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. It’s sad that there aren’t many places to host photos. Flickr was honestly the best one. I have to think about it, too, but the thought of paying just to store my photos online kind of sucks, haha. I only use it to post sale stuff here and that’s about it, other than storage and it’s nice to have a place I can easily get access to them on my phone.
       
    2. My chief concern with the change in Flickr is not the price, but what might result from the shift to Pro being "necessary" again for many people. The reason I quit using it as a photo site some years ago was that the distinction between Pro and Free resulted in quite a bit of nastiness in photography groups I was part of. My concern is that their hopes of "bringing back the old Flickr!" means bringing back that same elitism and level of snark I often encountered. I had a Pro account for some time previously for the sake of networking, but terminated the account and completely avoided the community for some years when it proved ineffective.

      I re-joined after it had changed to the 1TB model that was being used prior to the SmugMug acquisition, and found the communities I joined to be much more open and friendly (admittedly, I joined mostly doll, toy and fashion groups, instead of hardcore photographers' or designers' groups). I'm concerned that they're going to sacrifice those friendlier, hobby-based communities to revert to the more hardcore base of photographers. I know a lot of people who have already decided to just move to Instagram rather than bother with a paid account.
       
      • x 1
    3. Flickr is starting to tick me off, I have well over 1000 pics, so now I have to go thru and see which ones to delete and which to keep or pay for their Pro account, I got rid of Photobucket for the same crap and now I might just do the same with Flickr:vein, so annoying!
       
      • x 1
    4. Back when Photobucket turned the photohosting world upside down, I looked around for alternatives and information. The bandwidth needed to host photos appears to be expensive and i decided that all the free site would eventually be charging, at least for larger accounts, so I choose a service with what I felt was a reasonable cost.
       
      • x 3
    5. I agree SO MUCH. I just went through my almost 7,000 pictures, to make it 1,000. Had to make sure I had originals on my external first, before I did it all. It was an annoying process, to say the least... I already made a second account to keep a few pictures on and it’s already at a little over 500 pictures. xD;
       
    6. :evil:
      I had a feeling something like this would be coming with the Smugmug acquisition of Flickr. :sigh
      I refuse to pay Flickr anything. I had a pro account years ago and they've just pissed me off too many times with policy and service changes to ever trust them or any other entity that owns them. Unfortunately, having tried several other photo hosting/sharing sites, I really haven't found an adequate replacement for Flickr, despite it's problems.
      I've been thinking a lot about how to deal with this and think my solution will be to focus my current account to BJD only, which is what I started it for initially and what I plan to focus most of my content on going forward anyway, and purge/move everything else. My account will just have to be only currently owned dolls and more recent meets/events. I've only got about 200 or so public photos that fit into that category right now, so I think it'll work for a while at least.

      I'll either have to make new alternate flickr accounts for my other types of pics or just remove them altogether. These are mostly pics of collectibles that I no longer actively collect but would like to archive, or personal pics of my cats, everyday life and non-bjd events. The personal pics are largely private anyway and no one seems care much about the ones that are public for most part anyway but there are some pics that I'd hate to loose and want backed up online. I feel bad removing pics that people have fave'd. I myself fave pics that evoke feelings and that I'd like to go back and look at or reference later,and I'd hate to see my own fave page thin out ,but I just can't justify paying for an account again.

      It's really kinda messed up to have the model the past years encouraging uploading tons of photos (terabyte storage) then limiting to only 1000 pics, pretty sheisty.
       
      • x 1
    7. When I first joined Flickr, they made it clear that they didn't want you to link to photos on their site. They wanted to be a destiation and social site. So I never used Flickr much.
       
    8. I think it might be time to consider that free photo hosting is no longer a viable business model for companies, and that consequently, any service offering free photo hosting is going to either increase the ads to an annoying level (Tumblr, Instagram, Imgur), or start making money off of selling your data (Facebook). Flickr has had some annoying traits in the past around some of their features (Explore, the timeline changes). But I liked them enough to get a Pro account years ago, and I've kept it. I've never felt like I wasn't getting my money's worth, and my photos never disappeared from where I linked them, or from Flickr itself. My opinion would change if Flickr took more active measures to stop inline linking, but otherwise, I'm pretty satisfied with it.
       
      • x 4
    9. I do agree that it seems that free photo hosting is dying out ("no longer a viable business model" being correct). I wouldn't mind if photo hosts made a gradual and sensible switch to a payment system that would allow them to keep existing. Photobucket totally shows what NOT to do! And many others who have suddenly shut down causing people to lose photos.

      I do hope Flickr will do the right thing (since I now have a lot of my photos on it!). I don't mind paying a reasonable amount for photo hosting. I was even paying on Photobucket, but they starting spamming adverts everywhere and slowing service down so it was non-existent... and suddenly replacing free accounts with the Coercion icon. That was just a nasty thing to do. :vein
       
      • x 1
    10. I’ve been a Flickr pro user for several years and always thought $25 was a good deal (I think when I first joined there was a photo limit so I did pro to get around it). So for me, the part that sticks out is the price doubling without getting really anything different about the service. 200% price jacks and no tangible additional benefits. Sure it was better than what photo bucket did, but that doesn’t make it right either.
       
      • x 3
    11. $25?! Now that is WAY more reasonable. I’d definitely keep my account, if it were that price and not the $70(I think?) that it will be once the first year(30% off) has passed. Why can’t they just keep it $25? T^T
       
      • x 1

    12. Actually it is my understanding that they are charging 49.99 and they are giving 30 % for the first year if you buy it before Nov 30 So it would only be 35.00 instead of the 50.00.
       
    13. It already says save 30%, but if you add up the $4.17 for 12 months, you get $50. Well, $50.04. I don't know. Either way, $25 a year sounds way better... haha.
       
    14. This is a portion of their notice. I hope it clears up the confusion. :) And yes, 25.00 Does sound better than 50.00.

      Flickr Pro is better than ever. For only $49.99 per year, get unlimited storage, ad-free browsing, advanced stats, an unmatched community, and more.


      Hands down the best deal in photos.

      Unlimited storage, ad-free browsing, and a global community of over 100 million photographers for less than half the cost of Apple, Amazon, or Google. Sign up today and get 30% off the first year. Discount available through November 30.


      Free accounts will soon be limited to 1,000 photos or videos. Flickr isn’t Flickr without the contributions and participation of our free members, and we remain committed to a vibrant free offering.



      If you are a free member with more than 1,000 photos or videos, you will have ample time to upgrade to Pro (for 30% off your first year) or download your photos and videos.* Read more about this decision.
       
    15. Wonder why it still shows $49.99 then, if it’s supposed to be 30% off.
       
    16. I just figured out how to reformat Instagram posts to BBcode. I figure this is sort of relevant as free image hosting sites seem to be going under. I understand this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I figure here's another alternative:

      This only works for a single photo, and will not link the whole set

      1. Login to Instagram and go on your page
      2. Click on the SINGLE photo you are interested in converting
      3. Copy the URL from the internet browser bar
      4. Follow the format:

      https ://www.instagram.com/p/BqRE-ObA58O/ [copied link]

      Correct Format:
      [IMG ]COPY LINK HEREmedia/?size=m[/ IMG][/ URL]

      End Result:
      https://www.instagram.com/p/BqRE-ObA58O/media/?size=m[/ IMG][/ URL]

      5. Delete the spaces (it wants to format my directions into BBcode)
      6. Paste into a forum
      7. You did it!
       
      • x 2
    17. It seems the bb code from Flickr isn’t working now? And it’s not just me, as I scroll through updates I can see a lot of different users posting photos that link to Flickr that are just the little red X image in the post.

      What is going on?
       
    18. I wonder if it's not related to the change of policy Flickr announced some time ago - users who have over 1000 pictures on their account have to buy PRO account or they won't be able to share the pictures anymore?
       
    19. I just tried and it doesn't work. I have very few pictures so maybe it is just a temporary glitch.