how/why do photos get deleted & why is there no notice of the deletion?

Question

I just realized that a photo i had uploaded in August was deleted. the image file name was Van Meter-2.jpg, implying at least one other image for that profile, which now has none. The changes page shows that I uploaded [deleted] but no mention of who deleted it, when, or why the image was deleted. Wikipedia showed the image as being public domain. I'll re-upload and edit so as to again have the image on the profile, but ... I'd like to know what happened to the first one, and why.  Thanks!

Comments

hmm. I don't think the photo was attached to a profile or free-space, it was uploaded to the profile page & then imbedded to display in the text rather than on the page (so it wasn't actually linked to the page). The upload was August 3. In reading the Photo FAQs, it says that to delete a photo, unlink it from any pages & it will go away. Is this what happened? It went away because it wasn't actually linked to anything? Do I need to try to figure out if I have any other images done this way?

Answer 1

Hi Liz,

Yes, you answered your own question. I can see why this would be confusing.

You don't want to disconnect profiles from photos. That's our signal that the photo is no longer needed and should be deleted. We don't delete images immediately after they're disconnected in case they're being moved or there was a mistake.

Chris

Comments

I've been going through my contributions to see what other photos I need to redo: Flags! I had uploaded a flag image to use in the migrating ancestor template, which I did (use it). It showed as deleted in my contribution list. And sure enough, it was gone from the template I'd used it in. I thought there had a been a fix for that?