Thread: Why I use Photobucket

Originally Posted by Repliconics

If there's one thing I try not to do it's buck the system.
If everyone are floating along who am I to make waves.

So I wont be uploading from photobucket to the forum anymore!.

But I do think it's a shame that people who aren't registered with the forum can't see the images.
I really believe that the more people can see the more their likely to have a go themselves.
And that's got to be a good thing!.

Cheers
Trev.

I must agree Trev,
I think it's good for the forum to have guests view the photos on the post along with the notes, comments and project build info,
as this is what encouraged me to get involved to join the forum a number of years ago....
Cheers Peter

Originally Posted by Repliconics

So I wont be uploading from photobucket to the forum anymore!.
But I do think it's a shame that people who aren't registered with the forum can't see the images.
I really believe that the more people can see the more their likely to have a go themselves.
And that's got to be a good thing!. .

I'm a member of a number other forums where many members used Photobucket.
I also post many pictures in those forums that I also post on these forums.
It would make a lot of sense for me to just upload once to Photobucket and then point to the same pictures from each of the forums.
One of the forums that has not been running for very long actively promotes the use of photo bucket since it reduces their storage requirements

However, after while I noticed that (more on some forums than others) some photos just disappeared.
I subsequently found out these were all Photobucket linked photos.
In several cases his was due to members spitting the dummy with a forum and removing their photos from Photobucket so the links no longer worked.
This was most unfortunate because some of these photos were from prolific posters with excellent ideas that I was accessing over and over and often referred other members to these photos.
The removal of the photos made the text virtually useless/

After personally heavily promoting that photos should be uploaded direct to each forum something even worse happened to one of the forums. It was hacked and they lost everything.
Eventually they recovered the posts and membership data but not the links between the photos uploaded to the forum and the posts on the forum.
Now the only photos that remained visible were those members who had uploaded their photos via Photobucket and maintained their Photobucket account!

Dammed if you and dammed if you don't.
Ultimately it comes down to trust.
Members to spit the dummy and pull their photos, OR the benevolent dictators of the forum to look after their system.

As far as making the picture visible to non-members, all they have to do is register, not a hard thing to do.

Trev I have been saying for years about those not members not seeing photos etc I gave up pointing people to the forum threads that were/are not members because of that change even with your photos I send them to PB site.

Its strange that google can keep images even after sites have long gone with references to those links........and even more.

Trev sorry to see you stop posting here the beaut photos however I will visit your PB site often.

Originally Posted by Repliconics

If there's one thing I try not to do it's buck the system.
If everyone are floating along who am I to make waves.

So I wont be uploading from photobucket to the forum anymore!.
Not asking people not to upload from Photbucket.
We're asking not to link their photo's to photobucket or other external sites. Upload photo's from wherever you like but upload them to Woodwork Forums

But I do think it's a shame that people who aren't registered with the forum can't see the images.
Most stolen photo's, pdf's are taken by non registered web surfers and end up on scrapers sites trying to make money off others intelectual property. I have tracked down a number of sites that scrape content from here for their own sites and if there are no pics or pdf's available then their scraping is virtually no good to them. .
I really believe that the more people can see the more their likely to have a go themselves.
And that's got to be a good thing!.
Not seeing pics or pdf files is more likely to entice people to join the forums. Many will get what they want and run but some will stay on for the long haul and this is a good thing.

Cheers
Trev.

Cheers - Neil

Originally Posted by BobL

I'm a member of a number other forums where many members used Photobucket.
I also post many pictures in those forums that I also post on these forums.
It would make a lot of sense for me to just upload once to Photobucket and then point to the same pictures from each of the forums.
One of the forums that has not been running for very long actively promotes the use of photo bucket since it reduces their storage requirements
I have paid a fortune for storage capacity so we can store and keep safe the pictures on here. In the early days we had to have small file sizes as space was at a premium but now we have more room than we could ever use and it is now cheap enough to buy an extra few gb if needed.

However, after while I noticed that (more on some forums than others) some photos just disappeared.
I subsequently found out these were all Photobucket linked photos.
In several cases his was due to members spitting the dummy with a forum and removing their photos from Photobucket so the links no longer worked.
This was most unfortunate because some of these photos were from prolific posters with excellent ideas that I was accessing over and over and often referred other members to these photos.
The removal of the photos made the text virtually useless/
My point exactly.

After personally heavily promoting that photos should be uploaded direct to each forum something even worse happened to one of the forums. It was hacked and they lost everything.
Eventually they recovered the posts and membership data but not the links between the photos uploaded to the forum and the posts on the forum.
Now the only photos that remained visible were those members who had uploaded their photos via Photobucket and maintained their Photobucket account!
Hacking of forums usually occurs because forums aren't updated regurly even after highly publicised warnings of vulnerabilities.
We upgread whenever there is an upgrade available and thus make it much safer for content and members.

If photo's are uploaded properly then they will always be available to be restored evan after acatastrofic problem of any sort. Not only that the forums are backed up 4 times per day so the worst that can happen, even in the worst case scenario could be the loss of 6 hours of posts.

Dammed if you and dammed if you don't. Dead right there Bob.
Ultimately it comes down to trust.
Members to spit the dummy and pull their photos, OR the benevolent dictators of the forum to look after their system.
We have lost lots of pictures in the past due to off site storage crashing and losing pics and people moving to different off site storage. Lost hundreds of pictures years ago when an of site storage site shut down. Can't remember the name of the site but it caused no end of problems on here and was the reason why we originally asked for pics to be loaded onto these forums instead of being linked to other sites.

As far as making the picture visible to non-members, all they have to do is register, not a hard thing to do. Exactly.

Cheers - Neil

My experience has been somewhat different. During a forum upgrade a couple of years ago the pictures in a very great many of my threads were lost - nobody knows why. These were pics that were uploaded to the forum and are still in my albums - but just blank spaces in the threads. This a real PITA when I want to refer someone back to a thread.

At the end of the day I'm happy to go along with the forum guidelines.
It's only a difference in point of view regarding the benefits or lack of in having the images on the forum viewable to all.

Cheers
Trev.

My experience has been somewhat different. During a forum upgrade a couple of years ago the pictures in a very great many of my threads were lost - nobody knows why. These were pics that were uploaded to the forum and are still in my albums - but just blank spaces in the threads. This a real PITA when I want to refer someone back to a thread.

We do know why and everyone who had that problem was told. Your pics were somehow uploaded wrongly to the forums along with a number of other members Somehow they had some weird code in them that wouldn't allow them to be restored automaticly. The code didn't match any of the upload numbers. They should still be able to be replaced in threads if you are prepared to pass on all the information of what thread(s) and give the file number of the pic in your album along withcorrect placement of each pic in the posts. There were a number of threads from a few members that were affected so many pics were restored and it took many, many hours of work and hunting through albums to do so.

No-one who uploaded them correctly lost any photo's.

Neil

As long as everyone keeps posting their fantastic photos it doesn't matter how we get to see them. Yes it is more convenient to look at them if they are uploaded from Photobucket and we get to see them full size on the screen, but if keeping the integrity of the forums safe requires uploading directly then that is the way to go. Many of forums don't allow you to see their photos unless you are a member either, so this one is no different. Some won't even let you see the posts.
Keep up the good work Neil and the team.

I could write a script that automatically grabs offsite photobucket-like photos/pictures, puts them into local storage and replaces the link in the post automatically. This would eliminate this kind of thing... especially missing photos etc.

Another script would be to fire off a thread upon page generation to check that the offsite image actually appears, and if it doesn't, use the locally mirrored one. If it's "dead", rewrite the posts content (as above) to reflect that a mirrored copy is used.

If you are concerned about overhead, run it as a cron each night.

The script could be further modified to grab only known photo sites (such as photobucket) rather than all images referenced by IMG tags and whatnot....

Another alternative would be to use Google Drive from the server to act as a backup for the images you've in storage. 1TB of storage is only $10 monthly. You could do a slow trickle to push them all up and then trickle charge each night..... there is an rsync like way to do this already: http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/...h_Google_Drive

E

Howdy. Whilst looking at various articles here i stumbled upon the fact a number of my photos have disappeared. Don`t know how or where as for the most part they were snapped by me & i haven`t closed or deleated any of my storage accounts. Any ideas? Thanks gordo

When I used to post regularly on one of the big Photography Forums, I used to use Photobucket a fair bit for sharing photos on that forum. But I found that periodically, some or all of my photographs would disappeared from within the forum posts where I had used Photobucket links. When I checked my account on Photobucket, I found that the photos were all still there, but a close look at the share links for the photographs showed that Photobucket had changed the links. Once I copied the correct links into the forum accounts, everything worked again.

I bitched to Photobucket support, and they advised that occasionally, when they upgrade one of their servers, it will result in the links to photographs on that server changing. I deleted all of my photographs on Photobucket and other photography storage web sites last year and allowed my accounts to lapse.

Since I joined the Woodwork Forum, I've made a point of storing all posted photographs on the woodwork forum, rather than linking to Photobucket or one of the other Photo sharing web sites. It just works better, as long as Neil has enough storage space available to store our posted photos.

RoyG

I just noticed this post in another section, rather timely.


https://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=200437




Edit by Big Shed - now merged with this thread.

Originally Posted by OldGrain

Howdy. Whilst looking at various articles here i stumbled upon the fact a number of my photos have disappeared. Don`t know how or where as for the most part they were snapped by me & i haven`t closed or deleated any of my storage accounts. Any ideas? Thanks gordo

For us to give an intelligent answer we would need a bit more info oldgrain, but the above senario is certainly one possibility.

It has happened to some of my Photobucket photos too and I no longer use their site.

Hello BigShed. I don`t know what further info i can provide other than to say after reading > APBaxter re Small Home Workshop 19th Nov i saw under last page >Similar Links< Herbert Home W/shop by me 31st march 2013 & thought ha,have another look. Story/replies were there but my pics had gone. Huh,thats strange i thought. Wonder where? I checked other forums i use and the ones i had put those pics on,they were still there. I also checked P/b & they were still there also. Thought perhaps maybe because the pics might have been too large here they were deleted. I guess that when P/b made/makes changes it automatically scrambles info & subsequently my pics here were affected. Will spend more time tomorrow scouring other forums again to see if i can find out if any others have gone awol. Thanks