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Would someone really trust Yahoo/Flickr to all their images and not have backups? Hopefully they didn't really care much about the images, else they should have

Would someone really trust Yahoo/Flickr to all their images and not have backups? Hopefully they didn't really care much about the images, else they should have copies elsewhere.

pavel_lishin 16y ago
"Someone" would, yes - we're not all as smart and paranoid as you. Anyway, the artist has originals backed up, but the article points out that all of the links to those images, and embeds, are now broken.
- va1en0k 16y ago
  that's a good example of URL being an important part of the data and not just a piece of metadata If URL is constructed from the data somehow (auto-slug from the title, hash or something), such restoration becomes way simpler
hkuo 16y ago
I would imagine it's not so much about the loss of the photos as much as the loss of the social aspects of those 5 years, the comments made, the photos favorited, collections followed. Moreover, there's the uploading which would be a monumental effort to redo, including titles and captions.
- scott_s 16y ago
  Not only is what you said correct, it's from the second sentence of the article: Mirco Wilhelm has the original files saved elsewhere, but the photos from his extensive Flickr collection had been linked to from all over the web, including the official Flickr blog. I am forced to conclude that few read the article, since most of the comments have focused on the - erroneous - idea that he depended on Flickr to store his data and had no backups.
user24 16y ago
> Would someone really trust Yahoo/Flickr to all their images It's a paid service[1]. So yes. [1] he had a pro account.
- jat850 16y ago
  I'm not siding with or against you or Flickr or anyone else here, just pointing this out: I see nothing in the FAQ or Upgrade page that indicates a Pro account ensures your files will be backed up. (Point being, nothing site-wide in my quick glance seems to indicate a promise of the integrity and forever-ness of your data.)
  - user24 16y ago
    sure, but I think it's reasonable to expect that. I don't pay for gmail and if it all went pop tomorrow I would be incredibly annoyed but I would accept that you get what you pay for. If I had a gmail pro account (if such a thing existed), I'd feel a little more entitled to special treatment.
  - colanderman 16y ago
    I'm pretty sure when I signed up for Flickr Pro, that their TOS said something to the effect that even should Flickr go out of business, they will ensure that your photos are preserved for a reasonable amount of time. That said, I can't seem to find it now. Weird.
VladRussian 16y ago
people belong to either of the 2 groups: 1. people who've been in the situation of lost data when somebody else responsible for its backup hadn't backed the data up. 2. people who don't belong to the first group. After graduating from the second group into the first, i've always been classifying my data as either "can loose, fnack it" or "i'm backing it up myself, right now"
- zipdog 16y ago
  I know quite a few people who have lost important data, and yet still don't do proper back-ups (which is crazy given a 1 Tb drive is $70)
calloc 16y ago
Nope, and neither did the photographer that is being written about. What isn't backupable, and thus is lost forever is all of the comments he had on the various pictures, all of the groups his pictures belonged to, all of the embed's of pictures on various sites, all of the social aspect of Flickr (such as friends, family, all of those things). I use Flickr to share my photos with the world, but I keep a local copy of all of my pictures on my local file server and on my laptop and all of the backups I have of that laptop...
- ebiester 16y ago
  Isn't that on google? Or bing, since that's who yahoo uses. That way, you could get back all of the links. It would take some developer time, but that's exactly what's needed for PR.

Would someone really trust Yahoo/Flickr to all their images and not have backups? Hopefully they didn't really care much about the images, else they should have copies elsewhere.

pavel_lishin 16y ago

"Someone" would, yes - we're not all as smart and paranoid as you. Anyway, the artist has originals backed up, but the article points out that all of the links to those images, and embeds, are now broken.

va1en0k 16y ago
that's a good example of URL being an important part of the data and not just a piece of metadata If URL is constructed from the data somehow (auto-slug from the title, hash or something), such restoration becomes way simpler

hkuo 16y ago

I would imagine it's not so much about the loss of the photos as much as the loss of the social aspects of those 5 years, the comments made, the photos favorited, collections followed. Moreover, there's the uploading which would be a monumental effort to redo, including titles and captions.

scott_s 16y ago
Not only is what you said correct, it's from the second sentence of the article: Mirco Wilhelm has the original files saved elsewhere, but the photos from his extensive Flickr collection had been linked to from all over the web, including the official Flickr blog. I am forced to conclude that few read the article, since most of the comments have focused on the - erroneous - idea that he depended on Flickr to store his data and had no backups.

user24 16y ago

> Would someone really trust Yahoo/Flickr to all their images It's a paid service[1]. So yes. [1] he had a pro account.

jat850 16y ago
I'm not siding with or against you or Flickr or anyone else here, just pointing this out: I see nothing in the FAQ or Upgrade page that indicates a Pro account ensures your files will be backed up. (Point being, nothing site-wide in my quick glance seems to indicate a promise of the integrity and forever-ness of your data.)
- user24 16y ago
  sure, but I think it's reasonable to expect that. I don't pay for gmail and if it all went pop tomorrow I would be incredibly annoyed but I would accept that you get what you pay for. If I had a gmail pro account (if such a thing existed), I'd feel a little more entitled to special treatment.
- colanderman 16y ago
  I'm pretty sure when I signed up for Flickr Pro, that their TOS said something to the effect that even should Flickr go out of business, they will ensure that your photos are preserved for a reasonable amount of time. That said, I can't seem to find it now. Weird.

VladRussian 16y ago

people belong to either of the 2 groups: 1. people who've been in the situation of lost data when somebody else responsible for its backup hadn't backed the data up. 2. people who don't belong to the first group. After graduating from the second group into the first, i've always been classifying my data as either "can loose, fnack it" or "i'm backing it up myself, right now"

zipdog 16y ago
I know quite a few people who have lost important data, and yet still don't do proper back-ups (which is crazy given a 1 Tb drive is $70)

calloc 16y ago

Nope, and neither did the photographer that is being written about. What isn't backupable, and thus is lost forever is all of the comments he had on the various pictures, all of the groups his pictures belonged to, all of the embed's of pictures on various sites, all of the social aspect of Flickr (such as friends, family, all of those things). I use Flickr to share my photos with the world, but I keep a local copy of all of my pictures on my local file server and on my laptop and all of the backups I have of that laptop...

ebiester 16y ago
Isn't that on google? Or bing, since that's who yahoo uses. That way, you could get back all of the links. It would take some developer time, but that's exactly what's needed for PR.