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Photobucket & Third Party Hosting.
Stilldrillin:
The axe dropped overnight.......
Eleven year's work, and 2,389 pics.... Covering 76+ projects, spread over at least, 6 forums......
I haven't the heart to try to rebuild the lost links.
I intend to carry on, with Postimage.org.
David.
Brass_Machine:
--- Quote from: Stilldrillin on July 07, 2017, 05:05:47 PM ---The axe dropped overnight.......
Eleven year's work, and 2,389 pics.... Covering 76+ projects, spread over at least, 6 forums......
I haven't the heart to try to rebuild the lost links.
I intend to carry on, with Postimage.org.
David.
--- End quote ---
Ughh... Not cool on their part. Totally blows...
vtsteam:
David, and others, don't give up hope! It's still possible for you to download your Albums from Photobucket intact. Download each album individually to maintain the structure. Not all in one zip.
Then when alternative host(s) are chosen, place those back up at the host in the same relative structure (with the same album names). It will be helpful if you jot down a directory map of your albums as they currently exist on PB, if there's any complexity to it. Note that albums download as zip files, but not named as they were online. The map will he;p you recall album names and positions.
It should be possible for us to write a script to globally change the Photobucket domain for the hot-links in a user's MadModder forum threads to whatever host he/she chooses. Since the directory structure is maintained, and the names of the photos haven't changed, only the domain name in the link string needs to be edited. Basically a find-and-replace function.
Possibly there is already a Simple Machines script for that. If not, I don't doubt there will be, considering the number of fora affected out there. The Simple machines forum could be a good resource for suggesting it as a feature if it doesn't exist already..
And finally, if not, surely we have the talent in members here to write a simple find and replace script. How about that as a joint project/mod-up?
vtsteam:
Script notes:
Inputs:
Username
Find string
Replace string
It should allow single instance search and replace, and auto search and replace. This should be a user implemented function, and restricted to that user's posts.
To speed it up, probably have it search for the IMG tag first before doing a sub search for the string.
Most photobucket image links reference a particular named server, so the input for the search string is necessary.
A typical photobucket photo link looks like this:
"http://i786.photobucket.com/albums/yy150/vtsteam/vtsteam/Lathe/HeadstockSlide6.jpg"
if we auto-searched on "i786.photobucket.com/albums/yy150/vtsteam"
and replaced with:
"MyNewServer.com" we would get:
"http://MyNewServer.com/vtsteam/Lathe/HeadstockSlide6.jpg" as the new link.
sparky961:
What's to prevent the same problem with the "next best" image hosting platform? The business plan of many web startups involves offering "free" services to get people hooked, then slowly taking away functions and offering paid packages to restore that functionality. It sucks, but that's the way of capitalism and commerce.
I've been using Google Drive for a long time now when I include images inline. There isn't a great way to automatically generate the links, but it isn't too difficult to manually generate a few for a forum post. Sure, it's another online service that could change their terms and services at any time but I think the powerhouse Google has a lot more at stake than PhotoBucket or similar small players. If you look at it from purely a revenue standpoint, Google doesn't make money (or, "much", that I'm aware of) from individuals using their web services. Their business is based on ad revenue, big data sales, and hardware. I doubt they care whether you embed a link in a forum or send someone to an external site to view the pictures. You can BET that they're tracking that information and they've put together a nice little portfolio on you and what sorts of web sites your images or files are being used with or linked from (and from where in the world, on what device, what you were wearing, and what you had for lunch that day....). THAT is what they most likely care about. As long as you aren't doing anything illegal or confidential, it's a decent trade off.
Just make sure you also support ad blockers to keep 'em honest and working hard. ;)
I think the best solution is to promote image storage with the forum itself. Or, if technically feasible, have the server maintain a cache of externally-linked images and files to prevent dead links in the future. Even if it couldn't detect the difference between a user's picture and a default "Your Picture Can't be Displayed" picture, there could at least be a switch for a thread to cause the server to use the cached version rather than the live-linked one. A decision would need to be made on whether the server caches it one time initially, or updates it regularly but this would be costly and risk losing the original. Maybe it's more trouble than it's worth, but it has the potential to make the problem go away and allow users to retain their own image archive somewhere else if anything catastrophic happens with the forum.
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