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Post by JohnH on Jun 30, 2017 3:21:22 GMT -5
So this this is more than annoying. It is extortion.
Without warning, Photobucket has changed its ToS to prevent linking and 3rd party hosting from free accounts. They have several new versions of paid accounts, but only the most expensive at $399 USD per year will provide the required service.
It makes Ransomeware a bargain at only $300 for a once off fix!
This means everything I have posted on GN2 these last 10 years is now covered in dead images.
Ill try to repair some of my main posts, but it will take some time and may not be fully successful. My plan A will be to try to host them from my own webspace.
Sh!t
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Post by newey on Jun 30, 2017 7:15:26 GMT -5
This is worse than horrible. I am in the process of downloading everything off of photobucket so that at least I have it in one place, as I have uploaded stuff from different machines over the years.
As John says, we will have to manually resurrect the important stuff. I will also start a new thread to alert new users to the issue.
I suggest that, apart from hosting images as John proposes to do, we can use the attachment function going forward.
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Post by JohnH on Jun 30, 2017 18:40:44 GMT -5
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Post by col on Jun 30, 2017 19:53:26 GMT -5
Sorry - I missed this thread and posted instead posted to the Notice thread: guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/7961/notice-re-lost-imagesHi newey, When I spotted this, and the explanation by/at Photobucket, I hoped the fee would not be too onerous (though, any fee would have a very negative effect). As a matter of interest, how much does Photobucket charge account holders to restore third-party viewing of the images? As you appear to have hinted at: the retroactive aspect of their actions demonstrates contempt for their present members. The negative result for places like Gnuts is serious. Unfortunately, I see this pattern continuing with image hosts. What was the name of the image host who did something similar a bout a year ago? www.ghacks.net/2017/06/30/photobucket-now-charges-399-for-third-party-hosted-images/Crap. So, $40/month or $400/year. I'd be surprised if any Gnut members go for that. Hopefully, some of them will retrieve their images and choose to have them hosted somewhere else (and eidit their posts to reflect the new location). For the moment, at least, the placeholder image/message from Photobucket does link to the original image. But, I am uncertain how many members will realise this and assume that the image is permanently unavailable. Gnut Admins/Mods could try harvesting the images, copy them to another host, and edit the post to point to the new location. However, the original poster might not be happy about that and it raises obvious issues around copyright. Third-party image hostswill inevitably lead to more of these kinds of problems. There are no obvious easy solutions. Gnuts having its own domain entails (some) additional work, and you cannot take what you have here (except what you individually own and have not lost - as some did - when ImageShack changed its TOS. These actions by Photobucket and (before them) ImageShack are very hard-nosed. At least Photobucket seem to allow their members access to their old accounts to retrieve the information. Unfortunately, most Gnut members who have made use of their services will not do what JohnH is doing (some will not even be able to access their old Photobucket accounts at all (lost password / no acces to the old associated email account). Bollocks. |
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Post by JohnH on Jul 1, 2017 17:41:49 GMT -5
I've restored my reference posts, stickies and 'Johns Tones' threads. I'll be going through my schematics too.
What I'm doing is first to download each PB album and store it on my pc. Then I upload them as-is to a folder in the webspace that we use for my wife's horse business. Each forms a backup for the other. Then, when I come to fix one of my posts, its a consistent edit to change the PB URL reference to the new one, as far as the folder name, so it's reesonablyy quick to do a few posts at a time.
We only have a relatively small amount of web space, by even that is plenty to hold our site plus the images and GuitarFreak files, with about 2/3 of it still spare.
It feels good to take back control.
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Post by newey on Jul 1, 2017 22:25:34 GMT -5
We have talked in the past about migrating the Board to our own server, but that seem a fraught enterprise with lots of pitfalls. Later, we discussed hosting our own images. Perhaps it is now time that we do so. We can't, after all, be sidelining John's wife's horse business indefinitely.  As probably the least tech-saavy staff member around, I'll take my education anywhere I can get it. So, technically speaking, what would it take? Offhand, I'm envisioning paying (I will volunteer to do so)for cloud-based storage where our collective images would be hosted. Everyone participating would have to open an account for the cloud storage, and could then upload images to it, which could then be url-tagged in posts. What would it take to set up something like this? Obviously, a cloud-based account of some size, together with the software needed to run the thing- but is this even doable, and how would we go about it? |
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Post by col on Jul 1, 2017 23:56:11 GMT -5
I'm not sure how the 'collective storage' would work. As I've suggested before, probably the easiest way to go in this direction (self-hosting) would be to register your own domain, host it somewhere ($5/month probably would be enough, initially). For Gnuts, I doubt that you'd ever need to spend more than about $10-15/month.
Once you have your own webhost, install some free forum software (it is pretty easy - but I can help with any difficulties). Then, apply your forum settings - they can be pretty complicated at first glance, but it soon becomes more transparent. Most forum software allows for members to add attachments and/or inline images hosted at your own website. Over time, you would need more web space. But, if you are sensible with the size of images members are allowed upload, and if you include image optimisation software - this might be in-built with the forum software, and given the low activity associated with Gnuts, this place will never be become so large that you will need to spend more than the $10-15/month I suggested earlier.
You will need to keep your software patched, but this is usually pretty straightforward. And, backups. Again, given the size of this place, that's not likely to cause problems (larger forums, with their larger associated databases can be more difficult to backup).
Given the collective abilities of the regulars at Gnuts, there is nothing with hosting your website and maintaining it that should prove burdensome to you as a group. I can help too with the setup.
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Post by lunaalta on Jul 2, 2017 13:08:13 GMT -5
$5 a month should get around 125 Gb, or more, of disc space, with cPanel and bunches of software thrown in........ I'd be happy to help, too, if needed. Started web design some 25 years ago. Stopped about 5 years ago, being fed up with the BigG taking over the Interwebs and the world...... LOL. The only downside to setting up a hosted forum is the possible difficulty in importing the current forum posts.......... Perhaps, as an alternative, a photo album site could be hosted. That is, get hosting and load a free photo album program and keep the forum where it is. The upside to this is that very little maintenance would be needed. No update worries, no hacker worries, nor spammer worries, etc..... proboards do quite a good job at these..... If you wanted, you could add pages with general information, reference articles, and all sorts of other stuff, just keep the forum as is and link to it. And, of course, members could log into the photo album to upload their images and link back to them from the forum. Just thinking out loud.......  |
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Post by col on Jul 2, 2017 15:03:52 GMT -5
Hi, lunaalta. Ah, It looks like we have an expert to help!
That 125GB of disk space: shared server? I assume there would be no server software to maintain. I must admit, it has been a very long time since I shopped for shared hosting - I didn't realise that that much space is available for just a few dollars/month. 125GB, with some sensible upload limits, should be enough for a Gnut website/forum for a very long time.
Yeah, I think newey and the rest of the team are aware that they cannot take the ProBoard data with them - ProBoards do not allow for that. Seems that PB are missing out on trick there - if they instead provided various versions of the forum data (converted to support the various popular forum software), they could charge quite well for that.
If newey et al instead hosted a gallery, how would that work with newer members? I assume you mean that they would have to join up with the hosted gallery too? That might work for established members, but not so well for the more causal visitor.
I think the decision comes down to how much control of the data the owner of the new site desires balanced against ease of maintenance.
Anyway, since you obviously know much more than me about this, and are willing to help, for simplicity I'll step back with my offer of help. Though, I'll always help Gnuts where I can down the line.
Thank you lunaalta.
Col.
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Post by lunaalta on Jul 2, 2017 17:47:50 GMT -5
I might be a little rusty, so don't go too far, things move fast on the Interwebs......  Yup, shared hosting, but very reliable, hardly any down time or glitches. In fact, my host took charge of Internet traffic and hosting during the floods in southern U. S, some years back, to keep things running..... They were based in Texas, I was living in Spain and my main traffic was from U.K. What a small world......  Not too long ago, they offered unlimited space, bandwidth and email accounts for $9 pm, paid annually. Even had facilities to host other sites, too. Logging in to the photo gallery just needs one user name and password. That can be posted in the forum, someplace, for members to use as and when. I use a musician's forum (actually a moderator, LOL) and we have a similar system for using the ftp file sharing system. You need to be a member to get to see the password. Trust is the word. And a spring clean, now and then..... Ted |
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Post by newey on Jul 3, 2017 5:42:16 GMT -5
Hosting our own photos would, I think, be the goal. We've explored moving the forum iteslf, but immediately we ran into the problem of how to keep what we already have.
If a photo-sharing site could be set up for a small fee, that would be ideal. Lunaalta seems to have "volunteered", so please let me know how we can proceed? We can probably take this discussion to PMs at this point.
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Post by lunaalta on Jul 3, 2017 7:50:28 GMT -5
Me and my big mouth.......   Of course, I'd be happy to help. Being retired, I seem to have a lot of time on my hands......... I'll be in touch, Newey. |
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Post by col on Jul 3, 2017 15:12:38 GMT -5
Hi altaluna,
I'm still not 100% sure how the shared gallery space would work out in practice, but it would allow this PB forum to continue.
I read some time ago that it is possible to alter the operation (through JS) of PB forum menu buttons. I wonder if this is possible for the IMG tag button? If so, just maybe it will be possible to change it's function to upload pictures to the remote image server? Just an off-the-wall idea. (Just checked - it does seem possible to change tag button function, but I did not find anything specific to redirecting to an off-site image server). I think something will need to happen at the stage when a (newer) member tries to attach an image. Maybe a popup notice with instructions instead (through JS manipulation of the image tag button). Assuming that we keep this PB forum, I think we need to give some thought to likely member behaviour when they attempt to add an image to their post (most people do not read rules and special instructions when they join a forum).
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Post by col on Jul 3, 2017 16:12:13 GMT -5
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Post by newey on Jul 4, 2017 7:38:10 GMT -5
I'm not particularly worried about new members uploading photos. It shouldn't be any more burdensome than the existing way, through photobucket or other 3rd-party service. We would need to set some size limits for uploading, but I assume there is some software to allow that.
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Post by lunaalta on Jul 4, 2017 14:39:52 GMT -5
Resizing, I 'm guessing, will be the least of the problems.....  I doubt that modifying the PB code would be the way to go. If they don't supply the facility, the won't want us to shoe horn it in, I'm sure. Currently, folk use their own image hosting and link to it. If GN can offer the image hosting, it'll be just as easy....... I'm looking into the best program to use to do the job efficiently and cleanly. |
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Post by JohnH on Jul 4, 2017 15:21:34 GMT -5
A couple of thoughts:
The image attaching function that we now have is very useful. Its good for ongoing discussions between members since it is very quick to do, no need to upload anywhere else. Compared to similar on other forums, its not quite so good though, since only logged-in members can see the images full sized and the thumbnails are quite small. For posts that are likely to be seen by different people, or found by others on the net, I still like to have full sized embedded images, hence the need for hosting somewhere.
When we bring in an image hosted elsewhere, only the poster has control of that image, dependent on wherever they got it hosted (and subject to that host not going feral). If we have our own hosting, despite that we all trust each other, I think it would be good to only allow access to images by the poster and the forum staff. Otherwise some new subversive member could come in and trash the place. That would require some kind of log-in system to the hosting as well as to the forum._
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Post by col on Jul 4, 2017 16:20:40 GMT -5
JohnH I have already considered this. The solution would be to allow members to upload images, but not edit or delete them. Only Admins might delete them. If possible, it would be useful for Moderators to hide images (although imperfect, this can be achieved by simply editing the offending post). lunaalta (Maybe we are cross purposes, but) PB do do allow for the kind of changes I described earlier. These topics are at their own support forum, and they have an area dedicated these kinds of discussions. Perhaps you refer to in-built options? If so, yes, creating our code to alter functionality can create additional problems (maintaining code to remain compatible with any changes PB make to their code; or changes to the TOS). Still, I think some kind of change does need to occur at the point a member attempts to add an image (even if it just a pop-up explanation). Many new members add images here. If there is no obvious way for them to do this, they may go elsewhere. (In case it is not completely obvious) I should make clear now that I could not code the JS to change behaviour of the IMG tag button.
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Post by lunaalta on Jul 4, 2017 16:47:02 GMT -5
JohnH Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking, all of what you said. col Sorry, I didn't read the threads you linked to (went all cloudy, LOL), my bad! Yup, upload only. They would probably need to log in, giving a user name and password, but these they can get at 'the door', just as they would at any image host. Not sure I can code the PB button either, yet..... Nothing ventured....., etc.  I'm wondering, what would the attachments button be used for? If clicked, where would it take you, that is? In theory, to the portal of the image host facility, I guess, where you can sign in or join up..... But, then you need to log in, load images to host, then, somehow, get them linked back to the page you were on..... Or, am I missing something. It is late, and it's been a long day, for me...... Would not having both the current attachment facility and an image hosting for embedded images work out better? Or maybe not....... 
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Post by b4nj0 on Jul 4, 2017 16:50:59 GMT -5
I am never quite sure how large an image will appear once it's commited. I can cite my recent attempts to upload remotely hosted screenshots from my defunct tablet on the legacy GN1 thread. If I could not have edited those cropped screen grabs, they would have appeared very small. How would that work out if only a mod was allowed to edit the images once they are hosted on Proboards? Extra work for the Mods editing image sizes?
e&oe...
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Post by col on Jul 4, 2017 17:32:16 GMT -5
I did not even considering 'attachments'. Until now (I'm not sure why), I assumed that it was fee-based option. Why do so few new Gnuts make use of it? If the function of the IMG tag button is changed, I wonder if will be possible to include the login with operating the button. Or, probably easier, no login as such - just monitor (at image-host site) for where the login request comes from (guitarnuts2.proboards.com) and disallow access from any other origin. b4nj0 When the image is uploaded, the image URL will need to be displayed so that it can be copied to the Gnuts post. I'm not sure where any of this gets us though. I fear that the cure might be worse than the disease. Maybe a better solution would be to encourage new members to join the Gnut image host (for free). I'm not sure of the best way to inform members about this option. As it is an option, we would need to keep the IMG tag button as is (not as I suggested earlier, change its behaviour to either link/login to the image host, or display an explanation pop-up). |
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Post by lunaalta on Jul 4, 2017 18:22:36 GMT -5
b4nj0 There are server side apps that will resize images, automatically.
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Post by reTrEaD on Jul 4, 2017 21:54:43 GMT -5
I did not even considering 'attachments'. Until now (I'm not sure why), I assumed that it was fee-based option. Why do so few new Gnuts make use of it? The Why: I think attachments are a relatively recent addition to ProBoards. iirc, they weren't available when GN2 started. Additionally, attachments do have some limitations. I believe the largest file size is 1MB. Also, the images default to a thumbnail which must be clicked to see the full size image. And the full size image isn't available unless you're logged in. So yeah, for the most part attachments are usable. But not always the best choice. |
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Post by newey on Jul 4, 2017 21:57:47 GMT -5
The original ProBoards software did not allow for attachments- those were added with the newer version of the PB software, which IIRC was in about 2011.
Until fairly recently, sg and I limited the use of attachments to staff members, so as to avoid any potential problems with spammers. But now ProBoards no longer allows us to limit the use of attachments, so it's "open season" for all members. There is a size limit, but I think it's 1 gig (total per post, could be multiple attachments) so not realistically an issue.
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Post by col on Jul 4, 2017 22:16:00 GMT -5
newey Attachments at PB is limited to three per post, and maximum of 1MB (perhaps that is what you meant) per attachment. That's probably enough (per image) so long as there is the option upload a larger image file and PB to automatically optimise it (reduce the file/image size) to fulfill their requirements.
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Post by b4nj0 on Jul 5, 2017 2:39:42 GMT -5
Guys I acknowledge the responses, but I operate almost completely from various Android platform devices using the Proboards app and some of the available functionality is missing in relation to (but not restricted to) the issue at hand. I rarely boot up a desktop (unless it's to watch a movie) these days. I gather that I'm not alone in this?
Whatever, uploading images to (eg) Photobucket is a pain on my mobile devices.
The bottom line in all this is that there is no free lunch. Instead of placing trust in various "dot.com" startups that eventually discover the sums don't add up, perhaps we should think about how we secure things for posterity, even if it does incur a charge. I don't know about the logistics of getting images up on The Forum, but it seems to me that "The Big G". storage has a much greater chance of riding out financial stress than the these fly-by-nights. I'm anticipating that "Postimage" will be next organisation to falter in the bow wave of ad blockers...
On another forum, I offered to assist with costs to hold back the advertising and the owner declined stating that it was his responsibility, so I paid the fee for one month only to discover that could only be applied by an admin. Cheers for that one Proboards!
e&oe...
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Post by newey on Jul 5, 2017 5:28:54 GMT -5
Those discussions are ongoing now. The basic idea will be a website where we can host our own images.
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