I'm a little late to the party when it comes to the recent rule changes and purges of human like images:
https://e621.net/forum_topics/45501
https://e621.net/forum_topics/45624

Is there a way to download backups of the deleted images for archiving? Perhaps using mass downloading tools like Hydrus, e621_downloader, or RE621? Or perhaps through some API calls? Or are they gone forever, and can only hope to be found again on other sites like allthefallen or danbooru?

The best solution would be for the images to be un-purged and reinstated, but I somewhat doubt the admins will bring them back. One can hope though. In the meantime, is there a way of recovering them?

If they were archived on wayback machine or their pages have accessible sources it's possible.

regsmutt said:
If they were archived on wayback machine

Nah, you have to log in to see young content and you can't log into a "screenshot" of a page. You can sometimes search the tags of the deleted posts on other sites (e.g. rule34.xxx) to find it. Also, inb4 thread is deleted.

crocogator said:
Nah, you have to log in to see young content and you can't log into a "screenshot" of a page. You can sometimes search the tags of the deleted posts on other sites (e.g. rule34.xxx) to find it. Also, inb4 thread is deleted.

That's too bad. Also, I hope this thread isn't removed, as the focus of my inquiry is archival and/or recovery, rather than just rehashing what's been trodden out in the main thread.

crocogator said:
Nah, you have to log in to see young content and you can't log into a "screenshot" of a page. You can sometimes search the tags of the deleted posts on other sites (e.g. rule34.xxx) to find it. Also, inb4 thread is deleted.

Depends on when it was uploaded. Stuff that was posted before that rule change may very well still be available.

cheesetest1000 said:
IOr are they gone forever, and can only hope to be found again on other sites like allthefallen or danbooru?

You must keep in mind that many artists don't even post on e621. The chances that their stuff remains on their own galleries (pixiv, twitter,etc) is reasonably high.

popoto said:
You must keep in mind that many artists don't even post on e621. The chances that their stuff remains on their own galleries (pixiv, twitter,etc) is reasonably high.

And then there are the artists that paywall their stuff (ie. patreon). Unless that gets reposted (without permission), thats effectively impossible to find.

imercenary said:
And then there are the artists that paywall their stuff (ie. patreon). Unless that gets reposted (without permission), thats effectively impossible to find.

Pirated paywalled artwork is not allowed on e621.

wandering_spaniel said:
Pirated paywalled artwork is not allowed on e621.

I thought stuff that was paywalled and then gets depaywalled by the artist is fair game?

Maybe I should have phrased it better, but if an artist paywalls say page 5-10 of a comic and makes pages 1-4 free with a "go to my patreon to see the rest"-message, it can be impossible to find pages 5-10 if anything happens.

imercenary said:
I thought stuff that was paywalled and then gets depaywalled by the artist is fair game?

Oh, yes. But if the artist depaywalled it then they would have released it elsewhere, the vast majority of artists don't just post on e621, especially professionals who have paysites.

imercenary said:
Maybe I should have phrased it better, but if an artist paywalls say page 5-10 of a comic and makes pages 1-4 free with a "go to my patreon to see the rest"-message, it can be impossible to find pages 5-10 if anything happens.

...Oh, you mean impossible to find the link to the patreon? Just go to the image's sources, the artist's other sites

wandering_spaniel said:
Oh, yes. But if the artist depaywalled it then they would have released it elsewhere, the vast majority of artists don't just post on e621, especially professionals who have paysites.

...Oh, you mean impossible to find the link to the patreon? Just go to the image's sources, the artist's other sites

And there's the rub. So many broken links, closed paysite accounts, Tumblr'd sites, and that's when there's sources at all. Old posts seem to have the worst sourcing...
I make archives on any posts I make, now, for this specific reason. I make liberal use of MD5 search to find last resort sources when there's no other sources. Imagine if something was posted 20 years ago somewhere. Even better is Google basically started de-indexing rare or older pages (different gripe/rant about that not gonna post here).

I have some good news, I'm working on recovering as much of the purged content as possible. So far I've collected about 50% of the posts, mostly from various torrents made by others in the past (https://e621.net/forum_topics/37724 is one of them). Once I'm done I will make a torrent, or maybe host them in some other way if I get a better idea. I haven't touched the sources listed in metadata yet, I hope I can at least get to 70ish% recovered with them included

itsobviousenough said:
I have some good news, I'm working on recovering as much of the purged content as possible. So far I've collected about 50% of the posts, mostly from various torrents made by others in the past (https://e621.net/forum_topics/37724 is one of them). Once I'm done I will make a torrent, or maybe host them in some other way if I get a better idea. I haven't touched the sources listed in metadata yet, I hope I can at least get to 70ish% recovered with them included

Ayyy! Finally some good fukin' news! I think I'll go ahead and download that archive mentioned in the forum post myself. I've got a spare 8TB drive lying around gathering dust. Keep us posted on your recovery% once you are happy with what you recovered.
Thanks!
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