It's all about Image
- What would happen if the imgur or imgsafe servers were suddenly switched off?
- What would happen if sites block Steemit from linking to them, or charge users for linking to them?
Today felt a little like christmas a few years ago where all the power went out and nobodies cooker worked. We couldn't cook the Christmas dinner then today we couldn't post.
Memory Loss
Image Source: https://bebrainfit.com/
Unique to Steemit (among blogging platforms) is that you cannot edit old posts so if a link goes stale you have no way of changing it. 404 errors and broken image links will resemble memory loss on Steemit. They will become a sign of ageing posts.
What can Steemians do today?
You have two options:
- reduce the risk of stale links and use de-centralised storage solutions, IFPS, Maidsafe or Storj to store your photos
- reduce the impact of stale links by using proper markdown.
Decentralised Storage
Previously I wrote about IPFS in A Graveyard of Broken Links.
This recent blackout was a great test for this but when I went to my original post with IPFS linked photos the links weren't working. They must somehow have been linked to the AWS crisis.
For some background and an intro to IPFS see my original post.
After today I believe that decentralised cloud storage solutions such as Storj or Maidsafe could prove to be better options. Sia seems to have also been affected by the AWS issue.
Use full Markdown syntax for images
An alternative to using decentralised storage, if you want to continue to use your favourite upload site, is to take steps to minimise the effect of stale links in your posts.
You may already be doing this but best practice for linking images is to include a name or description with your image link.
This means that even if your link is broken later your post will show the image name. In that situation it shouldn't look as as bad as if the image link is broken with no alt text. It also shows up while your image is loading.
Best Practice Markdown Syntax for Images
-----------------------------------------
e.g.
Thank you for reading this. I write on Steemit about Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Travel and lots of random topics.
This won't matter unless steemit.com changes the way it fetches images. I believe they cache them (temporarily store) on Amazon AWS servers before relaying them to the website. This is to reduce load on the hosting services I presume, but also creates a single point of failure, as we saw today! 😅
Storing your images on distributed file systems will have not have the supposed benefit unless the steemit.com devs change this.
That must be what happened with my previous post. The links weren't working which is as you say caused by the way Steemit.com caches links. I wish I had tried out busy.org while the links were down to see did it work there.
I did, busy.org was down too. Actually @sneak (I think who's the steemit.com tech lead) just responded to a some comments of mine with some info I should have thought of:
and
That's why busy.org was down. I thought it was a dependency on steemit.com or the steemit images server, but I think it was just the general AWS meltdown everyone else was having.
So it's an even larger single point of failure. I think this shows there's probably a need / market for a distributed version of steemit.com or a completely new front end competitor, or else a local desktop client. I think someone was talking before but can't remember where.
Also I just want to clarify that I'm not criticising anyone on the steemit.com team, they do great work. It's just in the spirit of debate and looking for the best options and system.
Incidentally, I wonder what the mobile app eSteem relies on and whether it was affected? @good-karma can you comment?
eSteem is standalone app by design! You can change your connection socket to any node you want, can be your own local node websocket! eSteem desktop works same way, without relying on servers. Settings page of eSteem suggest to use either of these websocket if you don't have your own (piston.rocks, Steem.ws, Steemit). Soon when funding allows, I will have eSteem public node to offer with all plugins and full support.
Awesome! 😆 Great to know 🙂
I hadn't tried eSteem either but I would love to get answers to your comments.
Not criticism either but just pointing out that Steemit does pride itself on decentralisation freedom etc but this event has highlighted that it does seem to have a point of failure with the image links at the moment.
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Thanks @screenname
Interesting read, thanks @eroche!
Your welcome. Thanks for the comment.