strike is much larger in scope. We risk losing almost everything old which new members have stumbled upon through the years, taking inspiration from old masters.

I know I'll not have much time to contribute with in the coming weeks. I must fix some Golden Hat entries today and maybe tomorrow, but I could help some after that, within limitations. If many of us could help some, it would add up. This is not drudgery which anyone wish to do during the summer, but it is now or never, unless Photobucket come to their senses and change direction completely.

Volunteers?

Can we please gather links to the logs and work of inactive members which we'd particularly like to see saved from the looming disaster? Then we could chew through the threads one at a time and avoid redundant double-work by advancing which thread/member we each pick. An all-out manual trawl of the whole log section could maybe be possible, but it would be true slave labour. Realistically, we should target worthy pictures in particular.

If we can establish a link list, then some volunteers could possibly wade through it to save backup copies on their own computer, to be transferred to some free and currently stable photohosting site such as Imgur. From there, we could re-upload some stuff in big chunks with lots of photos.

Please remember that artwork should be saved along with miniature photos.

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Let's take tjub as an example. His stuff is particularly easy to find and save for backup, since he has both a compilation of picture links in his market thread and moreover an index in his monster of an army log. On the other hand, there is a lot of stuff to wade through! But it can be done.

We might wish to target long-since inactive members first and foremost, but this wrecking ball strikes at everyone's Photobucket album, active or inactive.

Also, I suppose it could be good if we tried to name the image file after its creator (e.g. "Snotling 01" or "Snotling Ballista 02"), just so it's tagged straight away.

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Salvation?

How to Automatically Download Linked Photobucket Images, by Sven Arild Helleland (The Red Terror)

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

Gentlemen,

As some long term PLOGers and cornerstones of some of the Painting Log areas, the member Ash has come up with a fix.

"With the Photobucket pictures not showing; if you go into edit post and insert ~original between .jpg and [/img] as in .jpg~original[/img] then the original picture will show again..." and it works!

I have asked him to share that in the stickies at the top of each painting forum, but thought I would pass that on to you who had large PLOGs blocked in the meantime.

Cheers,

Phil

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.


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Also, the result of summer's photo salvage work: Carven Images: A Decade of CDO in Pictures