Missing photos from Archive posts

[RichardG]

This forum has such a wealth of information in its archive but is being spoilt by the number of images, diagrams etc. that were hosted on Photobucket and other hosting sites that no longer allow free embedding so display a very low res image or no image at all.

Has anyone found an easy way to solve this? I had an attempt this morning by looking at the page source, extracting the photobucket URL, going there directly with a browser, copying the image and then added to the thread but it's painful to say the least plus it's a lower res image.

I was wondering whether authors who still use the site would be willing to re-add images to their old posts if asked?

Richard

 

[Noel]

It would be good if that happened Richard. There are instances when I've searched for something in particular and come up against the little image icon (or whatever), so no image. I think most are using other hosting sites these days such as Imgur etc or attaching images but it is unfortunate that some are disappearing. Some years ago many used uploadit to host images, that went down the pan along with 100s of pictures. It would be a big ask for all (ex) Photobucket users to relist but even a small proportion would be helpful.

 

[AndyT]

I agree - "free sites" disappearing have spoiled a lot of our older content.
Back when Photobucket blew up, there was quite a lot of discussion on here and on other forums.
I took the matter into my own hands and bought a cheap starter level domain and web space deal. I then looked back at the only bit of automation I ever managed to understand and wrote a Word macro which I could use to mindlessly replace the old Photobucket urls with new ones leading to my own site.
I described it all here

photo-hosting-site-t106334-60.html?hilit=macro

If other users, especially those with lots of old material, have the time and inclination to follow suit, that would be very welcome.

 

[CHJ]

I spent a few hours attaching images to a few 'photobucket' hit sites where threads had reference or guidance information if I was able to download the original from search engine archives, originators web sites or members records.

Unfortunately this was a very limited portion of the site content, also lost are images originally hosted on members web sites that have since folded.

I think the only realistic method of retrieving images if there is something someone is desperately in need of, is to contact the originator to see if they have copies of the originals.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I lost the use of some web space I used to use for photos, so went through my old posts and added the photos as attachments - which I presume is the best solution as they should be there as long as the rest of the forum (?) It was a bit of a labour of love I can tell you, and I guess there are users with a lot more photos than me.

 

[RichardG]

Thanks for the info, I missed the previous thread on picture hosting. Personally I think the only long term solution is to only upload pictures to the forum and accept the lower resolution as all external sites will go down or start charging at some point. Flickr being a case in point.

Perhaps this is something you just have to accept on Internet based resources. A solution would be to print all the pictures and text out and then bind them into a usefully sized item that could be kept...probably never catch on though