Vree 
The internet changes all the time. What we take for granted today might well be gone tomorrow. One can not know the true pain of such loss until one day they want to re-visit one of their favorite pictures only to realize that the artist has closed her account and moved away without leaving her return address.
In those dark times, places like Derpibooru are like Noah’s ark, preserves where the art pieces can roam and populate freely even after they have gone extinct in the wild. Just like zoos, they may be used both for the entertainment of the public and yet also do important work to keep a record of what’d otherwise have been lost.
What can I do to help?
First of all, just upload. If you have something lying around on your hard drive; if you see a picture that you haven’t noticed before; consider checking if it is on here yet.
I’m going to leave the zoo metaphor behind and switch to a new one: mining.
A person looking for new art to upload is very much like a miner searching for a rich vein of silver or gold. Sometimes you may find an awesome artist, only to find that all of their art has already been uploaded here. But other times, following a small trail may lead you to untold riches.
Like miners, we have a number of ways to go about this:
In those dark times, places like Derpibooru are like Noah’s ark, preserves where the art pieces can roam and populate freely even after they have gone extinct in the wild. Just like zoos, they may be used both for the entertainment of the public and yet also do important work to keep a record of what’d otherwise have been lost.
What can I do to help?
First of all, just upload. If you have something lying around on your hard drive; if you see a picture that you haven’t noticed before; consider checking if it is on here yet.
I’m going to leave the zoo metaphor behind and switch to a new one: mining.
A person looking for new art to upload is very much like a miner searching for a rich vein of silver or gold. Sometimes you may find an awesome artist, only to find that all of their art has already been uploaded here. But other times, following a small trail may lead you to untold riches.
Like miners, we have a number of ways to go about this:
- EXHAUSTION
One of the big BIIG problems is when 90% of an artists’ work is uploaded, people are more likely not to notice the missing 10%. (There may be leftover gold or undiscovered veins even in a mine that was thought to be completely exhausted.)
What you can do is to descend into the depths of an artist’s Tumblr, DA, drawthreads, whatever, and check every image one by one.
IF YOU DO THIS, consider posting the artist’s name here so that we know that that artist is “completed” (with the exception of new future pics, of course).
- DEEPER LAYERS
Derpbooru was founded 2 years ago. As a result, many of the pictures before its time, such as those from 2011, are not here and often ignored. As many of these have historical significance for bronyism, it is not just easier to upload these artists (because there is more unuploaded art to be found), but also our patriotic duty.
You can also observe here the grinding work of the gears of time that we are to fight against. 3 years is a long time, and sites may have gone under, DA accounts closed, Tumblr blogs died. Sometimes, the pictures can still be retrieved from alternate sources, but many of those only hold a fraction of that artist’s works.
You should also post in this thread the name of any artist (or picture) you need help to track down. (Hopefully, people with long memories or avid collectors of pony images can help you out.)
- MASS JOBS
Did you find a particularly rich source (an undiscovered artist, an old drawthread etc.) but do not have the time to upload it all on your own? Post it here.
Also, this thread is meant as an interest check - I may create new ones with more eye-catching names (“Old art requests” etc.) if it works out.
