Important post! Please read!

[Antonio Scapini]

After very long deliberation and with approval of most (active) moderators and with the comment of the owner of the forum that he never liked the idea of outside hosting anyway, the following policy change will be introduced here in General WH Awards forum (and at the distinction of moderators of other subfora in their areas):

Posts or new threads which contain photos that are hosted by an outside source will be erased! In special cases, at the discretion of moderators or association members, photos from outside hosting might be and can be copied and pasted back into such threads by moderators or any association member. The goal is not censorship but preservation of thread integrity.
This policy is instituted in order to preserve the threads for later reading and thus also preserving the integrity of the overall forum, being one of the best sources on the planet for this hobby. It has unfortunately happened over the last years that a very large amount of threads became useless due to the missing photos. This policy will stop that degeneration of the forum.

We sincerely hope this will find the approval of all members, no matter the membership status.

[Lutfen]

Excellent news!

Michael

[Ian Hulley]

Not good news for those of us who can't/don't wish to become Association Members though .... those who for 14 and 1/2 years have shared our knowledge and collections and taken far less back.

I have NEVER deleted a single photograph that I have shared on here.

Ian.

P.S. Maybe some kind of discretion could be applied allowing for year's 'service' ? The main offenders after all are the fly in, grab information and fly out again types.

[jmcm]

[Dietrich Maerz]

I have NEVER deleted a single photograph that I have shared on here.
Ian.

Dear Ian,

this is nothing personal at all and I am sure you never deleted anything you posted earlier. It is the the hosting site that decides after a certain amount of time to erase the photos - there is nothing you can do.
However, I am absolutely sure that in cases where the photo contribution is very substantial and informative the moderators will not erase and even copy/paste your photos!

[Sevrin]

Photos Gone

There has to be some solution to the photo problem. There are threads on here not a even a month old where the photos were hosted and already gone.

Most of the time members just aren't going to take the time to save other people's hosted pics to the server and it shouldn't be their responsibility anyhow. A few people can't catch every thing posted to the forums.

Not sure what the answer is. I've been saving a lot of old display threads and it sucks how many photos are gone for good.

James

[Sevrin]

I have NEVER deleted a single photograph that I have shared on here.

Unfortunately it doesn't matter. Most free hosting sites eventually dump your photos if they stop receiving a certain amount of traffic, etc. over time. So in a way, it's "pay to play" no matter what route you take. Same thing for me; I used to use hosting too before I subscribed here; and every single photo I posted back then is long gone.

Maybe a solution can be found, I don't know. As long as the "perk" for subscribers is being able to post saved pics, I don't see a way around that.

James

[Helene]

I have researched this topic before, and spoke to the “boss” with regards to photos and their lifetime . With photos on very old posts, I would assume the member would have the original anyway. Yes, I understand that we all get pleasure from reading and viewing photos from others to further our knowledge on the subject but once viewed and comments made, isn’t that enough, I mean, when was the last time you looked at a post that was over 4-5 years old. It is a complicated process of keeping very old material with the server. ( when I open emails that are over two years old I find that the content is no longer available) Save it or lose it.
I know we live in a digital world now, but I am old school and still enjoy reading off paper.
On a personal note, I have enjoyed this forum for many years, but occasionally I feel some members treat it as a show and tell.
I prefer to have more educational discussions about subjects.

As Dietrich said, posts that are more informative and contribute to the greater, I am sure they will be there to be enjoyed for years to come.