Day 607 of 365 More.
It’s gonna be another of those bitchy posts. Just so you know.
Sometimes I love this project. A lot of the time really. Every few weeks or so, someone sends me mail or leaves me a comment telling me how 365 has changed their life and thanking me. 365 never made me rich. It never made me famous, not really anyway. It doesn’t really sale extra artwork for me or get me photogigs. It’d be nice if it did. But it does make me feel all warm and fuzzy every time somebody says "wow, I’ve looked back on the last year of my life and learned a lot about myself" or "I’ve never felt very comfortable in front of a camera, but now, only 2 months into this project I’ve developed more confidence and better body image than I’ve ever had in my life." And then they thank me and I smile (yes, I really do smile sometimes despite what I usually say here) and it adds a little bit of light to my otherwise god awful dreary experience.
I always say 365 is about the people. But really, in a lot of ways, 365 is about me. Way way way back when we were around 200 members and growing fast, people started asking me to close off the group before it got too big. I refused. Why? Because somewhere in my heart I had this theory that this project could change the world. Maybe I wouldn’t be rich. Maybe I wouldn’t be famous. But if I know that the world is a better place because of me, well, that’s the bit of self-congratulatory bullshit that gets me through the day. Every day I read a "this is the best thing ever" comment, that’s banking one day for me where when the world seems like its going to end I can go back and say "oh yeah, I changed that person’s life." That’s one extra day where I don’t jump off a fucking cliff somewhere. If they actually go out of their way to thank me, then hey, look at that. You just bought me a whole week.
Ok, so maybe I’m fucked up in that I value my self-worth through my effect on the world around me. Yeah, it’s not healthy. But you know what. I’m an artist. We’re kinda fucked up people.
Anyway, the reason I’m on day 607 here, is that when day 365 came, I just couldn’t walk away. This whole thing, the project, the community, the very concept, just means the whole world to me.
None of that is what I’m upset about. And I know it was rambling, but I needed to set the context for all of you.
Anyway, last night, Flickr made a huge announcement that they were now allowing video posts. Up to a whole 90 seconds. Ummm… woohoo! it’s uh… just like youtube. Except, you know, kinda useless in every way. But whatever, what’s it hurting right? Exactly. I figured it would immediately become an issue in the 365 community, but I was tired and didn’t feel like dealing with it, so I decided "someone will ask tonight and I’ll deal with it tomorrow." And as I predicted someone did.
But what I also found out today was that flickr actually made a second change yesterday. One they didn’t see fit to announce with fanfare and revelry. They changed the moderation schema for the site. Now, not only do photos have saftey levels (safe, moderate, restricted). Not only do people have safety levels. Not only does search have safety levels. But now communities have safety levels as well. Woohoo! That’s kinda neat. That could be useful. You know, if it weren’t implemented in the most boneheaded fucking way possible.
You know, when I’m not busy being an artist and internet curmudgeon at 3 in the morning, I spend my days designing websites. It’s what I do. It’s what I’ve been doing, literally, about as long as there’s been a web to design sites for. Frankly, I’m pretty damn good at it. And I’m pretty sure that I could have discovered the obvious flaws in their design in about 15 seconds. Because really, that’s about how long it took me to figure out when I heard about it.
Here’s the thing that the powers that be don’t get. No one is really against flickr having moderation tools. Really, go for it. Good tool. I’d love to use them. But if you’re going to enforce rules based on content then have some REAL FUCKING DEFINITIONS of your content. I’ve been moderating my own photos since they added the ability to do so. The base rule I use is "can it appear on a supermarket magazine? ok, that’s safe" If I ever show a femalle nipple, I mark it as moderate. But there are underwear commercials on broadcast television so I have no problem with doing that in my stream. If I ever showed anything explicit, that would be restricted. It’s something that I was comfortable with, and as the guidelines won’t give me any more instruction that that, its the best I could do. But now, as a group admin, you’re expecting us to moderate other people. Well fine. Give us some guidance dammit!
Secondly, how dare you set the moderation settings on all the groups, not only without asking, but without so much as a fucking memo. Look. I know I don’t own flickr. As much as I’d prefer otherwise, I don’t even own 365. But you know, common courtesy would be to at the very least mention "oh, if you run a group, we’ve changed how your permissions work, you should probably check it out" in my email would have been, nice.
And finally the change itself. Now I am forced to choose between two different evils. I either prohibit moderate nudity, the likes of which I am several other gifted photographers have submitted (properly flagged) to the pool since the very beginning, or I prohibit underaged users (like Stephen’s daughter, Clarissa) who have also been allowed since day one. But wait, shouldn’t she not be allowed to see the nudity. Well, yeah… and SHE CAN’T because that’s what the flags did in the first place. Of course, if someone doesn’t bother to flag their photo, they can add it to a safe group no matter what it is. But that was always the case AND STILL IS. This has solved nothing other than creating a big headache for me and a lot of people.
What’s worse is that anyone who has been flagged moderate or restricted can’t post to a safe group, no matter what they’re posting. This of course is a big problem because as I said earlier, the rules for flagging people are annoying not really defined.
So I’m pretty sick over this. I joked earlier that if things are ever changed to where I’m moderated and 365 is safe and I can’t post to it, then I’m deleting the entire fucking thing. I was mostly joking. Mostly.
Really, I don’t even know what to do here. Right now the group is set moderate. This seems to have not booted any of the underagers or foreigners (germans, koreans) yet, though no new ones can join. But I’m still not sure that’s the right thing. I just don’t have another solution because if it really is a group about learning to accept yourself, I really don’t feel comfortable adminning that without allowing people the ability to post nude.
On the other hand, I don’t want to create the stigma associated with the group being 18+ over as that’s only going to cause me to have to deal with more porn and not get other users.
So I don’t know. I’m at a loss. If anyone want to front me some venture capital maybe I’ll start my own site. Hell, I have my own sites. I wish i got the traffic I get here
I dunno. Maybe this is all a bad dream that willbe better tomorrow.
I’m not holding my breath.
SuFIi!!!
Hey Mav, I totally agree with you here. It doesn’t make any sense to do that, especially without informing their own users about it. Unfortunately, I don’t have any useful advice to give (or venture capital). All I can tell you is that you changed my life. Dramatically. Thank you. I just put $10 in your tip jar. It’s alls I got.
Mav, everyone has your back. It seems like 95 percent of Flickr is anti-change. Maybe, MAYBE two percent of the pro account holders actually like the changes. I think they should listen to us- shit- especially people like you who I am sure bring in users just for the 365 alone.
I think we need an open source flickr startup or something. I’m a programmer and maybe i’d donate some time to such an effort. Problem is how do we manage all the droves of people who will jump ship and want to join the new website? When I thought about creating a better flickr I always got scared about growth. It’s something flickr obviously has to deal with, and all this bullshit they are implementing is a side effect of it. I just don’t know what to do anymore. I’m so depressed. I love(d) flickr so much. It was such a great community. It’s turning to shit so quickly. And there is no good alternative. What do we do???????
As soon as I saw this thumbnail I I knew what it was about. I really want to take all of my flickr friends and go play in another sandbox. Someone, please, build us a sandbox. I value myself on being a good problem-solver, but this is a problem I can’t solve. I too keep hoping it’ll all go away before I click "+18" on my groups.
Amen to everything you said, Mav. I was horrified to discover they had made this sweeping change w/o any notice or any announcement at all, and more than a little suspicious at how they did it at the same time they announced videos.
Obviously, the bitch-fest over the videos is a nice cover. People are finding out about this slowly.
It’s a problem for sure… and one without an easy solution. I don’t agree with the way they went about it without a warning, but as a parent with a daughter who is on the internet quite a bit, you become well aware of those people who aren’t properly flagging their photos and just how graphic they can be.
I don’t have a problem with tasteful nudes.. hell, I don’t have a problem with the porn as long as my daughter doesn’t have access to it. But I’ve considered not letting her be a part of this whole thing anymore after seeing thumbnails of some very graphic… well I don’t have the proper words to keep it clean, but believe me it wasn’t for a 13 year old to see.
But what is the solution? Some people are idiots and are incapable of properly policing themselves and they in turn cause the whole thing to come crashing down hard on the people who are trying to do the right thing. Maybe the children should be in their own group. There is a 365 Kids group, so… there’s one option. I don’t have a problem with that myself. But I think it would be silly to punish those who are already grandfathered in by setting it at safe and risk it booting them out.
But setting it at not safe seems… well it makes us seems somehow dirty right?
Yikes.
I *think* I might have been wrong about something yesterday. After setting the group ‘moderate/restricted’ and doing a group search, the group still appeared . . . to me. From what I’m reading, I gather that’s not always the case though. I don’t know if the group isn’t showing up for ‘children and germans’ or if it’s not showing up for anyone not already in the group. If the latter is the case, well, I don’t know what you’d want to do about it.
This whole thing is just ridiculously stupid.
Well, it seems that a hanful of folks have joined the group in the past two days (including my sister, which I did not know until I was viewing the memberlist!) – so maybe the group is still showing up in a search . . . ?
I posted a suggestion in the ‘problems’ thread at 365 days. I think we need to get in touch with a few members of the group who are under 18 and/or from Germany or one of the other censored countries. Find out what they can or cannot see in the group. Then run a test…get their emails and then change the group settings to allow moderate images, then email to find out if they can get in there and see everything or not.
One way to get around this shit is for people to subscribe directly to RSS feeds, and you can do that with a group. I’m not 100% sure if someone can see everything that way or not.
I need to say that the only solution to keeping children safe from what is on the Internet is to NOT ALLOW THEM on the Internet. Or be open with them about what is there and set parental controls from home. Look at what they are looking at. Same with TV.
It is impossible for the Internet to be policed, and it shouldn’t be in my opinion. "Somebody think of the children!" outcry is ridiculous. The parents should be thinking of the children, not expecting greater forces out there to keep them safe.
I mean no disrespect, Stephen! I know where you are coming from. I have a 12 year old daughter. 🙂
@evaxebra: heh… thanks. Like I said, I really do appreciate that. It means the world to me.
@M.Gruber: Actually, I don’t think its that. The problem is, its a change that most people will never notice. The vast majority of flickr users don’t even use groups. And of those that do, the majority of them are using groups where a safe tag is fine. But I don’t care about those people. And honestly, I don’t really care about people posting porn either. What I care about, what I have a responsibilty for, are the 8,235 people who trust me to keep 365 running smoothly. And whether they realize it or not, Flickr just decided to fuck them over two nights ago with no reason and to no end. Honestly, as big a deal as I’m making of it. Most of them will never even notice. But that isn’t the point. The point is protecting all the good people who were following the rules and are now being screwed. And yeah, in the end, I’m a tiny little piece of the flickr cog. But I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I claim that I’ve literally made Flickr/Yahoo tens of thousand of dollars. Maybe not the millions that they’re worth, but a lot more than your average flickr user. I gotta figure there are at least 1000 people who only pay for flickr so they have enough photoslots to participate in my flickr group. And if that’s means that I’ve made the company $25,000 in the last year to the $25 that the average joe grants, them, then dammit, I think I deserve the courtesy of at least getting a warning email. Hell, I think the average joe deserves it. They built a fucking message system into the service for a reason. They culd use it.
@Proggie: It’s a hard thing. At the end of the day. Flickr can do whatever they want, because we need them more than they need us. I’m not going to pretend I’m the most popular photographer on the site. But I’m certainly up there. And I’ve been frustrated enough with what has gone on here, that I would pick up and leave over it. But at the end of the day, I get more views every day here, than my personal art site gets in a month. If this was just a way to share photos with my family and friends then I’d walk in a second. But as a means of building an audience, It has a userbase that I just can’t match on my own. That said, I was serious. I design huge corporate and government websites for a living. If someone wants to front the capital and resources to start a competitor, I’ll do it. Umm, see, I don’t see anyone’s hands going up.
@Rachel.::.K: Same thing. I’d love to build a new sandbox. Hell, I built one. I’m quite happy with Elseworld. Right now, its a sandbox for 4 people, but if I had the money to make it a reasonable alternative for 400 or 4,000,000 I totally would.
@sadandbeautiful (Sarah): Oh, I don’t find it suspicious at all. I find it quite blatantly obvious. And I still don’t know what to do about it.
@Stephen Poff: sure. I’m all well and good with "think of the children." I might not always agree with where the line is (I’m a huge free speech advocate, and politically I’m probably a little to the left of Karl Marx) but I know how to play by the rules. The old rules were good. They allowed for Clarissa, and Sarah (for instance) to play in the same sandbox. Technology simply made Sarah effectively invisible to Clarissa. The new rules don’t. Now I have to choose. And but for a flaw in implementation, Clarissa wouldn’t even be in the group right now. What bugs me about it most is that this is a non-solution. It doesn’t work because the thing that you, and any other parents are worried about is people who DON’T flag their photos correctly. Sarah, for instance, always does. So she was never a problem. But now, to make Clarissa legal, I have to make Sarah illegal. And yet, the people who Clarissa actually could see before, because they don’t flag their photos are still there. In fact, its probably even worse, because Sarah, for instance, would have the decency to just not post to the group anymore. Someone less scrupulous, who used to flag is now going to simply stop flagging so their pictures could be included. Thanks flickr. *sigh*
@ambrosialove: yeah, I played with it a bit last night. It SEEMS like things are still showing up in search., But honestly, who the hell knows. However you want to spin it, its still horribly broken. And the search thing was the least of my worries. As I was saying to Stephen. I don’t like being forced to choose between Sarah and Clarissa. I like them both. I like both of the their photography. And until flickr introduced it, there was no conflict.
@sadandbeautiful (Sarah): politically I agree with everything you said there, Sarah. But, I learned a long time ago, how to separate my politics from my job (otherwise, I’d go crazy. I’ve worked for a lot of megacorporations… I just happily take their check, pay my bills, and watch a little more of my soul die everyday 🙂 ) But as a technologist, it really bugs me. Because this solution is unequivocably worse than what they had before for the reasons I was just getting into PLUS it pissed off the userbase. Nothing was really gained. Hell, it wouldn’t even be that bad if they had well defined flagging policies. Like I said, should my lingerie model pics be flagged moderate and nudes restricted? If so then tell me that so I can make decisions about 365 accordingly. You simply can’t be the gestapo and have a live and let live attitude at the same time. Playing both sides of the field would be great, but clearly it isn’t working.
@ sadandbeautiful (Sarah) No no… don’t get me wrong. You are correct. The responsibility fall squarely on my shoulders and I’m well aware of that. We fought for a long time about her access to myspace email and what not. We all came to an agreement… which she is fine with… an agreement which allows us to know her passwords and lets us puruse here emails/messages. She understands that we’re not out to invade her privacy… just protect her.
We also have parental controls set on the internet and cable and we’re always involved in whatever it is that she’s doing.
But that said, I have seen some graphic stuff while sitting with her after she edits a photo and uploads it to flickr. Not everyone is doing the right thing… and so sometimes that means that the higher powers end up doing our job for us.
So I’m not asking for that to be the case. As her father I will do what it takes to protect her when need be… but I certainly understand why they would want to take some actions to protect themselves as well. But I think it could have been implemented in a better way.
But that said, I have seen some graphic stuff while sitting with her after she edits a photo and uploads it to flickr. Not everyone is doing the right thing… and so sometimes that means that the higher powers end up doing our job for us.
@Stephen Poff: You know, I wouldn’t like it, but I’d be okay with it, if that’s what they did. Unfortunately, they’re not. Because if Clarissa was seeing inappropriate images in the stream before, that means that the posters weren’t flagging them appropriately, which means that she’d still see them today. Well, you know, unless we booted her out, which is what by the rules we should be doing. (And yeah, she doesn’t have to worry, that won’t happen as long as I have any control over it whatsoever)
yeah, I see your point. The problem would be even more present.
First, I have to tell you, with all seriousness, that the 365 has been a wonderful, eye opening experience for me. I just passed 100, but almost gave up many times. It has forced me to deal with issues with myself, my looks. At times, it has helped me feel better about myself; at other times, it’s made me feel worse……but it’s made me deal with it. Along the way, I’m learning (slowly) about photography……which is what I set out to do…..but got slowed down having to deal with seeing myself every day. So, thank you, thank you. If you see my post from yesterday (cross-eyed, no less) , you know this has made me come a long way. And the encouragement & support from fellow 365 members has been awesome.
I certainly agree with you that Flickr has handled this badly…..they "snunck in" the changes behind the new video, and they should have told the group administrators ahead of time. I see your dilemma – boot out the artistic nudity that is done in good taste, or boot out those under 18……and I don’t know the answer…..worse is having to figure out WHERE to draw the line……impossible.
And yet – Stephen, as a mom, I certainly see where you’re coming from. It is a HUGE challenge to protect our kids these days, especially on the internet. Sit with your child every minute she is on the internet – sure, that sounds great but the older they get the harder that is. When she is 17 and is doing research for school, can you sit with her every moment? Would she "let" you, at that age? You just about have to tie yourself to your child to monitor every moment on the internet between now and the time she is 18 (19, whatever)…..and no matter how much you trust your child, there is a lot of temptation and innocent looking "danger" out there. You want to think that a place like Flickr is safe…….and it’s frightening that it’s not. My kids are now 23 & 29, and I have said many times that I am glad the internet was only beginning when they were teens – it was hard enough then!!
And Mav, I agree that the solution is for people to be responsible & flag their photos —— It’s the irresponsible ones that ruin this (and so much else) for everyone…..I think you just need to take a baseball bat to them…….
(my S key is messed up – so ignore my typo’s – OK?! LOL!)
@Babs1696: as i keep saying though, my big problem with this is that it DOESN’T stop people who aren’t flagging their photos. All it does is punish people who ARE trying to follow the rules. The only answer we received from flickr staff so far is "its not really about just the photos. We needed to regulate discussion text as well." Which is beyond stupid, because the discussions aren’t flagged, so it doesn’t cover them at all.
It’s funny, I’m utterly incensed over this issue and I don’t administrate any groups, am over 18, and am in a "able to view everything" country. But even from far removed, it was instantly obvious HOW stupid the scheme was.
I do hope they get it all sorted out, because already only 140 days into my own 365 days, it HAS been an amazing experience, and I have you and the rest of the 365 Dayers to thank for that, and I’d be devastated if the group were discontinued because of idiotic administrative issues.
@hrw worcester: right, but it does affect you, as currently the group can’t be seen by non flickr members. And if I decide to reverse that (which we are considering) then you lose the ability to post certain things that you might want to post, or you lose the ability to see the work of some people who may be your favorites as they’d be banned from the group.
…and you are exactly right about that!! I agree! And it does punish those who are playing by the rules, which always ticks me!!! It’s always a few that ruin it for everybody else…..
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Seen in my contacts’ photos. (?)
Holy bloody hell. I know less than nothing about webdesign and even I could have seen what a lousy idea this one is. Without even getting into the lousy customer-service aspect of how they went about sneakily implementing it… Do the powers that be think that their main goal with this change is to stop people who’ve had their accounts flagged (like yours was for a while there) from posting in "safe" groups? Because it seems that they clearly do a lousy job of choosing who to flag in the first place and are punishing EVERYONE ELSE instead. grrrrr.
Okay. instead of ranting more I’ll say something postivie… You already know that 365 has changed my world for the better, but it bears repeating (especially when you’re in angry-mode). You have helped make me more creative, taught me photography, given me a way greater sense of myself than I’d have thought possible… plus formed me a whole community of amazing people I can relate to and learn from and be cheered on by. I don’t know what I’d do without you Mav.
And if I can help find the funding for a better sandbox where you would make the rules, I’m all there.
Man I hate it when they piss you off! Now I have to be pissed off too. This takes too much freaking energy and I’m tired. You KNOW that I hate stupidity. This definitely falls under the "stupid" category & not the "ignorant" one.
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Seen in my contacts’ photos. (?)
I can’t quite formulate the proper words in the proper order to get across just how I feel about this new aspect of Flickr. I know what specifically I would have to say would make a sailor blush, and it pisses me off that there was no notice or warning to anyone who mods a group.
I kept banging my head on the desk (where there is a permanent indentation) reading through the damn forums. GAH.
On the plus side, they did just go and say in that mind-twisting "help" thread that you can swear worse than a sailor in even the safest of safe kittens on rainbow groups and Flickr thinks that’s fine.
Now, whether the kitten’s teats can be showing is a whole ‘nother ball of wax.
*snorts* I shouldn’t be laughing that hard about whether or not kittens teats can be showing, though I am sure there is someone out there that will find that offensive.
As soon as my amusement wears off, I think I will trolley back over to that thread and let them know how I really feel.
(Though, after reading Mav’s from just a bit ago– so much more eloquent than I am at the moment…)
Hey Cuz you do rant and rave like your father! I agree with you. The underage users are probably more mature than the average and hopefully they would only see the "artform", not just something nasty. Parents cannot completely control what their children see and do (as much as they would like to believe otherwise). I’ll give you an example. When my son moved out (10years ago) I cleaned up his bookcase. I found naked women pictures. Blushingly explicite. I did the mother thing and he informed me that was how he made extra money in high school. He was one of the few kids that had a computer, so he printed and sold pictures for a buck a piece. That was why he never needed to touch his paycheck.
Damn this is a real ponderer. I administer several groups and had not given this enough thought obviously. I was so caught up with the frustration of these mindless protesters against progress that I did not realize that an actual censorship issue has arisen (not like the Germany issue which falls directly on the shoulders of the German people to resolve with their own Govt).
I run a group that definitely treads that middle line and has junior users. Damn, I really have to think this one through. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
BTW you have the sweetest mom in the world. Take care of her, she is a treasure.
@mickeysacks: thanks hun, that means a lot. Let me know if you come up with that funding. 🙂
@lrayholly: heh… I think we’ll get by. I’m just still keeping my fingers crossed.
@adayinthelife: nothing much has happened over the weekend. Last correspondence with the staff, things were "being looked into to come up with a better solution." but nothing has changed yet. At the time I felt really positive about it, but I’m just worried things will cool off to the point where people just accept it as the new status quo. The cynical part of me says that’s what Yahoo is counting on. I’m trying to stay optimistic though.
@musik48190: sounds like a good way to make some extra cash to me.
@Saynine (New Things Are Bad): yeah, that’s the problem with slippery slope issues. People look the other way when its just beginning and then it gets bigger and bigger til it bites everyone.
Omg! SuFi!! 😀 How awsome. You do it well too. Dane would be impressed! Ahaha.
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[discovered in the photophlow main room] (?)
wow. but i love this photo. 365 is about the good and the bad and the in between. . .but always great. this may habe been a "bitchy" day for u, but it was a great bitchy day! i like!