Forum:How can I enable i.imgur links to show pictures instead of external links

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Hi there,
I was wondering how I could enable links such as thisto come up as the same picture on wiki pages (on my wiki). I want to enable this function for all i.imgur links to do this on my wiki, thanks! —This unsigned comment is by Ozank (wall • contribs) 20:38, November 9, 2012‎. Please sign your comments by adding "~~~~" in the source editor.

MediaWiki only supports pulling images from other specific (Staff chosen) wikis running compatible software (so, just MediaWiki AFAIK) or the server's harddrive. It should be possible to connect to imgur since the framework that does this is extensible, but that would require Wikia's engineers to write new code on the servers specifically to enable it. You may be able to write a script to substitute links to imgur into the page automatically but that's probably it. I'm rather doubtful that this is a good idea though, is there a particular reason you can't just upload the images normally? Lunarity 01:49, November 10, 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Some Wikis have policies against uploading certain images to the Wiki. So, using a link to an image enables the image to be displayed, but doesn't involve uploading the file to the Wiki. This may be what Ozank is referring to - I don't know. Hope that helps! :) --Bob^Talk 20:29, November 10, 2012 (UTC)

Found a solution to my request; I was looking for the MediaWiki page, which can be found here. Thanks for the help anyway! Ozank (Wall) 18:04, November 16, 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for returning to post the solution, I didn't know about this. -452 23:03, November 16, 2012 (UTC)

How do you format an image coding with those whitelisted sites? -- 70.24.250.26 13:06, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

I'm not really understanding what advantage you hope to achieve by hotlinking to external images. It'll only slow down page delivery. And if their server goes down, Wikia will entirely lose the ability to display the image.

Worse, if you started hotlinking on wikis without getting permission from the admin staff first, you would run the risk of getting blocked quite quickly. Let's imagine that the rules of a wiki are that you can't upload images without adding an image license. It would hardly be a positive defence to say that you technically didn't upload the image! Or if there were bans in place against uploading fan art, and you instead did an end run around that by using this method, I don't think most admins would say, "Okay, yeah, you got us. You didn't actually upload, so please carry on."

There's no admin worth her salt that's going to say that the image rules of the wiki don't apply if hotlinking is used. If anything, it's just gonna piss most admin off that you didn't follow standard procedure.

Consider, too, that you'd be making it harder for other members of the local community to adapt the image. The ability to remix images is one of the things that puts the Creative in Creative Commons. If the picture isn't on Wikia's servers, then it's harder to slice 'n' dice it. You're basically just punting, forcing someone else to run after your hotlink and upload it to the local wiki. That's, of course, providing that there's an argument to be made for the legality of doing that.

I mean, we haven't even discussed how you might be using this method to get around uploading images that you've no right to put on a wiki in the first place. Hotlinking could easily be used to bring content into WIkia that would be in violation of not just local wiki rules, but also the Wikia Terms of Use agreement.

So I wouldn't be walking down this road at all. As the old adage goes, the fact that you can do a thing doesn't mean that you should do a thing. czechout ☎ ✍  fly tardis 14:24: Sat 17 Nov 2012

Based on 70.24.250.26's other posts, they appear quite knowledgeable, so I wouldn't assume they're not Ozank. Even if they are someone else who is not an admin, that MediaWiki page is blank by default, so an admin needs to whitelist the site anyway - which completely covers the issue of admin permission.

Some external sites allow much faster bulk uploading, so that's one reason to want to do this, although your point about the longevity of those externally hosted files is quite true.

Personally, if users want to use images on their userpages which are unrelated to the topic of the wiki, I'd rather they hotlink them than upload them.

Ozank, could you please enlighten us with how you are going to use this? -452 16:55, November 17, 2012 (UTC)

@452 I plan on using it for the emoticons on MediaWiki:Emoticons instead of using images.wikia links. I will use imgur links which are much shorter and it's very unlikely any of them will get deleted from there. If they do, I can just use the conventional way of using images.wikia instead but that's just a backup method. P.S - any other IP user is not me, I'm always logged in and only have this account. -- Ozank (Wall) 16:27, November 21, 2012 (UTC)