I've found a few threads regarding this, but have some questions:

I personally only see it as being helpful for how-to's. Makes it a REAL pain in the *** when building a post with pictures and info. Every bit of my tag is automatically converted to RF server address. And I'm not liking the idea of not being of power to my photos...It's like I share a photo, it's now property of Ranger-Forums. Don't like it one bit.

I know it's been in effect for quite some time and I'm just now seeing it from my hiatus. But I'd like some more info on this "feature".





Reference thread: https://www.ranger-forums.com/ranger-forums-office-13/question-photo-posting-124988/

 

Any picture you post on the site has been property of RF and has been that way forever. Pictures are attached so that in the event of a crash or that the OP deletes the pictures members can still view them. Some threads are useless without pictures, now pictures will always be there.

 

The database in just on a storage drive with the owners of the site.

Pictures are not being used for anything specifically. They could be used for advertising since anything posted on the site becomes property of the site.

No, you cannot disable the feature.

Your attachments are resaved to RF when they are posted. So if you delete them from your photobucket they will not be deleted from the site. This will prevent lost pictures from that or from a server crash, or any unexpected problem.

 

Adam is spot on. Pictures are a very important aspect of a forum. This practice was put in place to prevent thousands of photos being lost in the event of a server crash (they are backed up on separate hard drives) and so there are no dead or broken photo links when a member edits a link or deletes a photo from photo hosting.