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I've just become aware of Imgur TOS change on May 15th 2023 could cause the loss of thousands of Stack Exchange images!, which quotes:

We will be focused on removing old, unused, and inactive content that is not tied to a user account

Stack Exchange has a corporate version of Imgur, whose links include i.stack.imgur.com, leaving open the possibility that images which are hosted on Imgur outside of that URL could be removed.

Based on this search for url https://imgur.com and score>= 1 on U&L, there are currently 109 posts (with a score above zero) that include links to https://imgur.com.

How should we address this potential change?

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  • 3
    The “obvious” quick fix doesn’t work: pasting an imgur.com link to re-add the image on SE’s instance results in “Failed to upload image; an error occurred on the server”.
    – Stephen Kitt
    Apr 26 at 7:24
  • 2
    We have 288 posts with links to https://i.imgur.com and score ≥ 1 which would also be affected.
    – Stephen Kitt
    Apr 26 at 7:38
  • I've done a couple edits. I'm wondering if we tackle the highest-scored and highest viewed posts, if that would save the most useful information. There's a debate about flooding the front page with edits, but a random sampling just now shows the front page turns over in about 7 hours, so that would be a temporary problem.
    – Jeff Schaller Mod
    May 2 at 13:52
  • ... and I forgot about Unix.Meta!
    – Jeff Schaller Mod
    May 4 at 20:29
  • It's also possible to check which URLs are archived at the wayback machine archive.org/help/wayback_api.php and send a list of URLs to archive e.g. at web.archive.org/save , so the images can be recovered later and reuploaded.
    – Nemo
    Jun 5 at 6:24

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Barring any better ideas, I'm going to suggest that any interested editors (preferably those >= 2k to ease the suggested edit barrier) tackle the affected posts. Please refer to Glorfindel's answer that contains the results of an automated upload of existing images. Edits can use the Replacement URL for the affected posts, sparing a download and upload cycle.

Since time is running (relatively) short, I'd suggest tackling the highest-scoring posts first. Live search links follow:

If you're motivated, I see no reason to curb your enthusiasm in order to keep the home page clean; it appears to turn over within 6-7 hours, so edit to your heart's content!

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    It would be smart to focus on images that Glorfindel's script couldn't re-upload, as the ones that did get uploaded will be there after the 15th.
    – Jeff Schaller Mod
    May 9 at 21:22

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