Images possibly being deleted by imgur on 5/15/2023

[Eric Rechlin]

Something that came up in the news a couple weeks ago was that imgur is planning to be "removing old, unused, and inactive content that is not tied to a user account" on May 15. What exactly this means hasn't been clarified, but the assumption is that any images that were anonymously uploaded to the site will be deleted.

A lot of us here have been using imgur for image hosting due to the limitations of the HP Musem image hosting. I'm sure some are uploading them with an account, but many (myself included) have not. This presumably means that a few dozen of the images I have put on my posts here over the last 6 years or so will be deleted.

I have gone through and backed up images hosted by imgur that were in posts on this forum (at least those that I could find). I encourage anyone here who is using imgur for image hosting to verify that they uploaded their images to their account, and if not, look into backing up the images they posted so they can be reuploaded if they are lost, and the posts edited to use the new images. I will be editing my posts after 5/15 if the images disappear, to restore them at new locations. And going forward, make sure you are signed into imgur when uploading images so they will be tied to your account and not deleted.

Source:

https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/14415587638029

Also, a news article:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04/...ext-month/

[Thomas Klemm]

Thank you Eric for pointing that out.
I've downloaded my images in case they are removed.

---

Dave, is it still possible to have my quota for attachments increased?
Currently it is 8 MB.
Another 8 MB would be enough to upload the images from imgur.

Or what else would you suggest?

[Dave Hicks]

OK, I've doubled your attachment allowance.

[Dave Hicks]

By the way, I’ve been warned that answering that request publicly might be a bad idea, and that might turn out to be correct, but I’m leaving it for now, hoping that it does not lead to a deluge of “me toos”. Hosting lots of photos gets expensive – I’ve seen a number of photo hosting sites come and go, trying to find some business model that pays the bills, so I’m trying to avoid being “too much” of a free photo host while also allowing some extra room for a few active contributors.

[pier4r]

(05-14-2023 06:57 PM)Dave Hicks Wrote:  I’ve seen a number of photo hosting sites come and go, trying to find some business model that pays the bills,

Yes that's the problem, especially by expensive content. We all learned that internet forgets if the data is expensive (read: takes space if everyone does the same) and doesn't generate visits.
Pretty annoying though, as one has to change service every X years.
An alternative to imgur is https://postimages.org/ , but then again even they may clean up sooner or later.

PS: by imgur go to settings, "download account images" to get a copy of the images.

[pier4r]

As extra, I know Hetzner (that I consider pretty reliable) offers storageboxes with https sharing and access (behind authentication).

There could be made a space for "paying contributors that need more storage" or the like, with then links on the forum. A sort of pool of storage every X paying users.
https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-box?country=de

[Bushcat]

(05-14-2023 06:57 PM)Dave Hicks Wrote:  Hosting lots of photos gets expensive

If it's not already being used, something like Image Auto-Resizer for MyBB might help out: enforcing max image size saves a lot of space. I'm not sure if there's a MyBB extension that can enforce max image quality, though.