Hi. Let's talk about Imgur

Hi everyone, I have been meaning to make this post for sometime now.In our backroom cabals, we have been talking a lot about Imgur. How /r/pics will use it, and how we see imgur.I think you deserve to know what is going on, and I think you all deserve input.Our problems with ImgurBefore we go any further, it is important you understand why we have issues with imgur currently1. ClickjackingBy and large the biggest issue here is that imgur clickjacks direct links. You might have not even noticed! Most (but not all) mobile clicks (and sometimes desktop too) to a DIRECT imgur link (i.e. http://i.imgur.com/eYltdWW.png ) ARE REDIRECTED to http://imgur.com/eYltdWWWho cares?Well we do for one, and we know a lot of users care too. This is called clickjacking and is pretty bad. When you click on a link, you should generally be taken to the link you clicked on, not a different one?It's quite clear that imgur does this for two reasons: 1. They want you to see the "Open in App" button which will get you to download their app -- And of course 2. They need the ad money.I will elaborate more on this in a moment2. SocialImgur has far outgrown reddit. It is its own social community with its own norms and their own (bad IMO) memes, and so on. While this isn't particularly a bad thing, it doesn't line up with what /r/pics needs, which is just a fast imagehost. Not an image sharing social media siteIf any new site were to come up today and it does what Imgur currently does, we would not allow the new siteImgur gets its pass through its history.ElaboratingWhat Imgur is doing is good for their business, and I can't really get particularly mad at that. However as I said above, it doesn't line up with what /r/pics is looking for.Imgur needs the ad revenue, Imgur needs to grow its userbase, but we feel they are taking advantage of our users to do so.ContactWe have had some minor contact with Imgur, which is rare, but it happens. We had to make a big fuss just about a bit over a year ago (I think) when spam was a much bigger problem. They were mostly able to solve our issue, and things continued on. We finally had Imgur reach out to us the other day. While it was good to chat, it confirmed that we do believe its time we look for alternative solutions. I will not share our conversation as I believe it would be a violation of the expected privacy.Alternate solutionsOver the past few months, a lot of new options have come up, and we have a lot of possible "solutions" to our issue.Reddit has built in image hosting now. Its fast, works well, most of the kinks have been worked out. It even has added features I didn't even know I wanted until it came around, such as having images be deleted when the post is deleted (by OP)We also recently introduced our Verified Photographer program, which allows both professional and amateur photographers to link to their own websites (with some restrictions)With these in place, we have a lot more breathing room we can work with.Understand that we as a modteam are still talking about this, nothing is set in stone, I just want to hear what you have to think.1. Do NothingWhile I doubt personally this will happen, its a valid outcome. Maybe Imgur address our concerns and we can continue on happily ever after.2. Direct links only (except albums)Full disclousure, this was our original plan. We had done it before and we could break it open again. The problem is that when you upload to imgur, the default link is now a single image album. Since AutoMod would be used for this rule, it would be incredibly hard to enforce (since even single image albums are still albums)This also doesn't really solve the clickjacking issue, but starts us in the right direction3. The Final Solution: Ban Imgur entirelyI don't really know if anyone wants to push this button, but it is valid. We have a multitude of great image hosts out there we can use, as well as our verified system. Doing this solves every issue, but is rather nuclear.This also means we wil need to find a good alternative to albums, and I havn't really found a good one yet4. Option XBasically a placeholder for any alternative solution you or we can think of, the above 3 aren't our only options. We would love to hear from youNoteImgur is a business. Imgur needs to make money, I can't blame them for that. However that doesn't mean our goals for an image host at /r/pics needs to line up with that.TL;DRImgur is doing some kinda bad stuff and we aren't sure what we should really do if anything, so please provide input.

Micky Videos 2015

Hi. Let's talk about Imgur

Written By allthefoxes