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Dear Friends, I know it might be not the most appropriate topic to start a new year for which we all hope that it will be better than the past, but I would like to give you a few thoughts about a quite serious and sad subject. When Astrobin crashed in February last year and with a lot of people in my family which had passed away in the years before, my first thought was : all the photos of the dead members of Astrobin are gone forever. Astrobin claims about 50000 members and if you estimate a middle age of 50 for the members than statistics tell us that a bit less than 1% will not survive the coming year. Maybe the average age of the members is younger but nevermind we will have a growing numbers of photo albums from people who left us. This is life and I hope that Astrobin will ever be able to keep these pictures. As a testimony of work and passion of these people. This might also be important for their relatives and friends who can still share these photos. We recently learned about the death of Ivan Busso but most of the time we will not be informed. I wish all of us a splendid year with plenty of clear skies and great moments of passion and joy. Astrobin is a great adventure and connect a lot of people who would never had met without it. Let us do the best for keeping it running for a long time. Take care and enjoy life, we will never be as young as today ;-) Andreas |
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Hi Andreas, sadly a lot of truth in your words. If you follow the discussions about the "digital heritage and legacy" of passed away members in social networks, this is a crucial but widely neglected topic. Even the legislator has its problems and and has no real answer or common interpretation. But I think it is worth to spent some time to get a policy how to deal with. Some networks freeze the accounts, some tag them, some add a batch or note, some hide these accounts. Always a big problem is, who is allowed to change a status to "deceased". The relatives? The site owner based of some hints? This is difficult, but needs some serious consideration. Moreover an important aspect is, the copyright passes to the legal hears and actually they have to decide (just from legal perspective). This is very sophisticated. Many legal, subjective and emotional aspects are touched. But I agree: How can you better preserve an astrophotographer's joy, passion and memories as with his images he created and expressed him? You honor him with every click on his images. |
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Been thinking about this too. I'm just getting started with AP, but have been playing with photography as a hobby since I was a teen in the 70's. I have hundreds of prints, negatives and slides in a box, but I have thousands (10's of thousands if you count all the raw images not worth processing or that I simply haven't gotten to). Whether or not anyone ever does anything with the images after I pass, the box as something physical will persist to possibly be 'discovered' some day, or at least takes a more concious decision to dump. On the other hand, it seems very unlikely my digital images will even make it through the next storage evolution after I pass (how many on floppys and even cd's are already lost?), let alone possibly be still around generations from now..... Not that mine are of any great value, but it's always fun to occaisionally dive into the drawer of old prints and slides at my parents house. And what about the shoebox of your parent's love letters.?...... Cheers, Scott |
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Hello Andreas, Your view is absolutely realistic. Life is transitory as are the stars. I am sure that Salvatore's aim already is to keep all images from friends who part from us as long as possible. The major problem would be how to inform. This should be arranged individually with family and friends. Thanks a lot for sharing your thought! Robert |
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I have some experience with the issue as a good friend of mine that was a participant in an coop observatory venture passed away a few years after the venture started. For some years his images were preserved by another imaging friend but they eventually disappeared from the web. This was well before Astrobin. I do have to say that although older images have some sentimental and historical value, the progress that has been made (and will probably continue) in imaging and processing technology quickly sends such old images to the bottom of the quality scale, even if they were top notch to begin with. These days I would not post any images I took in the 1990s and for that reason I have to wonder if a "hypothetical deceased imager" would want their old and now vintage images preserved, at least for public viewing on the web. That is up to the individual imager, of course, but I would personally not like to see my images preserved "past their time" unless being done in the name of historical context (for example, I once posted an image taken in the 90s to illustrate the immense progress that has taken place since then). Just my .02 |
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I have thought about this from a personal perspective and decided that my images would eventually become lost to cyberspace and felt I wanted to preserve them for the future generations in my family at least to enjoy, and so i had them printed in a book and it has come out very nicely. (I am now working on book 2). However this does not cover images already in cyberspace as per the original persons comments. I do believe it is Salvatore's intention to keep images of deceased members, and that he has even had discussions with members about taking up the reins of Astrobin in the case of his own demise. So he has thought about this carefully. I do agree though that members images should not automatically be deleted when they sadly die, unless it is a specific wish of the member who has made this clear. Carole |
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Carastro: This is a point that has always bugged me. Sometimes people delete their accounts for their own personal reasons, and their images are deleted. Obviously this goes against my vision of AstroBin as a way to preserve these images indefinitely, but, also obviously, it's their images, not mine, and they can delete them if they want. I am not going to turn evil and change the Terms of Service so that you lose rights to your own images when you upload them to AstroBin. That's insane: your images are yours even after you upload them here. One idea I had, is a "graveyard" section for deleted images: when you delete an image or delete your account, you are asked if you would like to keep your images in "archive mode". This means they are completely anonymized, no further social activity is possible on them, but they're still there. Does anybody else think this is a good idea and worth investing a few weeks implementing? |
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Salvatore Iovene: Hi Salvatore, from an emotional point of view this is definitely a god idea to tombstone the images. But as mentioned above, actually the heirs have to decide since they hold all the rights and they decide. One option could be to ask in the profile "what to do with your images if you pass away? Do you want to keep them public?" then you are on the safe(r) side, since this is a kind of a last will of the owner. All other options incorporate some risk. Maybe some lawyers are present here and can comment. |
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Salvatore Iovene: Yes, I do, and just asking two options, one, if they want to have their images sent to the graveyard, in case that for whatever reason they delete their account, and, as a separate issue, if something happen and they are not anymore present, by accident, death or whatever other reason that makes them impossible to continue. CS !! |
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Claudio Tenreiro:Salvatore Iovene: Hi Claudio, I think the second option is not required and makes things very complex, because you have to define criteria what means "absent". This is a very vague term and not defined at all. Some users are longer away or make a creative brake. Then you cannot simply disappropriate them. And since they are still alive they can decide. Case 1 is already quite tricky. Let's keep it simple for the first step. CS Rüdiger |
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Ruediger: Hi, I agree to find the simplest way, also I am the more distant thing from a lawyer that you can imagine  , so many of my ideas are just a kind of wishful thinking. Cheers and CS !! |
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I think this is a very worthy discussion, and not a simple one. As a practical consideration, every account, with its collection of images, occupies digital space and thus represents a small, continuing cost. Maintaining a collection when the author passes is analogous to burial in a graveyard, which at least in the US is generally not free. Some private US cemeteries offer what they call "perpetual care" of a gravesite for a set fee. Perhaps that could be a consideration for AB. Perpetual, of course, is a long time. If Salvatore ever tires off this, I hope he he has a succession plan. CS, Bob |
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Perpetual, of course, is a long time. If Salvatore ever tires off this, I hope he he has a succession plan. Hi Bob, the same here in Germany. Funeral (or deceasing in general) is a very expensive thing. But here, in this case AB, the community is interested to preserve the heritage. I think (and hope) this is a not occurring so often, so the costs can be shouldered by the community. It is like a public library where you also have the books from deceased authors. The community funds the library. I think this is a good comparison. But as said: It is important to have this "testamentary checkbox" in the profile. With that you can also make a basic forecast about the costs. CS Rüdiger |
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Can it be as simple as a checkbox on each image we upload allowing/disallowing preservation of the image if the account *expires* (i.e. becomes inactive and/or isn't renewed)? That way preservation can be on a per image basis. And if an account is *deleted*, then there could be a preserve/delete all images associated with the account option as part of the process. It's pretty easy to assign rights of use of an image, so legally just preserving them shouldn't be that big an issue. Worst case, if AB is challenged by the estate or family over a deceased member's images, AB simply relinquishes them. Even if the member indicated they should be preserved, if the family cares that much..... And really, AB isn't promsing to preserve anyone's images forever (it might not be able to for many reasons), and always has the right to delete any images regardless of the owner's wishes, right? Cost, of course, is another issue....I'm guessing there're enough members that an increase in membership cost would be pretty nominal, but I think that it would need to be a general increase (not optional for the service) so that AB isn't then making any promise regarding perpetual preservation. Cheers, Scott |
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Scott Badger: Hi Scott, I would keep it simple. Not per image, but per account. Also an account does not get inactive in any form, but a user does. So I would clearly distinguish between inactive or diseased. The latter is irreversible - unfortunately. Scott Badger: Basically as long as you not offend any Terms of Use or other substantial legal aspects and pay for it not so easily. Since you actually buy a service on which you can insist. You have a usage contract with defined obligations and deliverables. Scott Badger: I am pretty sure that the costs for explicitly tombstoned accounts is actually neglectable compared to the active ones. This needs some calculation, but how is it right now? If someone passes away, his data is kept on AB. That means produces costs. So by introducing legacy feature you get in the worst case the same costs for storage and if someone refuses to inherit his images, the costs will drop compared to the current status quo. CS Rüdiger |
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Hi Rüdiger, Would tombstoned images still be viewable and not incur the higher cost of active accounts? Agreed that all or nothing would be easier than preservation on a per image basis, but I thought some members would be more likely to make use of it if they had that kind of control. I'm for it either way, though. I'm too new to know what happens at the end of an annual membership (paid or free) and if it's a paid account that's not renewed, what happens to the additiona images paid accounts are allowed? In any case, if there's a renewal process and an account isn't renewed (but also not *deleted*), it could be called 'expired' and images saved/not saved accordingly. And if accounts simply perpetuate indefintiely (at least at the Free level) even if inactive, then expiration/tombstoning could be pegged to some period of inactivity, 1 or 2 years say. Cheers, Scott |
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What an excellent phrase, "tombstone accounts." Although I don't have a personal website, I know there are examples in which relatives keep a site on line as a memorial, probably at a small cost for renewal. One such example is Niels Noordhoek's weblog, still online from the Netherlands although he passed away at a young age in 2012. Among other things, the site preserves Niels' ingenious downloadable "grabber" app for those of us who use a Bahtinov mask. It measures focus error in the Bahtinov pattern to a fraction of a micron (good enough for me.) So I remain grateful to Niels, and would be happy to check a testamentary box in my AB profile (another good term.) Bob |
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Scott Badger: Hi Scott, if you want to achieve the goal to foster and make the images still alive, you have to make them accessible to everyone. I think that is the idea behind. If your paid membership terminates, neither your images are deleted, nor the access to them is restricted. Actually they are available infinity. |
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Yes, I agree they should continue to be accessible, just verifying that the lower cost includes that. Anyhow, for whatever my newbie pennies are worth, I'm all for whatever it takes to set up this sort of archive. There are cerrtainly legal niceties to consider and follow, but I think the reality is that our imagery generally has little commercial value, and probably not much sentimental value among family members even, so it's really just the photographer, albeit deceased, and us who care what happens to them.... Not to get all sentimental, but it was this site and the images on it that inspired my recent entry into AP, and though I know the same type of inspirational images will continue to be available as more are added, it would be nice to know the particular ones that got me going are still around.... Cheers, Scott |
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Just chiming in quickly to make a couple of points: 1. The cost of hosting images of deceased people is negligible. 2. Additionally, AstroBin and the whole community benefits from having data within the platform, so that cost is in any case justifiable as an "investment". 3. AstroBin does not delete/hide/compress/anything your images when you stop paying. I'm pretty sure that Flickr, for instance, deletes all but your most recent 1000 images (which is their free tier). Again, this is of course a cost, but the strength of AstroBin is in the images that you are able to search, so it's again an investment. |
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| Thanks Salvatore.....and I mean, THANKS!!!! |
