Recently, Photobucket decided to update their terms of service to say they would not allow people to upload photos and then use them on other websites, unless their users paid a significant amount to upgrade their account. This is because it costs Photobucket money to run their servers, and a lot of their users were not paying anything, but it has been perceived as very greedy due to the amount they are charging. This hit the eBay and Amazon seller community hard, but has also hit the roleplaying and forum communities too.


What does this mean at AO?

A lot of our stamps, members avatars, biography photos, avatars, newspaper headers etc. were hosted on Photobucket. Since the change, instead of seeing the correct image, Photobucket has replaced it with an ugly grey box with a warning that the user needs to update their account.


How can we fix it?

All the Character Stamps have been uploaded to the AO server, so you just need to go to the thread and get the new URL (web address/code) for your stamps and replace them in your character profiles.

If you have your own stuff on Photobucket and it is linked to AO, then you will need to find somewhere else to upload them like imgur. Tumblr may be an option, but they sometimes update their own URLs and images break in weeks and months, to protect them.

If you get super stuck, talk to fellow AO members for suggestions on alternative image hosts, or let us know, as we can always pop a few on the AO server (only for use at AO though, please!)


Have Photobucket deleted my photos?

No, if you go to the image in Photobucket it is still there, so you can save it to your computer and upload it elsewhere. You just won't be able to get the [ img ] code or http code and use that code on another website.

---