The Great Photobucket Purge

[AnimalToyForum]

Photobucket have disabled unlimited third party hosting and are now charging a fee (or a ransom).

Firstly, this means Photobucket is no longer a viable image host, don't continue to use it.
Secondly, it means the majority of existing Photobucket images on the forum are now broken. With so many users posting over so many years, this is swathes of images.

The solution?

It will be a huge undertaking but by working together systematically I'm confident we can rid the entire forum of broken Photobucket links. Therefore, I'm suggesting we team up to undertake The Great Photobucket Purge.

I suggest this to consist of two initiatives.

The first is a call for all members who have posted using Photobucket to transfer their images to a new host. There is a discussion about alternative hosts in the Posting Images thread on the dinotoyforum: http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=173.0 (is there also one on ATF?) This involves risks (who knows which hosts will become the next photobucket?), but *anything* is better than Photobucket at this stage. After changing hosts, I request all users go into their old posts and replace their image links. There is no obligation to do this, of course - I realise the difficulties involved. However, I want to give people the opportunity to replace their old links prior to initiative two...

Initiative two will see myself (and any moderators willing to assist) go through the forum, thread by thread, post by post, to delete every photobucket link ever posted. I'd rather have blank posts than residual Photobucket spam. It might take months, but if we work as a team, little by little, we will get there.

Before I implement initiative two, I think it is important to give users several weeks to replace their images with the understanding that any remaining photobucket links will be removed by staff in due course. Every link a user changes will be a link a moderator doesn't have to delete, so I encourage users to take matters into their own hands to help out.

I also want to open this up for discussion before I implement initiative two. I'm aware that there are some photobucket-hosted images that still seem to appear on the forum. I'm not sure if this is because the users have paid the ransom, or if they haven't exceeded the number of third party images required to prompt the ransom message. My feeling now is that all Photobucket images should be purged, no matter what. Thoughts?

[bmathison1972]

I'm game. Busy this weekend but I'll write more this next week. I've already replaced some of my reviews. Unfortunately I don't have images prior to August 2016 anymore.

[Beetle guy]

Working on it. I will replace all relevant images. The recent acquisitions section I will delete some stuff. Give me a few weeks please.

[AnimalToyForum]

I'll wait a month or two before I start deleting any dead image links and I'll let everyone know here when the purge begins.

[BlueKrono]

I'll wait a month or two before I start deleting any dead image links and I'll let everyone know here when the purge begins.

I'll be deleting my PB account once I "rescue" the images. They need to lose some accounts over this so they can't brag about having "100 million members" anymore.

[bmathison1972]

I have updated all of my reviews of sets, a few 'taxonomic' groups, and a handful of the more interesting single-figure walkarounds. That's probably all I am going to do, at least for the foreseeable future. For some of the single figures I am not recapturing, I will probably revisit them in the form of 'set reviews'.
Again I don't have images prior to August 2016 and don't have the desire to recapture images of every single-figure walkaround.
Any other links of mine can be deleted.

I have used my administrative rights and started deleting entire threads of mine with lost images (as long as others have not posted their images on that thread).

On the plus, I have already added 4-5 new complete set reviews

[AnimalToyForum]

As per the ongoing discussion at DTF, photobucket have reactivated third-party hosting of images. At least it means any unpurged images on the ATF are visible again now. Though, who knows for how long? In that sense, it doesn't really change anything - I strongly discourage using them as a host.

[Takama]

So Photobucket is now forceing those who go over an ex number of bandwith to pay, or otherwise they will blurr your photos and watermark them at the same time, Even if you exceeded the limit before they pulled off there previous stunt.

I get the same Email several times from them saying this. Thing is, i decided im not touching that website with a 10 foot stick.      I Do not care what they do with my photos, they dont derserve a cent from ANYONE after all the ******** they put us through

[AnimalToyForum]

Well, hopefully nobody here is still using Photobucket!