Twitpic source links

I could be wrong on this, but I'm under the impression that the direct image links for Twitpic images are completely useless. Should we be encouraging uploaders to replace it with the indirect page link immediately after uploading? The link alone is still not helpful for the "Find artist" feature but at least it's easy to go and identify the artist's Twitter/Twitpic handle from the page. Also, there is some variation as to which page is used for the source:

http://twitpic.com/******
http://twitpic.com/******/full

I think I prefer using the "full" link, so the full version is in view immediately upon checking the source. The only downsides is it takes one extra click to get back to the artist's photo page and makes no difference on smaller images.

Speaking of the artist's photo page (like so: http://twitpic.com/photos/****** ), I recommend uploaders add that link somewhere in the artist's wiki immediately after uploading or tagging an image known to be from Twitpic, for ease of access (particularly in case images currently sourced get removed at some point but the artist's Twitpic account remains).

This has annoyed me about every source that isn't Pixiv, honestly. Especially blog sites, because the folder the image is stored in on the server is almost always not open to the public, and eventually backing up the levels gets you dropped off at the homepage and you have no idea where the artist's page is. I've always wished our source links pointed to the page the image was found on instead of a direct link...but that could backfire if the page gets changed or cluttered, I guess.

Perhaps an option to input a "secondary source link" could be featured in the next Danbooru version?

We have discussed that "secondary source link" feature before as I recall it, and I think it's still a good idea. Like you say, the source image field DOES have a function (find artist, duplicate detection), but there are very clear cons to using direct links to images as well.

But yes I totally agree that those links are often 99% useless, and I wouldn't mind making it a policy to replace them with "real" links in the case of Twitpic. At least until it becomes possible to list more than one source--or a direct image link and a "proper" source URL. And I think we already do have that policy in place for deviantart uploads?

Policy for deviantart is to use the page rather than image because images are stored in a horribly sloppy manner so find artist/source searches won't work unless they're replaced.

Yeah I remember suggesting a secondary source link ages ago, but it's just not been something we've pursued seriously. Would like to see it there, even though I'm sure it'll confuse the heck out of most causal uploaders.