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[–]iBeReese 1977 points1978 points  (482 children)

Is there a planned retention policy? Or is it an "as long as reddit has the money to maintain the servers the images will stay forever" kind of deal?

[–]Amg137[S,A] 2308 points2309 points  (466 children)

We will keep the images as long as they are associated to a post. However if you delete a post we will also delete the image

[–]toomuchtodotoday 819 points820 points  (119 children)

When the image is removed from S3, you might want to replace it (via a PUT right over the existing object) with a zero byte object (which would have an immutable cache header, ensuring the your CDN only needs to request that object once from the S3 origin after being removed via this scheme) that redirects to a fancy Reddit 404 page (which should also be in S3) so folks don't receive the ugly "access denied" S3 response.

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/how-to-page-redirect.html

EDIT: Cloudflare, currently in front of your S3 bucket, should handle this just fine.

[–]umbrae[A] 574 points575 points  (57 children)

Sounds like a great solution. Thank you!

P.S. We're hiring: https://boards.greenhouse.io/reddit

[–]LearnsSomethingNew 171 points172 points  (28 children)

What a website. Getting tech support from its own customers. What a time to live.

[–]toomuchtodotoday 96 points97 points  (22 children)

Doesn't cost me anything to suggest an improvement to the product, and it provides a better experience for everyone at almost zero cost. I'd be crazy not to suggest it!

[–]speedofdark8 1505 points1506 points  (238 children)

How are reposts handled? If i upload something into /r/aww, get the link for that post's image, submit that link to /r/cats, then delete the /r/aww post, will the link in /r/cats still work?

[–]oldschoolred[A] 1167 points1168 points  (205 children)

No it wont... once the uploader removes the original post the link to that image will break

[–][deleted]  (124 children)

[deleted]

    [–]PussyWhistle 578 points579 points  (67 children)

    Not really, this is why we just rehost links on imgur.

    [–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (1 child)

    Hehe, years ago a rival sports board was found to be hotlinking a ton of images off of our board, so of course we went in late at night, changed all the filenames, and linked porn to the old filename. Not sure you could do that here, but it brought a laugh when I was reminded of that.

    [–][deleted]  (22 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]ilovedonuts 43 points44 points  (4 children)

      Meanwhile at your job: ."guys he's doing it again! He has like 6 pictures of owls in hats pulled up on his desktop. He is cuckoo about who who!"

      [–]TRL5 198 points199 points  (10 children)

      So, if we link to a reddit hosted image in comments it can disappear?

      Edit: Just want to be clear that this isn't accusatory, the same is true about linking to a imgur hosted image. I just wanted to be sure I understood the system.

      [–]OmnipotentEntity 96 points97 points  (4 children)

      I was under the impression (possibly mistaken) that it's not possible to delete an archived post.

      If so, how would one remove an image associated with an archived post?

      [–]Pokechu22 62 points63 points  (2 children)

      You can delete archived posts.

      Example: I just deleted this old /r/spam post; this was it before deletion.

      [–]kianworld 55 points56 points  (20 children)

      will removing a post with mod powers delete the image, too? just in case mods reinstate the post.

      [–]Arve 26 points27 points  (1 child)

      A moderator removing a post doesn't actually delete it. It just removes it from view in the subreddit in which the moderator removed it.

      [–]DrewsephA 7 points8 points  (0 children)

      You don't actually delete posts as a mod, you just remove them from being shown on the subreddit. That's why you can still visit them from a user page or PM.

      [–]conradsymes 83 points84 points  (16 children)

      Please design a policy where if reddit was to close it's doors, public data would be contributed to the internet archive.

      [–]toomuchtodotoday 39 points40 points  (8 children)

      ArchiveTeam cell here. This is taken care of already.

      EDIT: Its going into cold storage.

      [–]duckvimes_ 1728 points1729 points  (152 children)

      Any support for keyboard shortcuts when navigating through galleries? Makes it much easier for one-handed navigation.

      You know, in case of severe injury.

      [–]Amg137[S] 711 points712 points  (67 children)

      Great suggestion, we don't do that yet but will definitely look into it because I think it would be great for all of you to browse faster

      edit: typos

      [–]andytuba 260 points261 points  (21 children)

      The RES userbase would appreciate an option to disable any keyboard shortcuts reddit might add, or reaching out to /r/Enhancement to figure out tidy integration.

      (Keyboard navigation really is a great way to browse images faster.)

      [–]ShaxAjax 14 points15 points  (10 children)

      On the subject of RES integration, it may be my version's slightly out of date or some such but I can't manipulate the size of opened images that were uploaded to reddit. It's distracting as all hell 'cause I fiddle with practically every image I open due to having a midlow-res screen.

      [–]freeall 705 points706 points  (8 children)

      will defiantly look into

      Yeah, stick it to the man!

      [–]SimplySarc 809 points810 points  (24 children)

      We're expanding the feature to all SFW communities

      [–]skztr 694 points695 points  (526 children)

      What has changed which made you want to do this yourselves?

      [–]Amg137[S,A] 914 points915 points  (494 children)

      We did it for 2 main reasons:

      1) Seamless User Experience We want to make it as simple as possible for all of you to use Reddit. It was one of the most requested features by users.

      2) Providing Choice We want to offer all of you a choice. You can still use third party image hosting services to upload, but we wanted to provide an option for a smoother experience.

      [–]StuffReallySux 585 points586 points  (79 children)

      We did it for 2 main reasons:

      1) We want to inflate our pageviews, because that's a metric that business people use to quantify website worth. Make no mistake, we're here to monetise this baby. Don't believe me? A few months back, imgur was serving 5 billion pageviews per month. Bringing those pageviews back to Reddit increases our perceived worth.

      2) We want to introduce a licensing model to news & media organisations that already write articles about content our users create. We can charge more if we own the rights to the picture(s) the thread discusses or references.

      [–]AKluthe 64 points65 points  (12 children)

      This is the real answer right here.

      Originally Reddit was designed so people could post all their content and content they find on one site, ie: content aggregation. Imgur was designed to be a simple host for that purpose; it loads fast, doesn't get tanked by heavy traffic and you don't have to scroll to get to the content once you click.

      Over time Imgur has grown. A lot. It's now its own community. People don't just use it as a host for other sites now, they post to Imgur for the sake of sharing with the Imgur community. They hold discussions and socialize there. It's become what Reddit was designed to be...or one could say, a competitor.

      Now one nice thing about Reddit being a content aggregator is it encouraged the whole community to post links to the best stuff from around the web. Or it did. Reddit has also changed. Users want direct links to Imgur so the content loads fast and they don't have to scroll. The less work, the better.

      In addition, anti-spam and self-promotion rules mean most subreddits won't even let you regularly post your own (new) OC without offloading it on Imgur or a similar site to cut off any pageviews you'd get from it and circumvent those spam rules. That way users don't have to leave, you don't get an compensation, and Reddit gets more content viewers, more page views and the content.

      Those business people you mention like pageviews because they're the lifeblood of web content. Hosting anything or creating anything for the web has to generate revenue. Either you're charging for entry or a subscription, you're charging by the ad (page views), or selling some sort of product. It all has to make money somewhere.

      Not surprising, but all of those people creating content for the internet also like getting pageviews.

      Except Reddit has trained its users to like content fast and free, via uploading to Imgur. Rather than just aggregate, Reddit has begun harvesting content, slapping it on a third party site and repeatedly serving it back to itself without credit or concern for the people that create it. I've seen 3 minute comedy videos converted into a gif (so no audio, no playback functions) posted here and people defend it because "gifs don't have sound and I might be at work!" or, more commonly "I don't click Youtube links/I get more clicks if I post a gif." (Kudos to CorridorDigital, Darth Santa was a funny video and deserved better than being frontpaged in gif form.)

      Reddit has gone from content aggregating to straight up freebooting.

      Supporting uploads without leaving the site and displaying them without leaving the site is just the next evolution of it.

      You either die a Digg or live long enough to see yourself become a 9gag.

      [–]neuromonkey 8 points9 points  (2 children)

      Well, shit.

      The facts of the situation aside, will it always be necessary for us to burn down every fucking boat we build, usually while we're in it? (I'm not criticising your perspective--it's valuable, and worth discussing.)

      Is it simply the nature of the relationship between individuals and corporations?

      I'm neither accusing nor excusing, I just honestly wonder if... well... nothing gold can stay?

      [–]PM_ME_UR_SPOOKYDOOT 10 points11 points  (1 child)

      If it costs money to get through the door on the first day of a site like reddit then they won't get the critical mass to run a community based site like this. if the site waits til it has that critical mass then starts charging for its content then the user base revolts.

      people want a great service but they don't want to pay for it in any way. I'm not judging that attitude, but it's a fact.

      I think the thing that rubs a lot of people the wrong way is that reddit relies on 100,000s of contributors (content creators, mods, etc) to give away a little bit of their time/effort for free and they want to monetise that for profit. At the same time, the users who are here for the content which reddit essentially gets for free, are the product which is onsold to advertisers. reddit is providing a platform but they're crowdsourcing all their content and hoping to get rich by selling out their captive audience to advertisers. I'm sure there are lots of users who resent being onsold but i doubt there are enough to noticeably change the site if they all walked away tomorrow.

      [–]AKluthe 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      I'm sure there are lots of users who resent being onsold but i doubt there are enough to noticeably change the site if they all walked away tomorrow.

      If Reddit survived the huff about Ellen Pao, they'll certainly survive this.

      The bulk of the users here either don't understand or don't want to understand copyright issues, original content, or how they're being monetized. They just want to see cat gifs while they poop and get the most imaginary internet points for their caveman SpongeBob. Whatever makes that easiest will keep them on the site -- which is exactly what the people in charge of Reddit want.

      [–]berberine 17 points18 points  (4 children)

      1) We want to inflate our pageviews, because that's a metric that business people use to quantify website worth.

      I work for the local newspaper as a reporter. About six months ago, we were told to stop tossing the photos we didn't use in a story. We typically had 2-4 photos per story. Now we have photo galleries with almost every story. The increase in pageviews has been phenomenal.

      [–]twalker294 32 points33 points  (20 children)

      Why are either of these an issue that we are supposed to get all bent out of shape about? Reddit is a business and if they are doing this to increase revenue, good for them. Why is it that anytime someone tries to make a buck on the internet these days they are automatically branded a money grubbing asshole?

      [–]AKluthe 21 points22 points  (11 children)

      Probably because it's also making a buck at the expense of others.

      There's been a lot of growing complaints about Facebook and other sites becoming a notorious breeding ground for freebooting -- downloading content you didn't make, then uploading elsewhere for recognition and/or profit.

      Creators have little recourse over this when the business (such as Facebook) doesn't prevent it in the first place. And assuming the creators/copyright owners do eventually find out it's usually too late to do much besides request the company pulls the video...in 24-48 hours. At which point the uploader has already profited. No one takes the money or views away from the uploader, and the creator gets nothing for their work (except thousands or millions of people who have watched/read it with no reason to do so again.)

      Now Reddit wants its users to take all that content and conveniently reupload it to their own site, with their own ads and inflate their own pageviews.

      That and they're spinning it as "It's all for you guys!" rather than being upfront that it's a business decision to serve themselves at the expense of content creators.

      [–]Kruntch 1278 points1279 points  (128 children)

      2) Providing Choice We want to offer all of you a choice. You can still use third party image hosting services to upload, but we wanted to provide an option for a smoother experience.

      RemindMe! 2 years

      [–]PigNamedBenis 15 points16 points  (1 child)

      RemindMe! 2 years

      Yeah, that does sound a little bit like microsoft's "embrace, extend, extinguish" methodology in it's beginning stages. With how reddit has gone in terms of monetizing and censoring/vote "algorithming" certain types of posts, I wouldn't be surprised if it goes full digg in the next few years.

      [–][deleted] 5032 points5033 points  (174 children)

      Removed: RIP Apollo

      [–][deleted] 158 points159 points  (30 children)

      I was getting so angry at that and the demands that I switch to their shitty app.

      No, I use imgur because it's an image hosting service. Not for the fucking app. Fuck off.

      [–]LonelyNixon 149 points150 points  (25 children)

      Fuck apps in general. I don't fucking need to install a program to view what is essentially your fucking Web page.

      [–]soguesswhat 955 points956 points  (82 children)

      4) Imgur generally becoming over-monetized and slow.

      [–][deleted] 83 points84 points  (4 children)

      Who in the FUCK thought that was a good idea? And do they still work at imgur?

      [–]what_are_you_smoking 123 points124 points  (1 child)

      Whoever has the authority to remove it still works at Imgur. That's all I need to know.

      [–][deleted] 252 points253 points  (18 children)

      1. Because half the content on Reddit is simply links to imgur, who make lots of ad money while you get squat for it.

      [–]treejanitor 10 points11 points  (0 children)

      Well, reddit did fund imgur's last round of financing... so reddit indirectly profits from imgur doing ok.

      [–]nermid 7 points8 points  (3 children)

      How so? People come to Reddit, are served links (which take basically nothing to host) and sidebar ads, and then are sent to imgur to pick up images (which take comparatively huge amounts of overhead for the company store and deliver) and ads (if the link submitter didn't link directly to the image, anyway. In that case, no ad revenue for imgur). Reddit's the leech, here, not imgur. They put in the heavy lifting of storing and delivering images, while Reddit skates by collecting ad revenue from hyperlinks.

      Taking on image hosting is going to be a massive investment of resources for Reddit for very little extra revenue (if any), and frankly I don't know how Reddit can think they're ready for it when even the text site still breaks down frequently for going over capacity.

      [–]semperlol 208 points209 points  (5 children)

      Mobile imgur got so shitty and bloated. This is a good change.

      [–]TheGeorge 80 points81 points  (2 children)

      3) imgur are slowly turning more and more evil with each passing second, with adverts in every possible place they can.

      [–][deleted]  (16 children)

      [deleted]

        [–]clb92 27 points28 points  (13 children)

        Two line breaks make a new paragraph. New line can be made with two spaces at the end of the line before pressing enter.

        This is a paragraph.

        This is a new paragraph.
        And this is a new line.

        [–]WildVelociraptor 19 points20 points  (5 children)

        Are you kidding me.

        I've been using reddit for like 7 years and I had no idea you could do new lines that aren't new paragraphs.
        This is neat.

        [–]calsosta 145 points146 points  (10 children)

        What I had heard (and experienced) was that imgur was causing issues. Forcing people to their app, overriding default mobile actions such as swipe, which caused a really bad experience for users.

        [–]deadsoulinside 4 points5 points  (0 children)

        Imgur is also blocked at my job, so it made viewing images trickier. Uploading was pretty much a no go, so I had to use a alt site that was not blocked. I like the fact I can view the images with inline image viewers from reddit hosted links, versus opening in a new browser.

        [–][deleted]  (2 children)

        [deleted]

          [–][deleted] 264 points265 points  (66 children)

          Why is the snoo wearing a German football kit?

          [–]LagunaBeachSucksDik 54 points55 points  (10 children)

          And holding a Cal Rowing oar!

          [–]Amg137[S] 46 points47 points  (9 children)

          I am impressed you recognized it!

          [–]janitory 20 points21 points  (2 children)

          I guess they wanted him to resemble Bastian Schweinsteiger, but no idea why they made Snoo look like that.

          [–]Amg137[S] 256 points257 points  (30 children)

          It's my snoo, why do you think Bastian didn't play the first half in the game. Someone had to make this post...

          [–]KingDuderhino 34 points35 points  (5 children)

          But the jersey is confusing. It looks like the jersey from the World Cup in 2014 but it doesn't have the three stars. Also white eagle on black ground reminds me of the old Eintracht Frankfurt logo.

          So, you are saying Schweini goes to Frankfurt? Is this the hidden message?

          [–]OmnipotentEntity 1039 points1040 points  (247 children)

          Is EXIF data stripped?

          [–]Amg137[S,A] 1219 points1220 points  (240 children)

          Yes EXIF data is removed

          [–]TheGoldenHand 402 points403 points  (31 children)

          On i.reddit.com, on iOS 8, if I click an i.redd.it image link, it takes me to m.reddit.com, then I have to click the link again to see the image.

          m.reddit.com is much slower and less compact, and it doesn't really make sense why it's redirecting, when it should be taking me directly to the image, not back to the comments. Thought I would pass this on.

          [–]R3D1AL 27 points28 points  (9 children)

          Same with reddit.com/.compact

          Then again they've been pushing the new mobile format pretty hard, so I kind of expect it.

          [–]sync-centre 623 points624 points  (142 children)

          Is the EXIF data kept in a separate database? or is it actually removed and totally forgotten?

          [–]I_AM_STILL_A_IDIOT 645 points646 points  (121 children)

          Well, I'd like to give some feedback.

          What's up with the color fidelity and compression?

          From this submission I made about a photo I took in Japan: the original, and the compressed rehost used for the thumbnail. Notice the way dialed down yellow, for instance.

          By the way, I never permitted that rehost when submitting a flickr image to /r/pics. I'm not annoyed that it was rehosted, I'd just like there to be a heads up when that happens. And I'd prefer for the color fidelity to be at least somewhat more similar.

          Beyond that, thanks for the image hosting service. It's neat to see that the hosting will be done at reddit instead of the typical imgur. Their pushing the imgur app to mobile users has been quite annoying.


          edit: for those interested: here's the full size, uncompressed image (direct link) - Flickr does a great job of hosting images at full resolution but can be a bit annoying to navigate.

          [–]umbrae[A] 448 points449 points  (66 children)

          Wow, I haven't seen that sort of reduction in quality before. This is an image preview though, not an upload, so it is a different system. I'd be curious if you see this loss in quality if you made a direct upload to reddit. It may be something to do with a high quality jpeg not being expected on resize and losing some jpeg-specific data.

          We'll definitely take a look at that though, thanks for letting us know.

          [–]XplodingForce 400 points401 points  (13 children)

          As a pointer: this probably has nothing to do with compression. The original image has an Adobe RGB color space, which the reddit image host strips. By stripping the profile, the browser will interpret the image as sRGB, which causes it to look undersaturated, since the same value in Adobe RGB corresponds to a much more saturated color.

          There are two solutions to this problem:

          1. Don't strip the color profile. Stripping other exif data is a good idea, but color profiles should not be stripped. As far as I know it is not possible to have sensitive data in a color profile.
          2. Convert the image to sRGB. This means that all color values are recalculated to match the sRGB space. Colors that are more saturated than sRGB will be clipped, and will lose some saturation. However, this will only be noticeable to people with wide gamut monitors, which can show more saturated colors than sRGB. This is obviously the lesser option of the two, however it is still better than stripping the profile without converting properly. For everyone with an sRGB monitor, the result will look exactly the same as 1.

          [–]graaahh 139 points140 points  (5 children)

          I have no idea what all this is about, but I just want to say that one of my favorite things about reddit is and always has been that there's people like you all over the place on this site offering expert advice to the most random things like this. Like, it's just really cool to me that someone can have a weird little problem like this and somewhere out there is a person who immediately knows what the computers behind the scenes did wrong and how to fix it.

          [–]loki_racer 89 points90 points  (44 children)

          By the way, I never permitted that rehost when submitting a flickr image to /r/pics.

          Why no response to this? Flickr maintains copyrights of the photo owner. I don't think reddit can legal rehost it without breaking copyright laws. Especially if EXIF data is stripped as you say.

          [–]Georgy_K_Zhukov 71 points72 points  (0 children)

          If I understand right, this is the hosting for the thumbnail image, right? I think that might be covered by Fair Use in the same vein that image search engines are protected, see Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc.:

          The court held that Google's framing and hyperlinking as part of an image search engine constituted a fair use of Perfect 10's images because the use was highly transformative, overturning most of the district court's decision.

          That "thumbnail" is pretty big though, so... maybe not:

          The Ninth Circuit did, however, overturn the district court's decision that Google's thumbnails were infringing. Google's argument, which was upheld by the court, was a fair use defense. The appellate court ruled that Google's use of thumbnails was fair use, mainly because they were "highly transformative."** The court did not define what size a thumbnail is but the examples the court cited was only 3% of the original. Most other major sites use a size not longer than 150 pixels on the long size**. Specifically, the court ruled that Google transformed the images from a use of entertainment and artistic expression to one of retrieving information, citing the similar case, Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation. The court reached this conclusion despite the fact that Perfect 10 was attempting to market thumbnail images for cell phones, with the court quipping that the "potential harm to Perfect 10's market remains hypothetical.

          Seems to be vague on that count, so like I said, only might be covered. But point is that rehosting in of itself wouldn't automatically be breaking the law.

          [–]I_AM_STILL_A_IDIOT 11 points12 points  (0 children)

          Yeah, I can see it was used automatically for the image preview feature, which is why I assumed most of the compression was simply intentional to provide a small preview image. It's a bummer it compresses so heavily, though, as, for instance, the Reddit Enhancement Suite auto-previewing makes it look worse than it should be!

          Thanks for looking into it!

          Regarding the second part of my feedback... It'd be great if there was some sort of warning there would be a compressed rehost for the preview too, just to let photographers know, regarding their rights to the image and that preview. Technically, Flickr doesn't allow that to be done, especially when someone posts an image that isn't theirs but is hosted at Flickr.

          [–]MiamiZ[A] 476 points477 points  (29 children)

          Thanks for the feedback! I just pushed a change to keep the color profile so that the colors remain beautiful.

          [–]porthos3 113 points114 points  (11 children)

          Not enough acknowledgment of how seriously impressive that turnaround time was. Figuring out a bug, fixing it, testing it, and pushing a change live to production for a customer in two hours is seriously impressive.

          I really appreciate you guys doing such a great job listening and responding to the community. A huge improvement over previous years.

          [–]hbk1966 21 points22 points  (3 children)

          Seems someone knew exactly what the problem was.

          [–]Zalack 28 points29 points  (1 child)

          For stuff like this sometimes it just comes down to someone pointing it out. This wasn't a bug so much as feature request. Meaning they knew exactly what to change once the request was made, probably swapping out what library was being used for the color profiles.

          Bugs take so long because oftentimes you have to figure out where you even need to start

          [–]MiamiZ 24 points25 points  (0 children)

          Yup that's right. u/XplodingForce's comment made it really easy to figure out what needed to be changed (don't strip color profile) and it was just a quick fix with PIL after I looked it up.

          [–]porthos3 4 points5 points  (0 children)

          Even if they knew exactly what was wrong, developing and deploying a fix for it so quickly is still very impressive.

          Some of the companies I have worked with, it would take at least a full day to be able to get such a feature out into production even if it were a priority.

          [–][deleted] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

          Looks like it's removing the images color profile. Your Flickr image has Adobe RGB but the Reddit Media image does not.

          [–]worm929 20 points21 points  (4 children)

          oh wow, that's a HUGE downgrade in image size and quality.

          what happens if you upload it to imgur?

          [–]I_AM_STILL_A_IDIOT 10 points11 points  (0 children)

          I imagine the downgrade happened because it was an automatic process to generate a thumbnail image.

          Rehosting to imgur was quite lossless on the 1356x2048 sized image. Of course, the fidelity is much higher on Flickr, which keeps the full size clean too. Imgur's been known to resize big panoramas.

          [–]hennell 422 points423 points  (51 children)

          Some random questions - apologies if these are asked & answered elsewhere (or are blindingly obvious if you use the feature on a desktop!)

          What's the copyright deal when uploading to 'reddit images'? (Can they (offically) be republished by others? By Reddit?)

          What's the copyright deal if you get complaints (I.e. a company says it's their picture? What if the uploader disagrees?)

          Can images only be viewed via Reddit.com or are you planning a twitter cards style embedded situation etc?

          You said images will be deleted if the post is deleted. Can you delete the image separately from the post?

          Do you do any smart "this is the same image as that" duplicate managing - if so what happens if one post is deleted?

          [–]oldschoolred[A] 95 points96 points  (38 children)

          What's the copyright deal when uploading to 'reddit images'? (Can they (offically) be republished by others? By Reddit?)

          Our policy is the same as comments and posts. If there is a disagreement about removal, we'll handle those case by case.

          Can images only be viewed via Reddit.com or are you planning a twitter cards style embedded situation etc?

          Image hosting is for images within Reddit today.

          You said images will be deleted if the post is deleted. Can you delete the image separately from the post? Do you do any smart "this is the same image as that" duplicate managing - if so what happens if one post is deleted?

          Not yet - on both accounts - but it's likely something we visit.

          edit: typo

          [–]andhelostthem 72 points73 points  (33 children)

          For those of you wondering what the fine print entails...

          By submitting user content to reddit, you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide license to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies, perform, or publicly display your user content in any medium and for any purpose, including commercial purposes, and to authorize others to do so.

          [–]joeyoungblood 28 points29 points  (29 children)

          /u/spez could you not update the TOS to specify that Reddit retains the right to display the images on their site or via third party apps but doesn't own them? Imgur TOS seems to be slightly better here: http://imgur.com/tos

          EDIT: clarification by "own" I mean have the right to resell for revenue without expressed written consent of content creator or maintain even beyond deletion.

          [–][deleted] 75 points76 points  (28 children)

          Reddit doesn't "own" your images.

          Royalty-free: Reddit doesn't have to pay you to show the image you uploaded to others.

          Perpetual: This license doesn't expire.

          Irrevocable: You can't revoke the license you're granting upon uploading.

          Non-exclusive: Granting this license doesn't affect your ability to grant anyone else a license.

          Unrestricted: you can't specify any conditions for this license

          Worldwide: self-explanatory

          to reproduce: We can make copies.

          prepare derivative works: We can add our watermark.

          Distribute copies: self-explanatory

          perform or publicly display: serve it from our servers

          in any medium: we'll paint it for you and mail it if one day web servers serve content that way

          for any purpose: even if someone didn't ask for it to be served and we served it, that's okay

          including commercial purposes: we've got ads

          authorize others to do so: we grant 3rd party partnerships sometimes

          Disclaimer: IANAL

          tl;dr: Reddit doesn't own your images. This is a standard ToS and there's nothing to get excited about here.

          [–]Wolfy21_ 465 points466 points  (77 children)

          joke oil arrest crowd direful innate hungry airport paltry truck

          This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

          [–]umbrae[A] 23 points24 points  (2 children)

          Yeah we could do better here. Uploaded images also have a clean URL at i.redd.it which we need to do a better job of exposing. These big urls are mainly for previews or other places where we can save bandwidth by providing a smaller size image.

          [–]nakilon 6 points7 points  (0 children)

          Since one post can have only one image, why not just reuse the post id? And leave those silly &s= only for thumbnails, etc., that is not a subject of right-click-sharing.

          [–]Hatman88 50 points51 points  (15 children)

          I agree. Aside from using a link shortener, I can't think of a way to shrink it. Deleting the text after the "?" causes an unauthorized error.

          [–]a-priori 9 points10 points  (5 children)

          If I had to guess, I'd say it's because everything after the "s=" in the URL is a signature. Other file hosting services have similar ways to grant time limited access to a file.

          The way it works is that reddit.com generates a signature that says "I am reddit.com and I grant access to file XYZ until 30 minutes from now". Then i.redditmedia.com can check this signature and serve the file... Until the signature expires.

          This prevents the link from being shared outside of Reddit because they aren't valid for very long before they break.

          [–]umbrae[A] 25 points26 points  (2 children)

          Just FYI that signature isn't time bound, it's purely so that folks can't alter the other parameters and create a bunch of different sizes of images or something, which could cause excessive server load. That URL will stick around as long as the post isn't deleted. (Cc /u/daveime /u/Theblandyman)

          [–]daveime 6 points7 points  (0 children)

          Yeah, I've come across this before, and it breaks the whole concept of sharing content. You share something, it appears to be shared, then come back the following day and the image link is now broken.

          [–]fwork 29 points30 points  (3 children)

          I've seriously had to reupload images to imgur just to get small URLs.

          Some of us share in IRC and other places where having a stupidass long link is a downside.

          [–][deleted] 25 points26 points  (3 children)

          Deleting the text after the "?" causes an unauthorized error.

          Which is incredibly stupid. The file should be accessible without those unnecessary parameters.

          If you try to complicate image hosting people won't use it. Imgur works just fine without any stupid parameters and files are accessible plainly.

          [–]ForceBlade 12 points13 points  (0 children)

          Which is incredibly stupid. The file should be accessible without those unnecessary parameters.

          You're right.

          w=712

          &s=8d0abe1b9e5e65418f72c05012bbe50c

          It's just a really funny but unnecessary request method.

          I mean, I don't like it either.. but if people are loud enough change will come so I really hope this is cleaned up and the system changed.

          Using something like Youtube's video ID or Imgur's.. what, 6 character length? should be plenty of room. And fuck all that other stuff the users don't need to deal with that.

          [–]SanityInAnarchy 7 points8 points  (0 children)

          When I right-click the image itself, I get this:

          https://i.redd.it/lasm5nl33o4x.png

          It's a bit weird, though. I'm guessing it has something to do with the logic that redirects you to the discussion.

          [–]roionsteroids 40 points41 points  (7 children)

          "Copy link address" in Chrome and "Copy link location" in Firefox both receive https://i.redd.it/lasm5nl33o4x.png.

          [–]Stoppels 18 points19 points  (0 children)

          Okay, I tried it again, it is absolutely inconsistent and I think it's actually an intended feature.

          [–][deleted]  (5 children)

          [deleted]

            [–]aldonius 8 points9 points  (0 children)

            I believe that's because it's a reddit-native expando, not an RES one. Should be fixed in the next RES release.

            [–][deleted] 2947 points2948 points  (116 children)

            In the past when it came to controversial/illegal content, you've stood on the premise of "we aren't hosting the content, just pointing to it." Does this meaningfully change your content strategies and/or policies?

            [–]oldschoolred[A] 1031 points1032 points  (93 children)

            We may make changes but for now the existing rules cover them.

            [–]shaunc 618 points619 points  (21 children)

            I know this is drifting off-topic and probably isn't quite in your wheelhouse, but do you know if there are plans to revisit /r/chillingeffects? Information about DMCA takedowns used to be posted there on a regular basis, but it's been months since anything showed up there.

            [–]TheFrigginArchitect 372 points373 points  (14 children)

            From my point of view, you are drifting on topic

            [–]flounder19 23 points24 points  (4 children)

            Short of renewing the subreddit, I'd appreciate if they just addressed the fact that they stopped posting there altogether without telling the community.

            [–][deleted]  (3 children)

            [deleted]

              [–]You_and_I_in_Unison 13 points14 points  (2 children)

              Is there any reason to think the warrant canary didn't do its exact job?

              [–]flounder19 16 points17 points  (1 child)

              Not really. It's just on us as a community to repeatedly bring it up so people know that it's gone

              [–]ImKangarooJackBxtch 40 points41 points  (5 children)

              This could lead to Reddit being blocked in China.

              [–]TimoBRL 45 points46 points  (2 children)

              Very good point. Will this mean there's going to be changes in the user policy?

              [–][deleted]  (4 children)

              [deleted]

                [–]ProvidesTranscripts 71 points72 points  (4 children)

                [An image of Snoo with various items, including hair, a soccer ball, and wearing a shirt. Snoo is saying:]

                Hi everyone!
                A few weeks ago we began testing image uploading on Reddit. Given high demand, we're expanding the feature to all SFW communities that allow images.


                Starting today, when you create a link post in a participating community, you'll be able to upload an image on desktop:

                • Upload images (up to 20MB) and gifs (100MB) directly to Reddit when posting.
                • Clicking on a Reddit-hosted image will take you directly to the conversation about that image.
                • View Reddit hosted gifs inline within Reddit's native iOS and Android apps.

                Please give it a try and post any feedback you have. We would love to hear how we can make Reddit even better for all of you.

                [–][deleted]  (51 children)

                [deleted]

                  [–]Dances_With_Boobies 116 points117 points  (4 children)

                  Yes this is quite annoying, who can fix this? Is it dependent on RES or on the image hosting?

                  Edit: It seems like it's possible to disable reddit's built-in expando functionality, and thus enable the RES one?

                  [–]hapaxLegomina 24 points25 points  (2 children)

                  Either. RES only allows you to scale using the plugin's expando feature. It's a totally different object than a Reddit-native expando. Either Reddit can support the drag-to-resize feature or RES can jump in there and (I'm guessing) apply a new CSS class to the Reddit-native image.

                  [–]andytuba 41 points42 points  (1 child)

                  It's a bit more complicated than adding a new css class, but the plan is that RES will add its own handler to replace reddit's.

                  [–]Dances_With_Boobies 13 points14 points  (0 children)

                  WOOOH! Thank you very much for the amazing work you do!

                  [–]ItsThat1Dude 79 points80 points  (0 children)

                  Yes please. It is very annoying when pictures are too small or too large and RES will not allow me to resize them on the page. I have been actively skipping links that have the image hosted on reddit.

                  [–]andytuba 61 points62 points  (10 children)

                  RES will include resizing, purpling, and all the usual bells and whistles in the next release, in a month or two.

                  [–]tashibum 34 points35 points  (0 children)

                  Please! It's driving me nuts that I can't click and drag for scaling!

                  [–]KyfeHeartsword 132 points133 points  (26 children)

                  How does Reddit have the bandwidth capability for this when it barely has it for the normal text demand from its users? I don't want to see the Reddit unable to connect message more than the usual 3 or 4 times a day.

                  [–]unkz 40 points41 points  (3 children)

                  I would imagine that static image data would be much easier to serve across a CDN than dynamic content. Bandwidth isn't the issue.

                  [–][deleted]  (17 children)

                  [deleted]

                    [–]new_account_5009 194 points195 points  (50 children)

                    Seems like this will be pretty costly to maintain. With big increases to expenses, what's Reddit's plan to increase revenue correspondingly?

                    [–]Drunken_Economist 311 points312 points  (3 children)

                    Wait I thought we agreed that you were gonna cover the hosting costs. Oh man this is awkward

                    [–]therico 17 points18 points  (26 children)

                    imgur's bandwidth costs must be 100x reddit's, how do they stay afloat?

                    [–]Amg137[S,M] [score hidden] stickied comment (424 children)

                    Here is what it looks like in action

                    Edit: change in link to mp4

                    Edit 2: For those of you with RES use this link

                    [–][deleted]  (96 children)

                    [deleted]

                      [–]artformarket 184 points185 points  (36 children)

                      It doesn't work with Hover Zoom+ (or similar plugin)... which makes this essentially break Reddit for me and the countless other's I've gotten into Reddit. I tell them they MUST install hoverzoom for the perfect experience- Just cruising down the homepage, rolling over images after reading the title and having them pop up like a punchline!

                      [–][deleted]  (2 children)

                      [deleted]

                        [–]PM_ME_CHIMICHANGAS 15 points16 points  (1 child)

                        Good tip. Imagus is available on Firefox as well as Chrome.

                        [–]hazeleyedwolff 13 points14 points  (4 children)

                        Same. This breaks my experience and makes me have to click on links like a savage. Please work with Hoverzoom/Thumbnail Zoom to make this work.

                        Edit: /u/Squallid pointed out below that the latest Thumbnail Zoom Plus update fixes this. I tested, and it does. Thanks Squallid, TZP and Reddit team!

                        [–]coredumperror 44 points45 points  (0 children)

                        Huh, well... that's a disappointing first impression. RES treats that link as an expando, but when you click it to view the video inline, all you get is a "broken image" icon. Clicking the link directly shows the video just fine, though.

                        [–]donutsalad 168 points169 points  (14 children)

                        I like how RES allows me to resize imgur images with a click and drag. Any plans to work with RES to make that work with these reddit hosted images? Or add the feature to reddit?

                        [–]based_arceus 84 points85 points  (3 children)

                        I agree. I currently don't like when the reddit uploaded pictures show up on my front page, because RES won't allow me to resize them.

                        I didn't realize how much I actually used that feature before I could no longer do it.

                        [–]adeadhead 9 points10 points  (1 child)

                        You can fix that by disabling media previews in your reddit preferences which will then make it so RES handles all expandos.

                        [–]mludd 75 points76 points  (3 children)

                        Yeah, I've already come to dislike Reddit hosted images because I can't scale them without opening them in a separate browser tab.

                        [–][deleted]  (13 children)

                        [deleted]

                          [–]ahawks 175 points176 points  (35 children)

                          Here is what that looks like with RES.

                          [–]PM_ME_UR_APOLOGY 134 points135 points  (10 children)

                          Didn't load with RES.

                          Not sure if RES's fault or new service's.

                          [–]Staynes 17 points18 points  (1 child)

                          Ye as you said doesnt open in RES and these weird i.reddit.upload img things arent turning purple either once you visited them with RES.

                          [–]greany_beeny 8 points9 points  (0 children)

                          You can't drag to resize some of them either. Seems to be the "i.reddituploads" ones.

                          "i.redd.it" is resizeable.

                          [–]geoman2k 17 points18 points  (5 children)

                          Any plans to do a Chrome Extension? There is one for Imgur that allows you to right-click an image and select "Rehost on Imgur" which then uploads it there and takes you to it.

                          Also, having a landing page of some sort where I could paste an image from my clipboard and have it upload would be very useful. Those are the two features I use on Imgur the most because they are quick and easy.

                          [–]metamorphomo 19 points20 points  (8 children)

                          Hi, I'm not super technical so I don't know the details of what's actually happening here but... I've used Hoversee for ages, and can't imagine browsing reddit without it now. The only thing is, it doesn't work with the reddit uploads, only imgur, and it does struggle with gfycat, too. Is this something that could be looked at this end, or entirely Hoversee's problem? Thanks!

                          [–]jmxd 66 points67 points  (10 children)

                          What if we want to share an image elsewhere?

                          https://i.redditmedia.com/k4WAkhVH4j4bS9w17xCewogwdNc0A7z0jYPr8e1upOM.png?w=712&s=8d0abe1b9e5e65418f72c05012bbe50c
                          

                          isn't exactly userfriendly

                          [–]jimstr 40 points41 points  (10 children)

                          can't resize image by dragging it == sucks

                          e i feel dumb for many reasons, one of them is maybe because it's something that RES do and not Reddit?

                          [–]adeadhead 12 points13 points  (5 children)

                          You can fix that by disabling media previews in your reddit preferences which will then make it so RES handles all expandos.

                          [–][deleted] 191 points192 points  (50 children)

                          Are GIFs converted to WebM/other HTML5 format, or kept in their original .gif format?

                          [–]madlee[A] 237 points238 points  (46 children)

                          Yes, gifs are converted to mp4s for playback in the expandos on listings/comment pages.

                          [–]daveime 6 points7 points  (1 child)

                          I'd question the logic of allowing someone to upload a 100MB GIF, just to convert it on your end to a 2-3MB GIFV (MP4). Why put all that unnecessary load on your incoming bandwidth?

                          GIF really needs to die, it forces low quality animations with a limited pallette and all the associated compromises that brings - so you'll have people converting MP4 to lower-quality GIF at their end so they can upload to Reddit, just to have you guys convert it back to GIFV which is essentially MP4 anyway?

                          [–]DenizenSiege 8 points9 points  (6 children)

                          This seems like a good place to ask this. Why do I get "URI signature match failed" or "Unauthorized" when trying to view these links in my phone's third party app or the browser? Strangely doesn't happen with the image linked here explaining the changes.

                          [–]you-create-energy 9 points10 points  (5 children)

                          Great feature! One small concern: Why can't I resize it by clicking and dragging in the browser window? I can do that on almost all images, but you guys are displaying them in some way that the browser doesn't allow us to dynamically resize them.

                          [–]EditingAndLayout 38 points39 points  (10 children)

                          Any chance of uploading a gif and then posting it later? I usually upload all my new gifs over the weekend and post them throughout the week. Without that feature, I'm not sure this works for me (or most gif-makers).

                          [–]Rooonaldooo99 52 points53 points  (7 children)

                          As long as using the direct image link is standard, I like this. I hate browsing non-direct Imgur links on my phone.

                          [–]yukisho 9 points10 points  (0 children)

                          Clicking on a Reddit-hosted image will take you directly to the conversation about that image.

                          Can we have an account option to not do this and instead take us to the actual image? Not everyone wants to read the comments, some of us just want to look at pictures.

                          [–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (5 children)

                          A very big problem I have with reddit image hosting is that some of the URLs are excessively long.

                          I mean URLs like these: https://i.redditmedia.com/Q0MHUGPgRFeV1I4tvdpwpBLiN2Z47bo4cvdy1DgFcRU.jpg?w=508&s=9a5c5917550179d33113dfd9a777b9a9 -- it requires the entire thing. You can't strip the &s= part. It's impossible to use these in texts or instant messages.

                          I noticed the image in OP is https://i.redd.it/lasm5nl33o4x.png, but sometimes the only URL I see is the example I gave above and it's very cumbersome.

                          [–]brian21 144 points145 points  (34 children)

                          Yay! Imgur has become the same bloated hosting site that /u/MrGrim was trying to replace.

                          [–]essidus 100 points101 points  (7 children)

                          Naw. I remember when photobucket and imageshack were basically the only choices. Painfully slow load times, terrible uptime, hideous GUI. Imgur, for all of its current flaws, is still markedly better as a service than anything at the time. That said, imgur has also outgrown reddit, and has its own userbase that often don't overlap with reddit users in the venn diagram. They made the right business choice to split off from their roots, but they also have to accept that they'll lose reddit traffic because of that.

                          I'm not entirely thrilled with reddit self-hosting considering the ongoing uptime issues it has, but I'd rather it stay in-house than have to start using that stupid redpill alt service slimgur.

                          [–]enalios 22 points23 points  (8 children)

                          Any plans to allow image uploads more generally? For example to post an image as a comment?

                          [–]xenonsupra 12 points13 points  (5 children)

                          It would be awesome if Alien Blue got an update to support long press thumbnail viewing for reddit uploads. Considering AB is no longer under development, how could we make this happen?

                          [–][deleted]  (1 child)

                          [deleted]

                            [–][deleted]  (6 children)

                            [deleted]

                              [–]SparkStorm 8 points9 points  (1 child)

                              The only reason I'm not happy for this is because I can usually hit the save image button on alien blue of I see a picture I want to keep, but with the new reddit hosting it won't save it so I can't save any pictures

                              [–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (3 children)

                              Does your image service provide a way for the image uploader to change his mind and delete the image from your server at a later time?

                              Does your image host allow hotlinking from sites different from Reddit?

                              [–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (1 child)

                              The only complaints I have at the moment are that the images aren't scalable and the links don't turn purple or "seen" after you view them in RES. Fix these two things and there you go.

                              [–]draginator 12 points13 points  (4 children)

                              Not necessarily your guy's fault, but any "i.reddituploads" image can't be resized with res and makes me not click on them.

                              [–]hanpanai 27 points28 points  (31 children)

                              Why are the randomly-generated URLs so long?

                              For example https://i.redd.it/lasm5nl33o4x.png.

                              It appears you're using 12 random lower-case characters + numbers in the file name, but do you really need 36 ^ 12 (~4.7 * 10 18 ) possibilities? You could add upper-case letters, decrease this to 7 random characters and still maintain 62 ^ 7 or 3.5 trillion possible combinations.

                              That way the URLs would be shorter, and easier to remember and copy/paste.

                              [–]IdRatherBeTweeting 106 points107 points  (32 children)

                              SFW? Oh, boy. There is going to be a big debate about what is NSFW because of this. Just host all content that isn't illegal and make it easy on yourself Reddit.

                              Also, RIP Imgur.

                              [–]I_AM_STILL_A_IDIOT 27 points28 points  (0 children)

                              SFW? Oh, boy. There is going to be a big debate about what is NSFW because of this.

                              You misunderstood - NSFW images can still be hosted using the reddit hosting, it's just that generally SFW subreddits, like /r/Pics (which is generally SFW) or /r/EarthPorn have had the feature enabled. Even /r/WTF has it enabled.

                              [–]SheeEttin 63 points64 points  (9 children)

                              Subreddits mark themselves SFW/NSFW. I'd imagine that's what's controlling this.

                              [–]Imagine_Cat 11 points12 points  (0 children)

                              [–]Roland_B_Luntz 47 points48 points  (3 children)

                              PLEASE make your hosted images work correctly with RES. As of right now images show up as videos and they can not be resized. It's very annoying and is detracting from the user experience.

                              [–][deleted]  (1 child)

                              [deleted]

                                [–]wowy-lied 19 points20 points  (15 children)

                                Could you explain this ? You began to implement this the same time you let out the official apps and strangely a lot of apps can't or have trouble loading things with redditupload (alien blue, baconit, readit...). Are you trying to force people to use your official app with this kind of move ?

                                [–]siirka 16 points17 points  (8 children)

                                Can someone explain why I can't drag to resize with RES on images hosted using this?

                                [–]Lunaa7 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                                That's pretty cool! I have some questions about privacy:

                                Are the images hosted directly on reddit, or you can have acess from outside? I've seen some people on imgur accidentally uploading public pictures of personal things (like NSFW things) and getting bashed on imgur for that. Also, I don't know if you could delete your pictures without an account - Are uploaded images now directly attached to your username? (so to delete a photo, you would delete the post) What about reposts?

                                [–]nerdybirdie 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                When I tried this with a gif two weeks ago, I noticed that

                                1. My gif was absurdly low quality for a while after posting. I mean gigantic clouds of discoloration, 1 frame per second maybe, gigantic blocks of distorted pixels, etc. The quality got better after a while, but I'd rather have it sit through a processing page first and post at top quality than have it posted immediately but look like crap for a while.

                                2. You can't drag to resize! I miss that feature.

                                [–]ViennaKP 7 points8 points  (2 children)

                                The only problem with this that I have is that the images so far can't be opened with Hover Free (the free hoverzoom extention thing), will this be updated?

                                [–]Andrei_Vlasov 24 points25 points  (2 children)

                                With imgur Dog pictures looks very cute, is this new format going to affect the cuteness of the dogs?

                                Edit : Gold? the same day that my previous gold expired? Thanks reddit you are awesome! i always knew dogs are the best.

                                [–]Magus5311 16 points17 points  (1 child)

                                With RES and imgur hosting you can expand the image from your home page and click and drag to resize. Do you plan on ever copying this feature for i.redd.it links?

                                [–]id000001 12 points13 points  (9 children)

                                Lots of people talking about various little problem / missing feature. All I can say is that we should expect reddit to expends / fix these stuff slowly. Don't expect too much.

                                Having said that. This is totally a right step. I can't understand why Reddit relying so heavily on 3rd party sites for so long. Overtime, all 3rd party will fall to greed. Not saying Reddit won't, but at least reddit can control its features.

                                [–]TheAnimus 25 points26 points  (9 children)

                                How will copyrighted images be handled?

                                [–]cl191 19 points20 points  (2 children)

                                And to expand on that question, I am a regular OC uploader to the SFW porn network subs (/r/earthporn ...etc). What are the "fine prints"? Like am I giving up my rights in any form?

                                [–]oldschoolred[A] 37 points38 points  (1 child)

                                You still retain ownership. Uploaded images are covered by the same policy as comments and posts. Here’s the relevant section of our user agreement

                                [–]oldschoolred[A] 19 points20 points  (5 children)

                                You can report it by PMing /r/reddit.com or sending an e-mail to contact@reddit.com so we may review and remove it if necessary.

                                [–]protestor 12 points13 points  (1 child)

                                what's the difference between i.reddituploads.com and i.redd.it?