Chuck Smith wrote:
Another point that seems to be forgotten is how people who are reading Wikipedia offline will be able to see the offsite pictures...
Maybe just the same way they submit changes to the article.
If the original problem here was that selfappointed license policemen are erasing (URLs to) external images, perhaps the problem could be settled by issuing an instruction that external image URLs should be enclosed in a [URL external image] bracket, rather than removed.