Coevolving Innovations

… in Business Organizations and Information Technologies

From Flickr to Piwigo

As an alternative to relying on Flickr as my photo-sharing site, a migration to self-hosting Piwigo took less than 2 hours.  With the web-sharing functions of Flickr having remained stable for the past few years, I’ve discovered that Piwigo has all of the features that I need for Creative Commons sharing of my one-photo-per-day habit.

For some years, my larger private photo archives have been on self-hosted Zenphoto sites.  In 2013, the quality improvement on my smartphone cameras led me to change my practice of large-batch photographic essays, in favour of sharing more frequent (i.e. daily) images.  I had admired Flickr for their progressive licensing whereby community members could easily declare Creative Commons.  Further, even at the level of free accounts up to 1TB, their FAQ said (as memorialized from August 2013 on the Internet Archive):

Are my photos every deleted? No, your photos will not be deleted, unless you do it yourself, or fail to play by our Community Guidelines.

Are my photos ever deleted?

Not, your photos will not be deleted, unless you do it yourself, or fail to play by our Community Guidelines.

If I started with the a free account on Flickr, and reached the limit where a Pro Account was needed, I wouldn’t begrudge paying for the service.  My understanding was that if I stepped back down to an free account, not all photos would be directly accessible, but the images wouldn’t be deleted (as described in “Your photos and data on Flickr” | Zach Sheppard | May 26, 2011:

* If your Pro account expires nothing is deleted: If your Pro account expires or you forget to renew, don’t worry! Your photos and videos are not deleted from our servers. We continue to store your images until you decide to delete them and everything will be waiting for you if you decide to upgrade again.

At the acquisition of Flickr by SmugMug, there was some expectation that previous expectations would continue to be met (as declared in April 2018).

Will anything happen to my photos? Will they be moved?

No, you’ll still be able to access your photos as you do currently and they’ll retain the same Flickr or SmugMug URL as always. Over time, we’ll be migrating Flickr onto SmugMug’s technology infrastructure, and your Flickr photos will move as a part of this migration—but the photos themselves will remain on Flickr.

Will Flickr continue to offer a free version? Will Flickr’s price change?

Absolutely. Flickr’s free accounts are foundational to its community of influential and engaged photographers. We are not making any changes to Flickr plans or rates at this time. We’ll let Flickr Pro customers know if that changes.

The announcement by Flickr that “Beginning January 8, 2019, Free accounts will be limited to 1,000 photos and videos” on November 1 changed the terms to be based not on disk space, but on the count of images.  My parsimonious digital file sizes (i.e. not 20MB in size but instead 12MB, not Superfine quality but instead Fine) would not be rewarded.

Since I already administer my own WordPress and Drupal web sites, installing an open source alternative to Flickr can be straightforward.  After doing some research, I found (i) an active Piwigo repository on Github, (ii) a commercial provider at piwigo.com for those who don’t self-host, and (iii) a soon-to-be-released Piwigo Native Android App.  Using Softaculous, Piwigo is an installation as a one-button press, completed within a minute.

cPanel installation for Piwigo

After setting up the obligatory userids and passwords, I was able to easily look into “Other plugins available” for more one-button installs of plugins.

Piwigo Plugins

The instructions to “Import from Flickr to Piwigo” | Pierrick Le Gall | May 21, 2013 were clear and easy to follow.  I had 1877 photographs on Flickr.  Running Flickr2Piwigo started a long series of “Success” messages.  I left the computer, and came back 30-40 minutes later.

Flickr2Piwigo processing

The screen was stalled on the “Processing” page, with 3 elements left to import, and 3 ugly error messages.  I stopped the processing, reloaded the page, and restarted Flickr2Piwigo.  The already-transferred images were rapidly skipped over, and the error messages repeated.  After one more try, I decided that I wouldn’t quibble with the few errors.  (I have archives of all my photographs, elsewhere!)

I installed the Bootstrap Darkroom theme to become the default, and deactivated the Smart Pocket (mobile) theme.  In order to have images in the same dimensions that I had been using in Flickr, I modified the Photo Sizes Configuration.

Piwigo Photo Sizes

On my Distractions, reflections WordPress blog, I was able to rapidly substitute the Flickr-hosted images that I had embedded (in 2013, so far) with Piwigo-hosted images.  In the coming weeks, I can continue to deprecate Flickr, at leisure.

From my Piwigo-hosted site, I’m able to repost images to Tumblr with the Social Buttons plugin, and to Facebook with the ShareThis plugin.  (These show up readily by switching to the Elegant theme that comes with the default installation).

In conclusion, in less than a day, I’ve been able to easily migrate my 1800+ images from Flickr, over to a self-hosted Piwigo site.  This follows the spirit of the IndieWeb movement, where open source software provides the option to NOT be locked in to an online provider.  For individuals don’t want to manage the infrastructure and exit from Flickr, a cloud provider of Piwigo provides an alternative path.

3 Comments


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • RSS qoto.org/@daviding (Mastodon)

    • daviding: “Hosting multiple Dialogic Drinks on "From Unfreezing-Refreez…” March 8, 2024
      Hosting multiple Dialogic Drinks on "From Unfreezing-Refreezing, to Systems Changes Learning" online, March 12 (Europe), March 14 (Americas), March 15 (Australia). #Leadership meets #SystemsThinking . Short presentations, longer discussions https://www.eqlab.co/from-unfreezing-refreezing-to-systems-changes-learning-david-ing
    • daviding: “"Climate change has no map that we know of. Each time a new…” February 15, 2024
      "Climate change has no map that we know of. Each time a new scientific study returns something we studied before, it's always going to arrive faster and be worse than we thought before". Episode 5, #DavidLHawk "What to do When It's too Late" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPruvIsDRDk #SystemsThinking "Instead of cause-effect thinking, effects coming from prior effects, not […]
    • daviding: “In the third episode of "What to Do When It's Too Late", #Da…” February 2, 2024
      In the third episode of "What to Do When It's Too Late", #DavidLHawk explains his #systemsthinking with humans in #climatechange, dealing with hopelessness. Live weekly broadcast on #BoldBraveTv with video recordings and podcasts. Text digest at https://daviding.wordpress.com/2024/02/02/what-to-do-when-its-too-late-david-l-hawk-2024/
    • daviding: “Published "Reframing #SystemsThinking for Systems Changes: S…” February 2, 2024
      Published "Reframing #SystemsThinking for Systems Changes: Sciencing and Philosophizing from Pragmatism towards Processes as Rhythms" with #GarySMetcalf in Journal of the #InternationalSocietyForTheSystemsSciences following 2023 Kruger Park, revised after peer review. https://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/sciencing-philosophizing-jisss/
    • daviding: “Web video of @scottdejong@hci.social + @gceh@mstdn.social ho…” January 23, 2024
      Web video of @scottdejong + @gceh hosted by #zaidkhan in relaxed conversation on "What Can Systems Thinkers Learn from Educational Game Studies" at #SystemsThinking Ontario https://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/educational-game-studies-scott-dejong-geoff-evamy-hil/
  • RSS on IngBrief

    • Introduction, “Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, volume 2”, edited by F. E. Emery (1981)
      The selection of readings in the “Introduction” to Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, volume 2, Penguin (1981), edited by Fred E. Emery, reflects a turn from 1969 when a general systems theory was more fully entertained, towards an urgency towards changes in the world that were present in 1981. Systems thinking was again emphasized in contrast […]
    • Introduction, “Systems Thinking: Selected Readings”, edited by F. E. Emery (1969)
      In reviewing the original introduction for Systems Thinking: Selected Readings in the 1969 Penguin paperback, there’s a few threads that I only recognize, many years later. The tables of contents (disambiguating various editions) were previously listed as 1969, 1981 Emery, System Thinking: Selected Readings. — begin paste — Introduction In the selection of papers for this […]
    • Concerns with the way systems thinking is used in evaluation | Michael C. Jackson, OBE | 2023-02-27
      In a recording of the debate between Michael Quinn Patton and Michael C. Jackson on “Systems Concepts in Evaluation”, Patton referenced four concepts published in the “Principles for effective use of systems thinking in evaluation” (2018) by the Systems in Evaluation Topical Interest Group (SETIG) of the American Evaluation Society. The four concepts are: (i) […]
    • Quality Criteria for Action Research | Herr, Anderson (2015)
      How might the quality of an action research initiative be evaluated? — begin paste — We have linked our five validity criteria (outcome, process, democratic, catalytic, and dialogic) to the goals of action research. Most traditions of action research agree on the following goals: (a) the generation of new knowledge, (b) the achievement of action-oriented […]
    • Western Union and the canton of Ticino, Switzerland
      After 90 minutes on phone and online chat with WesternUnion, the existence of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland is denied, so I can’t send money from Canada. TicinoTurismo should be unhappy. The IT developers at Western Union should be dissatisfied that customer support agents aren’t sending them legitimate bug reports I initially tried the […]
    • Aesthetics | Encyclopaedia Britannica | 15 edition
      Stephen C. Pepper was a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, on the entry for Aesthetics.
  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • RSS on daviding.com

    • 2024/02 Moments February 2024
      Chinese New Year celebrations, both public and family, extended over two weekends, due to busy social schedules.
    • 2024/01 Moments January 2024
      Hibernated with work for most of January, with more activity towards the end of month with warmer termperatures.
    • 2023/12 Moments December 2023
      A month of birthdays and family holiday events, with seasonal events at attractuions around town.
    • 2023/11 Moments November 2023
      Dayliight hours getting shorter encouraged more indoor events, unanticipated cracked furnace block led to replacement of air conditioner with heat pump, too.
    • 2023/10 Moments October 2023
      Left Seoul for 8 days in Ho Chi Minh City, and then 7 days in Taipei. Extended family time with sightseeing, almost completely offline from work.
    • 2023/09 Moments September 2023
      Toronto International Film Festival, and the first stop of a 3-week trip to Asia starting with Seoul, Korea
  • RSS on Media Queue

    • What to Do When It’s Too Late | David L. Hawk | 2024
      David L. Hawk (American management theorist, architect, and systems scientist) has been hosting a weekly television show broadcast on Bold Brave Tv from the New York area on Wednesdays 6pm ET, remotely from his home in Iowa. Live, callers can join…Read more ›
    • 2021/06/17 Keekok Lee | Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 2
      Following the first day lecture on Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1 for the Global University for Sustainability, Keekok Lee continued on a second day on some topics: * Anatomy as structure; physiology as function (and process); * Process ontology, and thing ontology; * Qi ju as qi-in-concentrating mode, and qi san as qi-in-dissipsating mode; and […]
    • 2021/06/16 Keekok Lee | Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1
      The philosophy of science underlying Classical Chinese Medicine, in this lecture by Keekok Lee, provides insights into ways in which systems change may be approached, in a process ontology in contrast to the thing ontology underlying Western BioMedicine. Read more ›
    • 2021/02/02 To Understand This Era, You Need to Think in Systems | Zeynep Tufekci with Ezra Klein | New York Times
      In conversation, @zeynep with @ezraklein reveal authentic #SystemsThinking in (i) appreciating that “science” is constructed by human collectives, (ii) the west orients towards individual outcomes rather than population levels; and (iii) there’s an over-emphasis on problems of the moment, and…Read more ›
    • 2019/04/09 Art as a discipline of inquiry | Tim Ingold (web video)
      In the question-answer period after the lecture, #TimIngold proposes art as a discipline of inquiry, rather than ethnography. This refers to his thinking On Human Correspondence. — begin paste — [75m26s question] I am curious to know what art, or…Read more ›
    • 2019/10/16 | “Bubbles, Golden Ages, and Tech Revolutions” | Carlota Perez
      How might our society show value for the long term, over the short term? Could we think about taxation over time, asks @carlotaprzperez in an interview: 92% for 1 day; 80% within 1 month; 50%-60% tax for 1 year; zero tax for 10 years.Read more ›
  • Meta

  • Creative Commons License
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
    Theme modified from DevDmBootstrap4 by Danny Machal