On Images · 10:08am Feb 7th, 2016
art by DILeak
Lined and colored by Allyster, and shaded by NCMares.
The above picture is one of the three from my last blog post. As you can see, you can now see it. 
The bad news, as most of you probably already know, is that Imgur has blacklisted FIMfiction. Xaquseg, our friendly system administrator, has done a post here detailing the problems.
Fortunately, Imgur is not the only free image-hosting site on the internet. I have already found a good alternate site to use for my future blogs. And I will be slowly moving over most of the images used in my previous blogs to that site. However, I have 140 blogs worth of images to move, so that is going to take a bit of time.
Currently, I do not intend to move over all the screenshots from my previous Angel's Pip-Boy Diaries. Each entry has roughly a dozen screenshots, and I feel that would be an excessive amount of work for very little benefit. However, I will be moving over all the amazing fan art, including the art pieces used at the top and bottom of the APBD blog posts. I want to continue to show off the works of the community for anyone going through the archives.
This means that other promised blog entries are going to be a bit delayed. Don't worry: I'm not going to wait until I have all 140 blogs ported before continuing APBD or writing that Season 5 review. But I want to get a fair number of the most recent blogs fixed, and make sure everything is working out with this new image hosting site, before creating another image-heavy blog.
art by NCMares
Inked by DILeak and shaded by Allyster.
Yep, seems someone at Imgur was in a bad mood and just decided to screw over everyone with this decision.
I have zero doubt that Fimfic wasn't the only site affected by this.
3738410 It seems odd, as "using Imgur to host images for use on other sites" seems like it would be the primary reason for Imgur.
3738411 Times have changed over at Imgur hq, that's now no longer the case apparently.
From some comments I've read on the site post, they seem to have a special relationship with Reddit, though to what extent I don't know.
3738411
I can't say I know the stats for Imgur, but when everyone and their mother is doing that exact same thing, all it's doing is being a glorified depository. It consumes resources both server side and disk space that could be used for alternate purposes. Not odd in the slightest, considering their service is only been seen as a means to an end, like a unicorn helping a little filly for no other reason to get her drug fix.
3738417 While I can understand that, I am confused when the website Glorified Depositur, whose only purpose that I can see is to be a glorified depository, complains about being treated as a glorified depository. It would be like Knighty throwing a fit that people keep using FIMfiction to post pony stories.
3738425
That would be hilarious to see.
media.giphy.com/media/EJct7pX9BH7IA/giphy.gif
3738425
I think Imgur sees itself as a lot more than that, though. They've got this whole social media thing going where people go to Imgur and vote on popular images right on their site, and the comments made for those images are sorted by number of votes (points) as well.
So it's very likely that they view it as lost ad revenue when people look at "their" hosted images w/o actually using their site interface.
Selfish? Absolutely. Sure, it's within their right to do this, but as they will soon discover, people will just go someplace else.
So they just more or less affected a very large internet content base and honestly expect people to stick with them?
I frequent imgur very often, and let me tell you they despise anything pony related. Only time I've seen it hit the front page there is when people sneak it in by disguising it as something else.
And they don't want to be a giant repository for images? Really? Well I suppose I could just point out the ten or so posts on the front page that contain over a thousand wallpapers.
3738543 Do the administrators hate ponies, or just the users who post comments?
That's a lot of work.
Good luck, Kkat! That reminds me I should check my own images to makes sure they're still visible.
Reasons I use Deviantart... Look forward to hearing from you again Kkat.
From what I can see, it is possible to access screenshots posted on imgur (Angel's Pip-Boy Diary # 11) by right-clicking the error icon where the screenshot should be, going to the source, and then refreshing the page.
3738425
Well you're right about knighty throwing fits about writers.
I don't think you're getting what I'm saying. Here's a little lesson, Kkat. Sites like youtube or Imgur rely heavily on internet traffic and ad revenue to stay in business. It helps pay for things like maintenance and sever costs, and when you get bigger, that means you're going to need actual, physical people to take calls, have offices, etc.
That's why Imgur doesn't like doing what you did with your blogs; you're abusing their service and cutting into their profits. One person doing so is fine, but an entire site? No one likes that. Yes, it can be considered corporate greed, but when you have to choose between making people unhappy and keeping a bottom line, filling bellies seems a lot more important.
When images are directly linked, you completely bypass directing traffic to imgur. This prevents potential ad revenue, which several serious investors pay big money for, and that's not including tracking data. Most ad contracts vary on their wording, but generally it follows like this. For video streaming and physical ads, they are only counted if they load on a user's screen. Some specify for a certain number of milliseconds, say 100ms or so (but that's getting into fringe specifics). That's why services like Twitch and youtube don't like adblock because it prevents the ad from loading, and thus the ad, although it exists in the site's code, isn't viewed by anyone. That means the ad company has no reason to pay the site for the traffic, because it wasn't viewed.
in short, linking in mass to imgur cuts into a significant portion of both internet traffic (to any company, it's better to stay on their site rather than to have their services abused) and ad revenue (a way to stay in business). Now I honestly don't think that fimfiction was cutting into their bottom line that much, and I am far too lazy to actually find this Imgur blacklist, but this action from Imgur feels like they just want to nip a problem in the butt before it grows out of hand. Their site, their rules.
So you're not quite right. It's fine with being a depository, but they don't like it when you abuse the depository.
3738570
Little column A little if column B I believe, hardly ever see pony stuff get out of user submitted images.
3738411 You would think so, wouldn't you?
My repsonse to this foolishness?
This is also why I personally use PhotoBucket for hosting my stuff.
Yeah, it has it's own quirks, but it's always worked for me just fine.
3738874 I do indeed get exactly what you are saying. I think you are missing what I am saying.
You're saying that Imgur is a cross between an art gallery and a social media site, where people go to Imgur to see images and socialize about those images. And that Imgur's income is generated from ads that people are introduced to while visiting the site. You are saying that by allowing the art to be viewed without the site being viewed, people were bypassing their source of revenue. I absolutely get the argument.
Imgur is like a privately-funded library that makes its money from the advertising jingles it agrees to play over its speaker system. And this move is the equivalent of making a rule that people aren't allowed to check books out of the library because that allows them to read those books someplace away from the speakers. If they want to read the library's books, they need to sit in the library where the jingles are playing and read there.
Yes. I understand that completely. My point is: checking out books is the primary function of a library. That's what people are looking for when they go to a library. Yes, there are people who use Imgur as a social site and an art gallery, but that isn't what an image hosting site is generally for.
The above hypothetical library would be enacting that rule under the assumption that it will drive the people who would check out books and leave to instead stay and read them.
But that's not how reality works. Instead, the people who want to check out books will find another library where they can check out books. And this library loses the revenue it was getting from each one of those people for the few minutes of jingle listening they were doing during the check-out process.
Now I agree it is the admins' business and they can run it however they want to. But they aren't an image hosting site anymore. They are an online art gallery.
And personally, I find them utterly useless as an art gallery. Deviantart is vastly superior as a site to find art and unimaginably more user friendly. Google image searches are more likely to turn up something you want than trying to use the Imgur search function. Before this, I would spend hours on Imgur each week doing work for my blog. I literally have no reason to go to that site anymore. And thus, instead of gaining revenue, they have lost it.
This move doesn't drive the people who were viewing directly linked images to now go to their site and see the ads; it drives those who were linking from their site (and generating revenue for Imgur as they did so) to link from somewhere else.
I love the pictures, I wish I could make something as good as that.
3738411
Didn't Imgur start out as Reddit's image hosting service?
Well, really, for posting stuff from DeviantArt or Tumblr you can just hotlink the images; they don't mind.
3738410
Seems they blacklisted ebay about 10 months back already...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ebay/comments/300i77/ebay_has_been_blocked_from_hotlinking_due_to/
3740581 I knew Fimfic wasn't the only one!
Though I find it odd that Ebay has any use for Imgur at all.
3741230 From what I gather, a lot of sellers were using Imgur to host the pictures of the items they had for sale. (I see that one seller, for example, had to relocate seven thousand images.)
3741589 I feel bad for that person, whoever it may be.
Shouldn't be too bad. The only annoying thing is the previous blog posts as you mentioned but other than that it shouldn't affect us too much.
I've been wondering, Kkat. Seeing as you started the Fallout Equestria community, do you ever review FOE fics?
3749150 She doesn't read fan stories.
3753401 Well that is a shame. I found a couple of good ones that I think are too obscurred as well.
3753639 Kick 'em my way
3753644 Well there's Fallout Equestria: Sins of an Alicorn, which is about Nyx(from Past Sins) waking up to the wastelands of Equestria, and thus being tasked to write a biography of the last moments of the Element Bearers, not to mention trying to survive and sohw everyone she isn't a monster. There's also one about Snowdrop(I forgot what it was called). The way that one starts is very unique and the auther did a good job with describing how she became to exist in FOE. Those are the only two I can think of at this moment, the second one may be dead because I haven't seen much progress in it for a while now. I've found them both to be fairly good and have quite a lot of promise in them. I do hope that the second one gets updated soon. I'd like to see how a blind pony finds a way to survive in the Fallout Equestria-verse. I have a feeling it may be badass and "WTF!?!?!?!"-enducing. Anyways, give em a read if you want.
3753846 Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Nyx is trash. Snowdrop is waaaay too old to be taken seriously in FOE. She'd be like 1,300.
3753855 Okay- 1) You're trash, trash. B) It's not ACTUALLY the real Snowdrop. It's a new born filly who was born with blindness and looks exactly like Snowdrop and has the exact name and personality as the original Snowdrop has.
Ergo, it's not actually Snowdrop, and also you're trash, trash.
3754303 I can't even follow that.