Photobucket has really screwed us

Ohmess

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The change to photobucket's business model has not only torpedoed DeQ's very educational posts on our site, it has torpedoed scores of other educational car related posts on other sites.

And the way the economics of addressing this issue work, there is no way to fix it. It doesn't make sense for helpful people like DeQ to pay Photobucket fees so guys like me can read and follow his posts; and because the educational posts I frequently consult contain only a small number of pictures from scores of different helpful car guys, there is no mechanism for me to pay the freight. (And even if I had the option to pay, I often cannot tell if I would be willing to pay without seeing the content!).

This sucks.
 

mulberryworks

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To quote Heinlein's 1966 novel, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, (coming soon to a theatre near you) TANSTAAFL. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Photobucket was depending on ad revenue for income, but by allowing outside sites to directly link the photos, they were getting no income from our use of their servers. The answer is unfortunately for people to download their photos and post them elsewhere. Relinking the photos would be very time consuming. However, the same story may repeat with a different site, so really the photos should be uploaded here, and we shoulder the cost for additional server space. We use it, we maintain it.

I've been careful to down rez the photos I post so that they are in the 200k size range rather than the 3 to 5 mb size that modern cameras deliver so that I'm not adding too much unnecessary data to the site. But not everyone knows how to do that easily. Perhaps I should write a tutorial.

When I start my restoration, I'll have a parallel post to my own web blog where I'll have additional images, in larger sizes, that people interested in nitty gritty can peruse.

Ian
 

Gransin

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Yep, I'm in that boat with my build thread here, and on another forum. All (about 500) pictures are linked from photobucket, I don't know why they still work as I'm only paying $2,99/month for the (now outdated) Plus 20 plan.
I guess they will and could stop working at any time, so I've also been thinking of uploading them on this site, but would like to hear Dan's opinion on this before I do that. If everyone starts uploading all pictures they post directly to this server, it will add up quickly.

One other BIG problem for me is, the site only allows for 20 pics/post with this new layout, and there was some limit on the characters too..
Many of my posts have way more than 20 pics, and alot of text. So I've tried to edit my posts with new photolinks to see if it's possible to have the same amount of pictures as the post had before editing, but nope..!
So anyhow alot of pictures would go missing even if I relinked the photos to a new hosting site, or even uploaded them directly to this server.

Any solution for this?

Cheers,
 

Peter Coomaraswamy

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To the site admin(s); if we need to procure more storage space I think it would be well worth a membership drive to keep all the photos on this site. I have a feeling it would be a very nominal charge and we could link our credit card (or just pay) a certain amount quarterly. Since my addiction, I have only found one other site (contributor) with the amount (fractionally) of accurate and concise information and instruction that is available here.
upload_2017-8-1_11-34-40.jpeg
 

Ohmess

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Yeah, Ian I use FastStone Photo Resizer to skinny down my pictures and then post them here.

I'm pretty frustrated at losing the ability to tap into all that knowledge that is (was) out there. Particularly when guys like DeQ take the time to nicely photograph their work.

As to internet ad income, I am of the view that internet ads don't really work. By way of example, I bought a belt over the internet yesterday. Now I get lots of advertising for belts whenever I use the net, but I have already made my purchase and am no longer shopping. I also think companies wouldn't be mailing me all these catalogs if internet ads really worked.
 

m5bb

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Yes, this is a bad deal. I pulled all my photos off of Photobucket. I have no idea how many were linked.
It would be nice to be able to store the photos that are linked to articles here on this site.
 

Peter Coomaraswamy

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I bought a belt over the internet yesterday. Now I get lots of advertising for belts whenever I use the net, but I have already made my purchase and am no longer shopping. I also think companies wouldn't be mailing me all these catalogs if internet ads really worked.

Chris, it is common knowledge that without exception everyone who purchases a belt purchases at least 1, possibly 2 more within 48 hours. The same holds true for stereo equipment, shoes, office chairs, camping equipment, gear shift knobs and mattresses.
 

Bwana

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Yeah, Ian I use FastStone Photo Resizer to skinny down my pictures and then post them here.

I'm pretty frustrated at losing the ability to tap into all that knowledge that is (was) out there. Particularly when guys like DeQ take the time to nicely photograph their work.

As to internet ad income, I am of the view that internet ads don't really work. By way of example, I bought a belt over the internet yesterday. Now I get lots of advertising for belts whenever I use the net, but I have already made my purchase and am no longer shopping. I also think companies wouldn't be mailing me all these catalogs if internet ads really worked.

You need to dump your cache once in a while (tools:"delete browsing history"). The M/C and cars forums are the worst for that when you're not logged in. And you get really stuck in a "suggested for you" loop on You Tube.
 

Bwana

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Yes, this is a bad deal. I pulled all my photos off of Photobucket. I have no idea how many were linked.
It would be nice to be able to store the photos that are linked to articles here on this site.

Who do you use instead now? Oddly, all my posts seem to have remained, both here ( D-Jetronic Rebuild thread) and on the FJR Forum where I have a bunch of ride reports posted. Over there a number of the guys are complaining too. Do the pictures just disappear? I don't even have the $2.99/mo. Is it just a matter of time before I lose my postings?
 

Nicad

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Was thinking of just paying up and dealing with it later. (As in probably never) I found photobucket so useful in getting help in attracting help to questions in so many forums.
 

Bmachine

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Is there anything wrong with uploading the photos to this site directly? (Click on "Upload a File" at bottom right). I've been doing that for a couple of years and it works so much better than hosting outside. All external photo storage sites end up creating problems sooner or later.

Unless there is something I am not aware of (Dan, plz correct me if I'm wrong), I would suggest uploading pics directly here and you never have to worry about your posts losing their photos that are linked to an outside site. We've mentioned several times that most people here would be happy to contribute financially if that is needed.
 

mulberryworks

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Yes, server space shouldn't be an issue these days. So that's what we should each do, upload our photos to this site when we post.

The biggest bite is that all the previous posts with linked images are now broken and that information is now lost to us.
It would take quite a bit of work to upload the images here and then relink them to each existing post. I don't think there's any other way to do it short of paying Photobucket's new high fees. Each poster would be responsible for updating their posts, and that's not likely to happen for the older posts, let alone ones that have been recently posted and the poster knows were everything is.

Ian
 

rsporsche

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i think this is a factor of the previous way we were set up, limited to very low density pics. it is probably the only way to recapture them ... is to reload them.
 
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