Duke Tower Kitchener | 39 fl | completed

[tomh009]

One reason I wish everyone were able to use the attachments is because at some point users will no longer be active here, and will let their imgur/whatever accounts lapse. And then we have no images, just broken links, losing our historical documentation.

This is fair, and I certainly wouldn't argue against that given the history of previous image hosting websites. That said, I've been a member of many small forums of this size, any very few seem to even make it past the 10 year mark, whereas Imgur is a borderline profitable (or maybe even profitable, hard to tell from Googling) company. So I figured the odds of it outlasting this website are decent enough that I would take the chance, but I could easily be wrong and look like an idiot.

I can't find it now, but I recall in one of the first reddit posts from the Imgur creator he said the strategy of old hosts putting those "This image is using too much bandwidth, and the uploader hasn't paid for a premium subscription" watermarks over the image just reflects poorly on the host, and not the image uploader who wouldn't care at all. Thus they have no interest in that approach. Accounts aren't required to upload there either, so there isn't any issue of accounts "lapsing".

I don't know the imgur people or policies, but if you look at the older posts on the site, you'll see many that are heavily watermarked by photobucket. Imgur may not be doing that today, but as a corporation they can change their policies in the future, and it could leave us stranded, whereas uploaded attachments will always remain available. Hence my preference.

That said, the forum supports both and each person can choose the method he or she prefers.