I've noticed some image hosting websites have been enforcing some of the rules in their policy more strictly lately.
A week ago Flickr blocked all images being linked to from another forum because the Flickr Guidelines say that you need to have the image link back to the image on Flickr, which many people neglect to do. ImageShack has a similar rule in their policy but I haven't seen them enforce it anywhere yet, but better be safe than sorry...

So this is just a precaution to prevent such a thing from happening to our community.

Also, I'd like to remind you guys to make sure that you don't break any copyright laws. Since we mainly have in-game screenshots (which we're allowed to make as long as we don't make a profit from them), this usually isn't a problem for us. But if you post real-life pictures made by someone else, keep in mind they may be copyrighted sometimes

Greetings,
Glodenox

__________________
XML, SOAP, XSLT, JavaScript, SQL, Java, CSS, PHP, Scheme, JSP, C#, ASP.NET, VB.NET, PL/SQL, Visual Basic 6.0, C/AL and C (sorted well to less known).

thanks mr glode! maybe we should make a backup of all these quest images so we dont lose them? they are the hard part of the guides!

__________________
| My Characters | Guide Writers | Village Values | Donate to RV |

The images on our site aren't and never will be in danger as they're hosted on our own server, which nobody can touch, if that's what you mean...

I'm talking about the images people have posted on the forums. For their convenience, they use Flickr or ImageShack, but often leave out the part which makes the image link back to the hosting site - which is against the policy of some of those sites.

As for quest images in guides under production, where the raw images can be hosted on those other sites: those should always be backed up on your computer because you can't rely on how long those hosts will be hosting those images.

Greetings,
Glodenox

__________________
XML, SOAP, XSLT, JavaScript, SQL, Java, CSS, PHP, Scheme, JSP, C#, ASP.NET, VB.NET, PL/SQL, Visual Basic 6.0, C/AL and C (sorted well to less known).

Just had a look at Imageshack's ToS, I can't actually see that ruling on their site. http://reg.imageshack.us/content.php?page=rules I'd still say do it, but just thought I'd pop that in It's probably best to check the ToS of your prefered image hosting service.

Moose out

__________________

My old Prince 2004 emblem goes here.
Barely active on Runevillage anymore, but you can find me on Guild Wars 2 - Gandara EU
Member Number: 3950; Final Donation Amount: $1,500

I looked at their FAQ and noticed the following under "Does ImageShack allow direct linking?":

Greetings,
Glodenox

__________________
XML, SOAP, XSLT, JavaScript, SQL, Java, CSS, PHP, Scheme, JSP, C#, ASP.NET, VB.NET, PL/SQL, Visual Basic 6.0, C/AL and C (sorted well to less known).

Ahh, there we go then.

__________________

My old Prince 2004 emblem goes here.
Barely active on Runevillage anymore, but you can find me on Guild Wars 2 - Gandara EU
Member Number: 3950; Final Donation Amount: $1,500

Is there a website that maybe has no direct-link that you would recommend for convenience?

__________________
Under Construction

I believe Google, but im not certain.

__________________



There are 10 types of people in the world, the ones that understand binary, and the ones that don't.

Thanks Lou for the help with the avatar.

All image-hosting sites pretty much want you to link to their site when you post an image. It's party that way that they get their money. Because there are so many links to them, many search engines treat those sites as very important sites.
Because of that, they can ask money from other sites to get a link placed from their site to another site (thus giving that other site more "prestige" for search engines).

All in all, we don't need a strict policy about it or anything, but just keep it in mind

Greetings,
Glodenox

__________________
XML, SOAP, XSLT, JavaScript, SQL, Java, CSS, PHP, Scheme, JSP, C#, ASP.NET, VB.NET, PL/SQL, Visual Basic 6.0, C/AL and C (sorted well to less known).

Oh I didn't realize google hosted images.

But my question was more in reference to user submitted images say for post you. I know all the sites that most of us use (photobucket, flikr, etc..) have some sort of "you must link back" clause. Is there one out there currently that doesn't: 1. Imprint a link in either the image or under it. 2. Doesn't have one of those rules.

__________________
Under Construction

www.imgur.com is a pretty cool site about direct links.

__________________

Thanks Goten for the siggy.
Thanks Viruz for the avvy.