Hi, I'm discoball.
Unfortunately, as most of you are aware by now, the creator of imgtc.com (which I think was the 2nd most popular outgoing link on Voat) purged his account and abandoned his subverse.
It was a huge shock to me as well.
I've spoken to jmtullock over email, and although it sounded like there was a lot going on in his life, he's never even so much as hinted at abandoning his work or this community. It's even stranger that he left without a warning.
Once imgtc goes dark, which I suspect it will, Voat will once again be littered with dead links. In the meantime, I encourage everyone reading this to back up their images now or risk losing them forever. It's sad, but from the looks of things, imgtc will soon be but another in a long line of dead image hosts.
That said, I'm gonna keep working on imgoat.com.
You don't have in use it. In fact, I think you should use whatever service you're most confident in and comfortable with. But I'm in this for the long haul, and it would be ridiculous to quit now that we're getting more love than ever. I've been working long nights (thanks, insomnia) making improvements to the site, which I've listed below, and have even bigger ideas for the future...
Updates:
· Forced SSL, meaning all data remains private even as it's passed back-and-forth between your web browser and our server.
· Implemented a Warrant Canary.
· Max file size increased to 10 MB.
· WebM support (edit: work in progress...)
· Redirect to actual image (rather than a confirmation page) after successful upload.
In addition, I've spoken with the Boats for Voat developer, and he's agreed to make sure our images don't get all fucked up on Boats (unlike some other hosts).
I'd also like to thank @lmkevin for volunteering to help with some programming. If any other code goats on here are interested in volunteering, we'd love to have you on board.
edit: Oh, and thanks to @elnino for featuring us first in the sidebar of /v/pics. :D
Future updates:
If we decide to monetize, should it be with ads, donations, or something else?
How would you feel about adding user accounts?
Or the ability to download all of your uploaded images at once, in the even of a catastrophe?
I'd like to know your opinion on what we should focus on next. What does Imgoat need in order to be the best damn image host on Voat. Let me know in the comments (bahhh).
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[–] [deleted] 0 points 6 points 6 points (+6|-0) ago
[–] turtlesarepureevil 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
I figure just use direct imgur links for individual images and host albums elsewhere while using imgur as backup. Let them hemmorage.
Or advise people to not use direct links (a decent chunk)/adblock for the non-imgur site. @derram write a script to archive imgur album links pl0x.
[–] discoball [S] ago
I'm opposed to using Imgur, for a number reasons:
Imgur has been known to delete controversial images, such as those that might be hosted on Fat People Hate or various other subverses.
It's running on VC now, so every click it gets (even to hotlinked images) only serves to make Andreessen Horowitz more money as the site appears to get more traffic. If it's ever sold, or floated on the stock market, you can bet it will have one of those absurd "tech" valuations, similar to Twitter.
Lack of input. If we build something ourselves, we get to decided what to include, and perhaps more importantly, not include.
[–] [deleted] ago
[–] Rotteuxx 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
Thx for the info, I hadn't yet started re-uploading all my /v/welding albums because I was super busy this week. I'm glad I didn't havd the time because I was going to split them up between your service & ImgTc.
Voat will get over this, just a rough road to ride on for a while.
[–] NamelessCrewmember ago
Hey, what are the chances of getting automatic exif stripping and an option for downsizing from say the original 5mb file ( which is way too much for some simple pics) to something smaller? It would with two quick checkboxes ticked strip all identifying info from a pic (say a phone) so that it couldn't be used to identify who took said pic?
When I saw the demo years ago that could tell exactly which camera took a photo off the Internet due to the specific noise of the censor that was extracted from a few known photos of that camera previously... ugh. Say I take a pic of a cop committing a crime, I post it anon, the they track it to my phone anyway and 'visit ' in the middle of the night.
Also, I get the serious jitters from two diff successful projects just abandoned. Something stinks bad about that.
[–] discoball [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
I really want this to be a thing. It's high on my list of priorities, I just haven't gotten around to it so far (or found a capable programmer willing to volunteer their time).
This is already built into the site. When you upload an image, you can choose to either link directly to the fullsized image, or the "medium" (aka thumb) version, which is considerably smaller. I might add options for custom downsizing in the future, if there's enough demand.
[–] NamelessCrewmember ago
First, thanks for the prompt and informative response, it's a big deal in the time of shit customer service and suddenly disappearing developers.
What I intended by downsizing was not to thumb but like 1024x768, which is suitable for most pics, low on bandwidth, and re compresses the original file to obfuscate its digital trail. I have never, and will never post a raw photo from any device I own to the net, and when on mobile as most of us are typically, programs to strip data and resize are a major stumbling block to posting something we want to share with protecting our anonymity.
Kudos so far, I hope you keep it going.
[–] derram ago
I think ads are fine as long as they don't show up on/you don't disable the direct links.
[–] turtlesarepureevil ago
You won't escape the wrath of NASA. They'll be watching and much more.
[–] discoball [S] 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago (edited ago)
Fuckin' astronauts, man.
[–] turtlesarepureevil ago
They turned the moon into some fruity pies for profit. They can do anything.
[–] Crensch ago (edited ago)
Hey bud, thanks for your imagehost. I've been using it since I first heard of it.
I know this is a huge undertaking, but I'd really, really like a full-on conquering of imgur. Mobile apps, usersubs, etc.
I like your idea about being able to download all the images you post. Maybe also be able to check-mark images that'll be added to a list that you can click a button to download at a later date. (or a self-updating torrent of all the images so we don't lose them entirely should something happen?) Not a coder, not sure what all can be done there.
I think creative adverts or "week of the X" sorts of things would be a kind of advertising not really seen anywhere. Instead of having those shitty 3rd party ads that could have malware and other shit going on behind the scenes... maybe force them to use your website to upload their webm or image meme, then promote it at the top for a while depending on the $$. I know there's that whole thing about people not liking being advertised to... how about "Hey guys, this week is sponsored by Coca-Cola, so go out and support them for supporting us!". I'd buy an extra case for that, or switch from Pepsi to coke if I didn't absolutely hate coke.
What to focus on next? I believe just before you posted this, I was getting the confirm page with the /thumb/ link provided that I mentioned to you before. Right now I'm getting a preview, THEN that page, then I can click on the image again to get the correct link in the search bar.
Also, is there a reason something like this:
https://i.reddituploads.com/622b382353d842f4ae128bf428c5bc42?fit=max&h=1536&w=1536&s=09393e72448ec41d20c1cc7a796b3892
doesn't work? I rather prefer not linking directly to imgur or reddit, and the imgur urls work fine, but this one does not.
[–] discoball [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
First, thanks for using the site, and for the suggestions. It means a lot.
I have consider a "featured images" subsection, above the "hot images" on the main page. Not a bad idea. However, in the meantime, I've disabled the "hot images" thing in order to clean up the homepage and focus on the core service.
This is a known bug in the "upload from url" tab, it doesn't happen when using the main big-blue-box tab (but still an aggravating issue that I need to look into).
It's the question mark; and, in this particular case, lack of file extension. For some reason, the program doesn't recognize something as an image file if there's a question mark in the URL, and I'm not entirely sure why.
[–] Crensch 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Good shit bud. Glad you popped up when you did, I wasn't too keen on the other imagehosts available.
[–] ZebraCrisis ago
Ooh, neat, let me try out- Oh no...
[–] discoball [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Well...shit.
[–] ZebraCrisis ago
Thought it may have been because it happened to be a webm with sound, but soundless returned the same thing.