Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party policy

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Plaiecivile

Member
Thank you Karak for waking us up, I believe we need a systematic approach to the problem of Photobucket changing its user policy, all holding in 4 steps. (I’m a production engineer, I like bullet point lists ;) )

1 - First everyone still active needs to switch their pictures to another host (or pay 60$ per year) and refresh their own posts.
2 - Instead of going for only our favorites, I now create a list of all threads sensible to this issue which I will update as you guys give me info (URLs of threads containing photobucket pictures from users inactive more than 6 months).
3 – Take action, only once the lists are complete. Recreat the original threads with most important information and text, clearly stating that this is a copy of original content from another user. The idea is that if we start recreating the old links, this will shift dramatically the order in which the threads are sorted in each section.
4 – Update the following URL list to avoid working in double.

**** Admins, this initiative might not go in the direction you want to go, feel free to comment or even ask me to sit back down, you might have tools or infos I don’t. I volunteer to become a “temporary admin” to help with updating the content. ****

*edit*
Thank you Admin, the list of URLs is now populated. We are up to Step 3.
If any of you guys take the time to update your links yourself, please write it down this thread.
 
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

Good efforts, Plaiecivile! I'd have chipped in saving some quality pictures of others around here if I hadn't been swamped down at Chaos Dwarfs Online in that massive salvage operation. And on top of everything else Photobucket decides to do this in the midst of sunny summer...!

Best of luck folks. Hope you can save the best manually, or even manage it automatically with techno-wizardry. Oldhammer is one of my favourite forums. GW did great stuff long before I got into the hobby in 6th ed... or was born, come to think of it. And you guys, with all your dioramas and conversions and slick paintjobs and terrain projects, make this site the treasure trove that it is.
 

administrator

Administrator
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

I managed to extract all photobucket url's from the database ordered by user, forum and topic. The database contained a total of 4000 photobucket links, not all of which are broken.

The first 200 results are done with the automatic download method, but this method did not yield the required results. The method only downloaded the first default image of each user. The results can be seen by following the links below:

Results 0-100
Results 100-200
Results 200-4000

Kind regards,
Admin
 

Plaiecivile

Member
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

OH! That is grrrreat!
And all the kids say: "Thank-you-Ad-min!"

I guess we can now skip step 2 and get to take action right away.

I hope everybody will enjoy all those "blast from the past" as we update the links.
 

Viruz

Member
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

Etranger
Etranger ":25028zdw said:
There's a work around, at least until PB catches on. Type ~original after the .jpg suffix in the image address and the photo will display.

From LAF Forum
 

Mason

Member
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

Viruz":2tcxwgae said:
Etranger
Etranger ":2tcxwgae said:
There's a work around, at least until PB catches on. Type ~original after the .jpg suffix in the image address and the photo will display.

From LAF Forum

I tried this on one of my LAF threads and it works!
:)

(For now, at least....).
 

Viruz

Member
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

Its works, but I would have to rename hundreds of photos.
I wait a few weeks, before I do this work.
Maybe I'll close my forum ??? :cry:
 

Mason

Member
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

Viruz":2tml42yz said:
Its works, but I would have to rename hundreds of photos.
I wait a few weeks, before I do this work.
Maybe I'll close my forum ??? :cry:

There is no telling how long this 'fix' will last, to be honest.

Alternatively, there is no telling what PB may do next.
I think that this 'cunning plan' of theirs has massively backfired, as I have heard of plenty of people deleting their accounts and not one person admitting to paying up.

It has harmed their image no end, which will have a knock on effect with advertisers.
They MAY have a rethink and do a u-turn or alternative plan.

For this reason I would hold on and see what happens before deleting anything.
;)
 
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

On the other hand, as Overread on DakkaDakka hypothesized:

Overread said:
Actually I can see Photobuckets sanity in all this.

Instead of just closing their doors and getting a massive storm of raging users causing a huge issue over it they are basically making their service unusable and impractical.

When you add the fees to the very laggy, very ad spamy site that they are currently running it basically presents a service that no one really wants to use and where there are multiple, free or very cheap, alternatives.

As a result of this everyone get annoyed; everyone jumps ship - and photobucket can kick the bucket a few weeks/months from now without as big a backlash.

The story is the same everywhere from casual to serious users - the interface, the laggyness, the ads and the general performance are such that most were hanging on, but were not really happy. They used it because it already had a huge archive of images on there. So now most are simply using this as a good excuse to finally clean house and move on.

Azazel said:
Even if they do, I can't see how they can recover from a PR nightmare this bad.


Overread said:
Which is why I think this is intentional. Instead of just closing shop and getting hit with people suing them or forcing their hand to remain open (ala how MS had their hand forced when they wanted to end support for Win XP); they are instead simply making the service unaffordable to maintain for the average person. The average person is not going to pay hundreds for image hosting and they know this, even those who hardly know how to use the internet are not going to just pay up that sum of money. So everyone hates on them; everyone rages; everyone leaves. In a few months time Pbucket closes its doors and no one fights to have them remain around because anyone who is still current and active has moved on at that point.

Since this move of theirs is blatantly suicidal, we should consider that Photobucket ought to have been well aware of this before launching the changes. Although we can't tell for sure until we have the final record in hand, I'm inclined to agree with Overread. This looks like more than mere bloodyminded idiocy (of a kind familiar from e.g. Games Workshop).

One'd better salvage what one can. Good work so far, Admin!
 

Padre

Member
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

I have toi be honest and admit that I don't understand what 'Step 3' is.

Does it involve editing every post?
Where will the images be hosted?

I am quite lost.

It is intriguing that the ~original addition works. But it won't last, and because of that, I can't really waste the time editing 3600 pic links (that's what I have on Warhammer Empire). I might as well just keep on with transferring everything over to a blog.
 

administrator

Administrator
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

The automatic download script is now downloading all photobucket images to the forum server. We can decide from there what to do with them. A possible option is to subsitute all photobucket urls with the local downloaded version. Alas not all images seem work with the "~original" method. A full report of alle images will be avaiable a soon as all 4061 posts are processed.
Kind regards,
Admin
 

administrator

Administrator
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

All posts have been searched for photobucket urls and downloaded to the forum server. Just replace the "http://*photobucket.com/" part with "http://forum.oldhammer.org.uk/photobucket/" to get the local version. A full list of all images downloaded can be found here.

The next step could involve a complete replacement of all photobucket urls with the local version. All users using photobucket urls on this forum will be affected by this method.
 

Padre

Member
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

Huzzah! I now know what to do and have started doing it to my campaign posts. I am, however, because of the wider audience, gonna keep up the development of my website version (which has re-edited text and so is an improvement).
 

administrator

Administrator
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

Padre":aachpraa said:
Huzzah! I now know what to do and have started doing it to my campaign posts. I am, however, because of the wider audience, gonna keep up the development of my website version (which has re-edited text and so is an improvement).
Your campaign thread has been recovered using the latest in technology viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2889
 

Padre

Member
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

Wow, thank you.

Although the act of transferring to my web site has given me the chance to edit and clean up the posts, to improve text and correct spellings and grammar, so a crazy part of me wants to go through the thread and try to insert hundreds of little changes.

That way madness lies, but at least here there is a full version of the campaign that my players can reference until the far future when the web site (www.bigsmallworlds.com) has caught up.

Again, a massive thank you.
 

Padre

Member
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

Actually, that was an insufficient answer. I am extremely grateful you have done this. It is amazing!

I can now add a link to the Empire Forum, Vampire Counts and Strike to Stun to direct the campaign's followers there to a place they can see it again.

You have basically beaten Photobucket's evil. You are a hero!

(Also, I owe you one.)
 

administrator

Administrator
Re: Help save forum content from Photobucket 3rd party polic

A level 25 Hero I hope ;)
No problem Padre, I hate to see you leaving the forum because of this. Your campaign thread was a test. I just did all your posts. Consider your user cleansed.
 
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