1. It has come to the attention of forum staff that Dollshe Craft has ceased communications with dealers and customers, has failed to provide promised refunds for the excessive waits, and now has wait times surpassing 5 years in some cases. Forum staff are also concerned as there are claims being put forth that Dollshe plans to close down their doll making company. Due to the instability of the company, the lack of communication, the lack of promised refunds, and the wait times now surpassing 5 years, we strongly urge members to research the current state of this company very carefully and thoroughly before deciding to place an order. For more information please see the Dollshe waiting room. Do not assume this cannot happen to you or that your order will be different.
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  2. Dollshe Craft and all dolls created by Dollshe, including any dolls created under his new or future companies, including Club Coco BJD are now banned from Den of Angels. Dollshe and the sculptor may not advertise his products on this forum. Sales may not be discussed, no news threads may be posted regarding new releases. This ban does not impact any dolls by Dollshe ordered by November 8, 2023. Any dolls ordered after November 8, 2023, regardless of the date the sculpt was released, are banned from this forum as are any dolls released under his new or future companies including but not limited to Club Coco BJD. This ban does not apply to other company dolls cast by Dollshe as part of a casting agreement between him and the actual sculpt or company and those dolls may still be discussed on the forum. Please come to Ask the Moderators if you have any questions.
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Photobucket ToS changes

Jul 5, 2017

    1. The mod team believes it prudent to share with the forums that Photobucket has changed their Terms of Service.

      Particularly of note:
      To summarize, Photobucket is now completely disallowing 3rd party image hosting (with the exception of a $399.99 per year plan). This means that unless you pay Photobucket $399.99 per year, you will no longer be able to use Photobucket to host images and share them on other websites.

      Many people have used Photobucket for hosting images here for quite some time, so we have already started to see broken image links all across the forum. Photobucket images affected by this change will show as follows:

      [​IMG]

      At this time, we ask that members do not report things that have the Photobucket "coercion" graphic. However, it would be a courtesy to alert affected members when you come across a thread from them with broken images. If you don't want to possibly swamp their conversation-boxes, you can alert the mod team via Ask the Moderators and we can notify affected members.

      We strongly encourage people affected by the Photobucket situation to find another photo hosting service, then update their threads on DoA with new image links from the new photo host. To do this you can click Edit Post, and then click on the wrench icon on the upper right in order to see the actual URLs of your images.
      Don't forget to check your threads and posts in the Galleries, the Photo Reference area, Databases, the Workshop, in Games, etc. And don't forget Marketplace threads and Signature graphics!

      There are so many beautiful and informative photos here, and we would hate to see these threads and posts just abandoned, so we would love to see these broken images get repaired! :)



      =========================
      How to post from Flickr tutorial posted in this thread here:
      Photobucket ToS changes
      =========================
      Photobucket has posted status information here: Please review the latest changes at Photobucket. - Photobucket

      It contains the following on current accounts:

      Moving forward, new and legacy free account users will NOT have third party
      hosting available.

      If you were a Plus Account subscriber in good standing as of June 1, 2017,
      you will continue to have all the privileges you have enjoyed including 3rd
      Party Hosting until December 31, 2018 as long as you maintain your
      subscription.

      Non Plus 500 Account subscribers that purchased after June 1, 2017 will not
      have access to 3rd Party Hosting.
      ===========================
      DoA may start deleting some Threads and Posts with broken image links in 2018 or earlier, in the case of older threads and users who have not been active for years.
       
      #1 DoA Mod Squad, Jul 5, 2017
      Last edited by a moderator: Sep 29, 2017
      • x 51
    2. Thank you so much for this announcement (and for featuring it at the top of the forums in very large print)! I have been frantically moving my images over to imgur for the past few days and updating my threads as I go, but I was a bit worried that some of my threads might get reported in the meantime!! I had considered posting in Ask the Mods, but now I don't need to. :)

      I'm pretty livid with Photobucket for this and will be deleting my account as soon as all my images are moved and deleted. Even if they change their policy back, I don't plan to ever go back to them because of this underhanded policy change with zero notice. I think this move was a huge mistake on their part and it's very likely that this will severely negatively affect them (I foresee members leaving by the thousands and never returning to using Photobucket).

      I wish everyone the best of luck in transferring their images! I chose imgur because I already have an account there, but there's also flickr and many other sites I'm sure (even deviantArt could be used as a "photo hosting" site if you want).

      Thanks again to the mods for this very informative and helpful announcement! <3


      ETA: Turns out Imgur doesn't really like third party hosting, so I've changed over to Flickr (turns out I had an account there too that I've never used). It actually seems to be much more intuitive than Imgur and I'm liking it a lot so far! Starting over sucked though...
       
      #2 Kelaria, Jul 6, 2017
      Last edited: Jul 6, 2017
      • x 14
    3. Forgive me for seeming dense, as I know very little about the technical aspects of posting, but will this affect ALL images shared with Photobucket? I have hobby photos on my Bucket going back almost 10 years. :(
       
    4. I agree with the above. Its just unfortunate that all my stories/etc will now have all broken links. Photobucket has been going down the drain and I'm sure they just made themselves invalid in the long run. (Plus my posts on other sites...)
      Can anyone post other image sharing sites we can use and what the best options would be in the long run, then?
       
      • x 1
    5. Yes. Sadly it will affect ALL images shared using Photobucket. :( I have the same problem as you. I've been using Photobucket for about a decade too. Luckily I've also uploaded a lot to deviantArt as well, so many of my threads still have some photos. I just think about all the broken images in older discussion threads, and it makes me sad. :( Photobucket really screwed thousands (hundreds of thousands? more?) of people over with this move. And to do it with zero notice is pretty despicable... I've heard about people on ebay whose sale threads have broken image links and because they have bids, they can't edit them. It could affect the sale! It's pretty bad... They really didn't think this through.


      Also, $400 a year? What's up with that?? :? That's just insane.
       
    6. DeviantArt Stash, Tumblr (make a private blog or upload photos in drafts and then link the photos directly from there), and Imgur I think are the top methods people are switching over to. That, and making a Wordpress blog and just uploading your photos to it and linking from there, just like the Tumblr method.

      ETA: There's also Flickr, of course! Which many in the doll community have already used for years.

      Photobucket really put the last nail in the coffin for themselves with this.
       
      #6 AiDakeGa, Jul 6, 2017
      Last edited: Jul 6, 2017
      • x 5
    7. My images are still showing up. I just went to my Bucket, and it's annoyingly riddled with ads. IDK how much of a damn chore it's going to be to get everything moved....
       
      • x 1
    8. Thank you for posting this.
      I was hoping sooner or later someone would as this has created alot of headaches for many.
      Not only doll groups, forums etc but also many use photobucket to host photos on their website.
      I hope others post places that will host 3rd party images.
      I know the doll page does but they only keep them up to 90 days.
      I would hate to see places like this become non existent because of no one being able to share photos anymore.
      Best of luck to all.
       
      • x 27
      • x 2
    9. Thanks so much for this. I've been using Photobucket since the beginning. Well, guess it's time to go somewhere else now.

      Thanks again.
       
      • x 1
    10. I just tried opening an Imgur account. Literally withing 5 minutes of uploading my first set of doll photos, I was getting filthy, judgmental fetish/kink comments on them. I removed the images and deleted the account immediately. :( I don't need that kind of negativity and anxiety attached to something that's supposed to make me happy.

      I guess I'll start moving stuff over to my Flickr.
       
      • x 4
    11. I've had my Imgur for as long as I can remember (2011 apparently), but you'll likely need to go into your Settings and make sure that the Default Album Privacy is set to Hidden ("Albums will be hidden by default. They will not appear in your album list, but each one will still be accessible by going to the album's URL."). Otherwise photos are publicly visible on the Imgur site, unfortunately.

      It may also be worth noting that I never "verified" my email account with them, which shows the message: "This means you will not be able to share your posts to the gallery." I'm not 100% on if that has anything to do with no one being able to see my images unless I link them directly or not, but still worth mentioning.
       
      • x 3
    12. If I'm remembering correctly, Imgur does technically have a disclaimer somewhere that you cannot use their services for 3rd party hosting. I myself only have a Flickr account, so I'm not sure what it fully entails, but that was brought to my attention recently.
       
      • x 1
    13. Well this is frustrating... you'd think if they prohibit it, they'd find a way to prevent it (Photobucket clearly has no problem doing this). So all my work for the past few days has been wasted... >.<
       
    14. Oh nooo that's awful! :( I do know that people have used Imgur to do all the 3rd party hosting stuff, so I'm not sure about any of it though... I'll have a look around and see what I find.

      Edit:
      Aww they do say this in their ToS:
      "Also, don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere, content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that turns us into your content delivery network."

      So maybe they would not like something like using an IMG tag here on DoA, but just using a link here that goes to Imgur would be OK?
       
    15. I'd really recommend Flickr to anyone searching for a new photo hosting service. It's very easy to use in my experience, and it offers BBCode links for offsite posting. Plus it's been the only photo sharing site that hasn't screwed up my image quality after uploading, and there are few to no ads, and nothing annoying or obtrusive.
       
      • x 8
    16. I use Google+. I am a Google fangirl.:aheartbea
       
      • x 2
    17. I am still a little confused about this move. Wasn't the whole point of Photobucket to be exactly that? A place to store photos so you can show them elsewhere?
      And now they want you to pay 400$ a year for that? At that point it might be smarter to find a small, own server and just pay for that :roll:

      Anyway, I personally have used Imgur myself for years now.
      It does say that you shouldn't use it as a "content delivery network", but they probably mean that in a way that if you have your own website you shouldn't exlusively use Imgur to host all your content there. After all Imgur was created as a way for Reddit users to have a reliable hoster to link to :)
      Imgur does have an active community though, and it's important to make sure not to share photos openly. I personally don't even have an account there and just upload anonymously/not into the gallery since I only use it for sharing stuff online and not as a reliable place to store my photos. For that I still have a an external hard drive.

      I think the best place to switch to is probably Flickr though, especially when you have lots of pictures.
      Tumblr isn't a good idea because they tend to change their links once in a while, killing the direct linking.
       
      #19 Ara, Jul 6, 2017
      Last edited: Jul 6, 2017
      • x 2
    18. Flickr does seem to be the best option for me... and I just tried to create an account and it turns out I already have one. lol! Should have gone with that all along.

      Guess I'll start all over now... :(
       
      • x 1