Why do the pictures disappear from old posts?

Could someone explain why the pics disappear from old posts? There is such a wealth of material that no longer exists on the older threads and without the pics some threads are worthless. I feel like all the effort made by the TC gang to research, photograph and compile posts is eventually going to waste.

Imagine you opened your Book of Tiki in four years time and all the pictures were gone!

I understand that it must take lots of room to store the info contained on Tiki Central and that must cost money but I thought the Grand Membership went towards this and if it's not enough perhaps we could make the site say 80% for members or limit posts to approx 25 for non members, that way people can still get a feel for TC then join.

Another option if space is the problem would be to periodically delete the silly stuff such as Photo Association etc...

Just some thoughts,
oh... I searched to see if this question had been asked and found nothing so sorry if this has been explained....
Tiki Trav

On 2008-08-24 21:31, Tiki Trav wrote:
Another option if space is the problem would be to periodically delete the silly stuff such as Photo Association etc...

yeah, for something like that thread...people should just upload their pics on
TinyPic.com
no sign up needed and people can keep their compulsive silly posting up and going...

It's a shame to see all the old threads with broken pics.
I agree, that it is a waste of research because all the good stuff is gone :(

The vast majority of those broken image links are old posts where people used the totally lame image service Shutterfly. Shutterfly broke their own links a couple years ago, making all those old images go away. Shutterfly sucks.

Partially in response to this issue, Hanford added image uploading to Tiki Central. Here's the thread where he announced this feature in August 2006:
NEW FEATURE: Tiki Central now has image uploading!

Any broken image links in posts after August 2006, I can't explain, but I can say that image storage on Tiki Central is strongly supported and encouraged.

Thanks so much for the back story on that Humu! Now it all makes sense... Such a shame to see those old pics gone but I guess there is nothing we can do.. Great to know this won't happen in the future, I was reading some old threads with no pics and was really bummed.

SHUTTERFLY...NOT IMPRESSED!

TC..VERY IMPRESSED!

Tiki Trav

On 2008-08-24 21:31, Tiki Trav wrote:
Could someone explain why the pics disappear from old posts?

Well, I guess you are old enough to understand this now...... You see Tiki Trav, its like this.....

Sometimes Pictures have to go away. You see, when a pictures gets old, it just isn't able to keep up with the rest of the world. It gets a bit out of focus, and the older it gets the more out of focus it gets until the point it is is so out of focus the picture just fades away. It goes to Picture Heaven, the great shoe-box under the bed where it can be with all of its picture friends.

Don't be sad, Tiki Trav, picture heaven is a happy place for the pictures. We may not have them with us anymore, but they are still loved and cherished in out memories.

When I grow up I'm gonna get eat all of Andy's Chips.

[ Edited by: Haole'akamai 2008-08-24 23:10 ]

....cripes, I almost became a troll....

What?

Was the Picture Heaven story to silly?

Where do you think the pictures go when they disappear?

Oh no, the story's great! (Especially since it's true) Okay, what I said was,

Gee, TikiTrav, I don't know what wrong with you, all the links work for me...

"If you can't be a good example -- then you'll just have to be a horrible warning."
-Catherine Aird

[ Edited by: Haole'akamai 2008-08-25 07:54 ]

You can never be to silly for me!

On 2008-08-25 07:54, Haole'akamai wrote:
Oh no, the story's great! (Especially since it's true) Okay, what I said was,

Gee, TikiTrav, I don't know what wrong with you, all the links work for me...

---

"If you can't be a good example -- then you'll just have to be a horrible warning."
-Catherine Aird

[ Edited by: Haole'akamai 2008-08-25 07:54 ]

Example:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=10115&forum=1

The thread you posted as an example has "lost" pictures from all over. As humu pointed out, Tiki Central did not used to have an image upload feature, so we were forced to host images on 3rd party web sites like shutterfly. When those web sites either went belly up or expired old images or whatever, the images were lost on Tiki Central. Nothing we can do about it now except for the original posters to edit their old posts and re-upload the images to Tiki Central and everything will be hunky dory. The only problem is, that's a lot of work. And a fair number of those people have moved on and no longer frequent TC. So there you go. Life isn't always fair.

Thanks Gator, I get the point, the example was in response to the quoted comment.

I was just being a smartass, TikiTrav.

You're right - It stinks when threads would be absolute trerasures, if ONLY the photo links were working.

I'll shut up now....

Does anyone know how long images are 'safe' on photobucket. I notice that my pics on my older art thread are now missing, even though I still maintain my original photobucket account. Its been a busy summer for me, so I haven't had time to re upload or even investigate the html issues.

Ah, but what happens when/if other photo-services go down - ones that are still holding old photos here on the site from pre-8/06? Photobucket, Flickr, etc (not likely, but you never know)?
Every now and then when I come across an old thread that's rich in excellent pix (or even shabby ones), I copy them to my pics folder with a cut'n paste from the thread description so I can track it back, should anything unfortunate happen to the original service provider.

Sounds maybe kinda obsessive, but precautions never hurt (anything but the space on my hard-drive...).

Does anyone know why big pictures become little pictures over time? Is that just a phenomenon that happens to me or is it a space saving 'feature' of the site? Does anyone else know what I'm talking about? Do you guys also hear the voices?

On 2008-08-25 23:40, Mr. Pupu Pants wrote:
Do you guys also hear the voices?

I thought the voices only talked to me! What do yours tell you to do? Mine are always on about how evil pants are and that we shouldn't wear them!

As to the Incredible Shrinking Pictures... unless they have been hanging out with Lily Tomlin I am not sure what causes the phenomenon. Pictures that live on the web have a tendency to just disappear when the source site changes something. Pictures that were large that are now small are probably a similar issue, where ever they live (that is not on TC) has done something to them and the link now points at the altered image.

Or the voices are just convincing you they are smaller, but they really aren't.

On 2008-08-25 23:40, Mr. Pupu Pants wrote:
Does anyone know why big pictures become little pictures over time?

I wrote this recently in response to bigbro asking the same question:

On 2008-06-29 08:28, GatorRob wrote:
Sven, the images in this thread that have been reduced to thumbnail size are hosted on shutterfly.com, not on Tiki Central. So the problem is with shutterfly or that person's shutterfly account.