Like many
other blogs and forums around the world, my blogs are also among the recent
Photobucket new policy victims. While I have no interest discussing the great
loss of information suffered in terms of knowledge, I certainly can recognize
Photobucket was in its own right to do so. Most of us were there for the free
ride and we should be glad it lasted for such a long time. I'm in no position to complain though I feel Photobucket made itself infamous in a matter of a few minutes.
That said,
it means most of this blog posts were rendered almost useless. I estimate about
200 posts have broken links and that represents about 2/3 of everything I wrote
on Hedley Junction until I switched to Blogger’s option to directly embed the
material in late 2015. Given I generally use 3 to 4 pictures per post, it means
I would have to restore more than 600 to 800 images. That’s a lot of work!
However, I feel I have a duty toward the readers here to keep things in order.
As a matter
of fact, over the last weeks I already started restoration work and can announce
Hedley-Junction satellite blogs such as Quebec South Shore Railway, Temiscouata
Railway Connors Branch and Erie Harlem Staion are now fully functional again.
In the case
of Hedley-Junction, the sheer amount of information means I’ll do the work as
time allows. Don’t expect a swift restoration as I have many other commitments.
However, I already restored the first posts describing the origin of the project
and now plan to restore posts from the most recent to the older since I think
older content was less relevant to the actual version of the layout. I certainly hope the blog will be back in its glory by September.
Finally, my summer vacation starts today and will be quite busy, including a large scale home improvement project. I suspect I won't have time to model as much as I would want, but probably will continue working on my cement car weathering which is quite much involving that I first thought.
Wow, it looks like Photobucket really didn't think this through. I see a LOT of angry people out there. Personally I host my own images or use Blogger, but I can see how this would create a TON of work to restore things. :(
ReplyDeleteSteve, we can almost compare it to the loss of Alexandria Library in Antiquity to some extent. And most people won't have the time, energy or will to replace the pictures. It's quite sad in term of knowledge loss.
DeleteI feel your pain, Matthieu:
ReplyDeleteI too used Photobucket for my blogs - including Port Rowan in 1:64, which has more than 2,000 images on it that I have to migrate.
I'm in the process of doing that now. It's going to take some time. Fortunately, I am (soon to be "was") a paying customer of Photobucket so I have until December 2018 to do the migration - and it just might take that long!
I'm moving my images to my own server, which is hosted by my ISP and is where my WordPress-powered blogs reside.
I agree - Photobucket had the right to change it terms of service and I think they're being fair in giving those who have been paying a grace period. I'm disappointed that they are offering a single, corporate rate (US$400 per year) for those who want third-party hosting. I think they could've come up with a not-for-profit rate for person blogs and such, although it would require enforcement. However - their business, their rules.
Again, good luck with the migration!
- Trevor (Port Rowan in 1:64, Achievable Layouts, and Adventures in Live Steam)
Trevor, I can't even start to imagine how much work putting Port Rowan back on track must be. However, you are doing a great favor by doing it. Your endeavour in 1:64 had a tremendous effect on many people and it would be a waste if it couldn't continue in the past.
DeleteI also agree drawing the line between corporate users and not-for-profit users would have been quite hard.
Matt