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Well that sucks
Posted 42 months ago.
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With their talent and knowledge, these members of flickr staff would be adding value someplace else. But one does hope, the downturn causing this kind of forced transitions would soon be a thing of the past.
Posted 42 months ago.
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I agree, Dude Crush. Hopefully someone will pick up these people with their skills and talents.
Posted 42 months ago.
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It's bad news. Flickr's clear and intuitive interface? George made that.
More recently she's been heading The Commons, which I think is one of the most exciting things Flickr's done in a long time. I'm really concerned about what will happen to it without her.
Posted 42 months ago.
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To say that I am an ardent supporter of The Commons is putting it mildly. I am very concerned.
Originally posted 42 months ago.
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Jayel Aheram edited this topic 42 months ago.
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George? That does suck. She's been around here for as long as I can remember. She has a good sense of humor too.
:-(
Posted 42 months ago.
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What? George laid-off? Well that's cutting off your nose to spite your face. How stupid.
Posted 42 months ago.
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exactly, van.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Sodding ridiculous.
Posted 42 months ago.
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I didn't see that coming. Spot on van.
Posted 42 months ago.
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I can't believe it.
I too love the Commons.
I don't know George personally, obviously, but what I know of her makes me think this is really a terrible loss for us.
Say it ain't so!
Posted 42 months ago.
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*sigh*
Posted 42 months ago.
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I'm surehope they will be fine with the talents they have. I also think Flickr will loose more from this then those moving on.
Posted 42 months ago.
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And this sort of thing is supposed to rebuild stockholder confidence in the company?
Posted 42 months ago.
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Bummr.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Flickr's loss, another company's gain.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Hey, where is the "No More Layoffs At Flickr" group when you need them.
Seriously, maybe there is something we can do.
Posted 42 months ago.
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wow, that is shocking.
same with the flickr staff in singapore.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Singapore? Please share.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Michael, more here.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Says yeah- poor George, and just after that seminar she did in Canberra (Aust). Such a lovely Adelaide talent as well...
Posted 42 months ago.
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Thanks Jim. This is horrible.
Posted 42 months ago.
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George Oates responded well to compliments and/or gifts.
Without a vision the people perish... and Flickr will be worse off because of her absence
Originally posted 42 months ago.
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HyperBob edited this topic 42 months ago.
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I agree. A sad day for Flickr...and all of us.
Posted 42 months ago.
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HyperBob: thanks for the link. A compliment: lovely article.
Posted 42 months ago.
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They will all probably band together and form some sort of super team that'll rise up and kick yahoo's ass.
I guess being owned by a large corporation will always be a double edged sword. Stuff like this being the worst..
Posted 42 months ago.
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My subscription is due on the 19th and I really would like to tell the Yahoo big-wigs to just stuff it -- but where would I go?
I'll send them my $25 and then await their next big announcement, I guess. This is still a great group of folks!
Posted 42 months ago.
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- smugmug? ipernity?
Posted 42 months ago.
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rod murrow grate idea but if everyone did that everyone would lose there jobs at flickr
Posted 42 months ago.
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George talks about the layoff.
george08.blogspot.com/2008/12/not-quite-what-i-had-in-min...`
It was worse than I thought. :\
Posted 42 months ago.
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I sent a formal request for time to transition The Commons program to whoever is to take it over: "A week should do it," I said. It was denied.
I was already pretty incensed when I heard the news last week, but the fact that George's eminently reasonable request for a week to transfer the commons was denied has left me dumbfounded with anger. If you find Central renamed "Yahoo! are a bunch of dumbass, self-destructive fuckwads" or something along those lines, you'll know who did it.
The fact that George was leading The Commons, a project I certainly concur with others as to being probably the most important thing Flickr has ever accomplished, a project which is also, if I'm remembering correctly as to where the idea for Flickr came from, the most incredibly fantastic evolution of the original Flickr concept, makes it all the more fucking ridiculous.
I haven't posted much about my feelings on The Commons, but I really think it's that important. It's about what happens when you not only open up one of the most fundamental set of records that exists of our collective societal histories (photos), but about the power of people being given the tools to comprehensively add more meaning to them.
Not only have Yahoo! kicked to the curb someone who was fundamental in building one of their flagship "Hey, we're still relevant!" products, someone widely regarded as being scarily good at what she does as well as a truly kick-ass person to boot, they've also shown a complete and utter disregard for not only for its flagship project, but their reputation as a company which cares about building not just good, but important things, as a whole.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Changed the title of the thread a bit. For accuracy's sake.
Posted 42 months ago.
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It's not just flickr employees being laid off it's yahoo too - I ran into an old friend of mine who was heading one of the Australian divisions of yahoo - she has recently been made redundant as have many others from yahoo. She told me yahoo are moving to use more syndicated content.
Posted 42 months ago.
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...
Posted 42 months ago.
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@Rob Murrow--Why not renew, with the stipend that Flickr/Yahoo rehire George Oates? ...That really has appeal to it.
Posted 42 months ago.
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I think George rocks, and this is such a bummer. But reading that blog post...damn! that's pretty harsh! That pissed me off, too! Contributing so much to Flickr...then having your email, everything disabled within a few hours of lay-off, while you're out of town....pretty heartless.
Posted 42 months ago.
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SF Lights [deleted] says:
She was part of Flickr before Yahoo! was...so I know it doesn't work that way, but in my mind I think it's so egotistical of them to not boot someone that they hired, but someone who has been around longer than them.
Posted 42 months ago.
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George is awesome and she's done such great work on The Commons, it's a truly worthwhile project. Why on earth she got laid off is beyond me, there have to be better cost cutting measures than firing her.
Posted 42 months ago.
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That's just brutal. To be sacked by phone is one thing but while you're on the other side of the world representing the project you love? :(
Thanks and good luck, George. Let us know where the Next Big Thing is. I'm sure you'll be part of it.
Posted 42 months ago.
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There are not enough donuts in the universe to make this ok, or even bearable.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Now we know why it's called "Yahoo" and not "Genius". It's run by a bunch of...well, never mind.
Posted 42 months ago.
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I'm sure they got a severance package and George Oates will be picked up pretty quickly by some other company. If not give me call George :)
Posted 42 months ago.
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I'd never crossed paths with George, but that blog is very depressing. We all expected job cuts, but having your whole flickr lifestyle disabled within 14 hours? That's too harsh for words.
Now I know why Heather closed a thread in the help forum that mentioned the job cuts, summarising by saying words to the effect of "It's been tough round here lately". Staff morale must be at an all-time low at the minute. What a great Christmas! :(
Posted 42 months ago.
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George's final final blog was only two days ago. blog.flickr.net/en/2008/12/15/signs/
It's really quite haunting to see her name there, but no buddy icon or link to her stream.
Posted 42 months ago.
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There don't put user hyperlinks on Blog posts, though. They've always been that greyed out text, I think.
Posted 42 months ago.
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I always thought the ”Don’t Be Creepy: You know the guy. Don’t be that guy" line in the guidelines was really silly and I wanted it changed to something more "professional", but now I've read that George and Heather came up with it on the train to work, I'm going to start a campaign to get it enshrined into the constitution of the United Nations.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Even at in the middle of her personal termoil George wanted to preserve the Commons. That speaks volumes about the quality of the lady
Posted 42 months ago.
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It's really quite haunting to see her name there
:(
Posted 42 months ago.
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I just went to check out SmugMug as an alternative and misread Gorgeos galleris as "Georgeous Galleries" on the front page. Subconscious hint?
I don't think I'll move all my images, but I did just let my Pro expire and am looking into somewhere else to post in the future.
I hope wherever George goes to work, it'll shine.
Posted 42 months ago.
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For those of you who are keen on George's (in my opinion) most outstanding contribution to Flickr -- The Commons -- you might want to have a look at the new group Flickr Commons, founded yesterday (by BigBean) to celebrate, talk about, and build on The Commons. Our members include Commons institutions, Flickr members, and Flickr staff, and the pool already has some wonderful "behind the scenes" photos.
Posted 42 months ago.
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I've never met George, but what happened to her is unacceptable. Sure, if you have to lay someone off, fine. But doing in while they are overseas, and in such a quick and cold way? What if she had become despondent over there and something tragic happened? We are all very lucky that George is a strong person.
In my opinion, companies should have more of a moral responsibility for their employees, in all situations. Even when they let them go. This makes me sick to my stomach.
Why was flickr sold to these nutjobs?
Posted 42 months ago.
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How unfortunate. IMHO, the last thing Yahoo needs to be doing is losing skilled developers, considering the quantity of bugs on their sites.
Posted 42 months ago.
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I'm STILL PISSED about this.
Who made this decision? I hope they feel the regret soaking into their toes and seeping up into their legs and making their entire being damp and cold. And I hope they are haunted by it for years to come.
And I would like to throw my shoes at that person.
Posted 42 months ago.
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See this article... a snippet: Towards the end, some of us were asked to submit reports again and again, and we all knew it was so that the powers-that-be could determine who would stay and who would go. Some people just stopped working altogether because there was nothing to do. We were pretty sure folks were going to lose their jobs on December 10th because all the classrooms had been booked on that day. But at meetings right before Thanksgiving, the date “December 10th” wasn’t even placed on timelines on whiteboards. It was as if nothing was going to happen, even though we all knew layoffs were inevitable. The VP of my division sent LinkedIn invites to all his reports in late November, so we figured that meant he was going to be asked to leave. But we weren’t sure because he was such a stellar boss. It made no sense. It was a crazy time.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Somehow I missed this news until just now. I'm lost for words.
Posted 42 months ago.
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I'm not really one for petitions and campaigns, but tomorrow I'll be uploading a photo and dedicating it to George and linking it to this thread. She may be gone, but we can't allow her to be forgotten.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Arty Smokes wrote She may be gone, Well... she *is* still an admin of this group. :)
Posted 42 months ago.
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I'd never heard of George before this thead, but I'd just like to add that that absolutely stinks.
For someone who has obviously made such a huge contribution to a company to be treated in such a shoddy way is beneath contempt. Yahoo / Flickr have shot right down in my estimation. What a bunch of tossers.
Someone of her calibre won't have much of a problem finding another job though.
Posted 42 months ago.
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it's pooey :(
Posted 42 months ago.
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Oh cool. I'd got the impression that they'd even wiped out her Flickr account, but I see she's continued to upload images. :)
To show some appreciation and to spread the news, I've left a little dedication on my final image before I disappear for the holidays. If you think more people should hear the story, then do likewise.
Enjoy the pudding!
Posted 42 months ago.
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... oh well, the free ride is over :o( ...
Posted 42 months ago.
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I don't understand this heavy handed move on by FC admins to change the title. She wasn't the only one laid off. Don't you think its a snub to the others when the original poster acknowledged the others and one of the comments here reminds us of the layoff in Singapore (interesting photostream there). Yeah, George was the most interesting one but not the only one and the original poster acknowledged that.
Anyway, I always thought Caterina was the one who designed the flickr site. I've always felt it was the best thing about flickr so if George designed it then that is a great accomplishment. I use smugmug but the design is nowhere near as nice as flickr's. I wouldn't mind at all paying for use of a small site if I knew that someone like George was going to design it. I pay for a super pro smugmug because its small and there needs to be competition for big corporations. I mean its cool that the flickr founders got millions for their site from Yahoo, you'd be crazy to turn down that. It doesn't mean I have to support Yahoo if the financial incentive encourages small companies to sell out to bigger fish. If yahoo flickr does die or get swallowed up by microsoft and everyone gets laid off I'm not going to get too bothered by it. Its just change. And the individuals who built it can go on to build other smaller things.
Posted 42 months ago.
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In the past couple months, Microsoft offered 40B dollars to acquire Yahoo and that deal fell through. I hope the new offer will be no more than 2B dollars. that will teach those assholes at Yahoo how to treat people.
too bad I already renewed my pro account. but I think with all the recent excessive moderation police, the layoff of talents like George - whom I don't know - but read about and pissed off flickr users, this site is going to be deteriorating very fast.
I hope George and her colleagues open another competing site. I will be the first to subscribe to it.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Let me know when Microsoft buys Yahoo, I want to be the first one to delete his own account.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Therr, I'm with you on the change of title...out of order.
Posted 42 months ago.
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I am really shocked to hear how George is being treated...
It makes me very angry that staff can shown so much contempt...
Very sad :(
Posted 42 months ago.
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afgsdfgsdfhdsghyrtui78467235 [deleted] says:
I noticed this text in a footnote at the bottom of The Commons page:
"This is for the good of humanity dude!"
Yahoo, as an American for-profit corporation, is legally prohibited from placing "the good of humanity" above the profits of its shareholders.
And thus we see the heart of the problem.
Like another commenter here, I had never heard of George before today. But from what I've read, I now have no doubt that she's a great person and was a tremendous asset to Flickr. It's genuinely regrettable that the dumbasses who run the company couldn't see that.
Posted 42 months ago.
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- i sort of of disagree with you.
well, i agree with your assessment of for-profit companies generally, and your lament, but i have to say that it was and is in yahoo's self-interest to support the commons in a strong way.
i mean, when you have yahoo's more profitable rival, google, involved in all manner of endeavours "for the public good" which also coincidentally serve to elevate its brand into the stratosphere, here's yahoo playing smallball yet again, reinforcing its reputation for irrelevance.
yahoo's ability to partner with large institutions like the library of congress, smithsonian and all the other prominent institutions involved in the commons elevates yahoo's stature, and stature is more than some immaterial concept, it is a quality that directly breeds relevance and respect and helps you get things done in other areas.
Posted 42 months ago.
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I hafta say - I was already disheartened and upset when I'd heard George was laid off - but when I'd read her blog post about how it happened my heart about fell out of my chest. I mean that was just jaw-droppingly cruel and stupid of Yahoo, and for whomever made the decision, Migulgl zol er vern in a henglayhter, by tog zol er hengen, un bay nakht zol er brenen (He should be transformed into a chandelier, to hang by day and to burn by night).
Posted 42 months ago.
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by the way, if anyone is interested in helping to support and enjoy The Commons, some of us flickr members have started up a group to do so:
www.flickr.com/groups/flickrcommons/
we're currently planning some of the activities we'd like to engage in, and have had a very positive response from flickr staff and the commons partner institutions.
Posted 42 months ago.
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anyone got ideas on action we can take?
Posted 42 months ago.
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analogueandy wrote action we can take? To what end?
Posted 42 months ago.
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someone has collected some links on george:
archiv.twoday.net/stories/5405776/
as a longtime flickrite, i was shocked and sad.
Posted 42 months ago.
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I agree. A sad day for Flickr...and all of us.
- smugmug? ipernity?
Oh cool. I'd got the impression that they'd even wiped out her Flickr account, but I see she's continued to upload images. :)
- i sort of of disagree with you.
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