Imgur Removing Inactive / NSFW Images

[Keep Looking]

Hi all

Since quite a lot of people here use and/or have used Imgur to host images on the forum, I've decided to make a thread to address Imgur's new terms of service in which they have stated they plan on removing old images not tied to accounts as well as nsfw images.

Here is a good article which summarises the situation, but in short to quote from Imgur:
"We will be focused on removing old, unused, and inactive content that is not tied to a user account from our platform as well as nudity, pornography, & sexually explicit content. Most notably, this would include explicit/pornographic content."

If you think you have images hosted on Imgur that might be at risk of removal, please consider moving them to a different hosting site. One of the great things about a forum like this is the luxury we have to view images and artworks from throughout the fandom's history, so if images get removed from Imgur this will affect much of our own archives. If people have any suggestions for how to deal with this, especially with older images and threads and inactive users, please let us know.

[JoB]

If people have any suggestions for how to deal with this, especially with older images and threads and inactive users, please let us know.

... would it be possible to have the forum's DB systematically scanned for all links pointing to Imgur, to get an idea how much storage space we'd need to have for a while-the-clock-still-ticks backup?

[wavewright62]

I have no idea about the capabilities JoB asked about, but I am massively concerned about this, from the 'stuff not to do' section:

Also, don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere, content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that turns us into your content delivery network.

Does that not explicitly ban all the images we host there for use on here?  Besides my own output that I've shared here, I personally, as a mod who runs Forum events, have hundreds of images stored in my hidden imgur account.  This includes scads of reaction images, and all of the offerings for the Advent Calendar over the last 5 years.  Come to think of it, the numerals we use for the calendar days are themselves imgur files, that aren't on my account.

At one point I started to save some images onto my imgur as a Forum archive to avoid the fate of the fanworks hosted on Photobucket that are now dead links.  I didn't get very far, though, due to time constraints, and now have even less time these days.

And to be honest, are the alternative hosting platforms more trustworthy?

[Keep Looking]

Also, don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere, content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that turns us into your content delivery network.

Yes, that clause in particular is very concerning for our site. On the one hand, I don't know how they'd be able to determine that the images on Imgur from our users are being posted elsewhere, but it is very much how forum users have used Imgur.

I know that I have a few images I've hosted on Imgur, so I'm definitely going to download those and make sure they're backed up.

And to be honest, are the alternative hosting platforms more trustworthy?

That's the problem with image hosting platforms, I guess - you never know when the image host is going to change terms, or kick the bucket, or otherwise compromise your images. And I don't think our forum itself has the capacity to host all its own images - that'd require very large amounts of storage space that we presumably don't have.

I can ask Hushpiper, who manages the databases, if there's any way we can get an idea of how many images we'd need to back up. In order to properly back up any substantial number of images, though, we'd have to have a team effort and also concentrate our efforts on particular areas - I suspect it would be very difficult to try and back up every single image on the forum that is hosted on imgur. Potentially focusing efforts on areas like forum events (eg. the advent calendar) and the main art threads would mean we could prevent major losses without working people to the bone (I'm studying and also just got a new casual job, and I know most other people here are also doing other things with their lives).

[Keep Looking]

Right now I'm concentrating on backing up all the images from the chapter break fillers, since that was an event I used to run and it's a pretty focused area for me to start with.

[JoB]

I am massively concerned about this, from the 'stuff not to do' section:

Also, don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere, content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that turns us into your content delivery network.

Does that not explicitly ban all the images we host there for use on here?

Well, yes, it does. Already (i.e., already in their current ToS).

Spoiler: show

Assuming that "we" are bound to those ToS in the first place, that is. I never formally registered with them, and enforcing "click anything and you're bound to them" ToS here is nontrivial. But on the flip side, no ToS means that they could delete my (few) images without prior notice, too.

And to be honest, are the alternative hosting platforms more trustworthy?

https://www.quora.com/Who-originally-suggested-that-if-youre-not-paying-for-the-product-you-are-the-product

Read: They may be, as long as you have a contract with an SLA.

On the one hand, I don't know how they'd be able to determine that the images on Imgur from our users are being posted elsewhere

Looking at the Referer: header of an HTTP(S) request to see whether it's your website including the actual image is trivial, not to mention more modern methods. Circumventing such mechanisms is trivial in theory, but it does require a fair bit of infrastructure (setting up a web proxy, or using an altered browser).

Of course, because it is comparatively trivial and popular, Imgur would have a problem claiming that they never knew about the abuse happening ...

[JoB]

Quick note to the DIYers: If you're not posting much imagery (via Imgur), using the forum's search function (fill in your own username before clicking "Search") seems to work quite well. If you find that you've been talking about Imgur a lot, rather than using it to post images, try appending ".com" to the search keyword.

(It's already too late for some, though ...)

[thorny]

don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere, content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that turns us into your content delivery network

What's it for, then? Just a storage space for one's private pics, maybe to be sent directly to friends and family?

[moredhel]

... would it be possible to have the forum's DB systematically scanned for all links pointing to Imgur, to get an idea how much storage space we'd need to have for a while-the-clock-still-ticks backup?

If storage space is a problem and it is not so much a problem it is relatively slow and downtime can happen I could offer some space (a bit more than a TB is free here).