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Hi Thomas!
Not sure why you think I would be BSing you. The reason your pages aren't slow for you is because we don't have to do any permissions checking (they're your photos). For everyone else, we have to check lots of things regarding contacts (blocks, can comment, can add notes, etc).
And even if that were the case then fine, I suffer with slower loading pages.
If that were the case, we could probably leave it alone. But as I said above, it also slows down everyone else's pages as well.
when you fav a photo, does it automatically add the author in your contacts?
Nope, it doesn't.
Posted 30 months ago.
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@Merkley
I don"t know You as well, sir....... (And as You see, I didn"t even die of this fact!) However, I do know very perfectly one thing - really, You never had been marked in my own contact-list and never visited my Flickr-page...... (I am adding to my own list very-very passively......Besides, only true & real contacts - without exceptions!). And how captivating for me to find myself in Your own contact-List as a friend?! ....
And it"s really a conclusive evidence that Flickr-stuff is totally right, isn"t it?!
Posted 30 months ago.
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Dr Tao edited this topic 30 months ago.
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Myles. My pages load just fine when I'm logged out. They always have. I think you are BSing me because there is not a slow load to my pages as you claim.
My having 5,000 contacts simply does not slow anyone else down. There is no empirical evidence of this.
At Zooomr people can have as many contacts as they want. There is no correlation between load time and number of contacts, and we are only one engineer with 6 servers.
Merkley's right. The answer to all of this is painfully obvious. Limit your contacts to 3,000 non recipocating contacts. Recipocation is a good a valid thing. It's the right way to use flickr. You are punishing the wrong behavior here. Apply the limit only to non reciopocating contacts and that deals with your "alleged" spam problem. There is no way that you can tell me that the handful of folks like Merkley and I (some of your most active users) will affect the overall performance of Flickr as a whole. How many servers do you guys have there now? How many engineers do you have working on this shit?
Posted 30 months ago.
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Ladies and gentleman... Please step back from the abyss. I don't want to lock this thread, but I will if you all can't play nice.
Posted 30 months ago.
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We don't do permissions checking against contact lists for logged out users as well (what would we check?).
Thanks for yours, and others' comments. We'll keep them all in mind, and I'll check back in on this thread in the morning to answer any more outstanding questions.
Posted 30 months ago.
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When I try to view my contact list.. it take about 17 second to load.. I know during that time.. the server are trying to populate the array or however you have it designed and I am sure it does slow it down for everyeone else..
However.. there has to be millions of request a ever second to contact list server.. and the 300 people that have more than 3000 people is it really going to make that much of a speed difference? Maybe it will..
Hey.. also.. Myles.. Suggestion.. that would be great..
Can you make it so we can sort groups pics in to some type of sub-pools or something..
myles.. you a member of the php group.. and in the photos pool.. it would be cool to great like
php pool pics -> conference
php pool pics -> screen shoots
php pool pics -> profiles of people
shit like that..
(also I just upload a pic from last year of my and John Coggeshall partying last year)
---
Myles! says:
Hi Thomas!
Not sure why you think I would be BSing you. The reason your pages aren't slow for you is because we don't have to do any permissions checking (they're your photos). For everyone else, we have to check lots of things regarding contacts (blocks, can comment, can add notes, etc).
And even if that were the case then fine, I suffer with slower loading pages.
If that were the case, we could probably leave it alone. But as I said above, it also slows down everyone else's pages as well.
when you fav a photo, does it automatically add the author in your contacts?
Nope, it doesn't.
Posted 30 months ago.
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richard_in_vegas edited this topic 30 months ago.
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i only got in the laborious habit of adding hundreds of contacts back because at the time there was no other way to allow access to people who liked my stuff without marking them as a friend. its not fun.
for me the best solution for all of this would be an 18 and older option already discussed in other threads. that would eliminate the need to reciprocate with passes to the "private club" as all the people viewing my stream would be doing so of their own accord and i could fire the door man and the bouncer who i never liked in the first place.
i really do think flickr is a fantastic idea and i have benefitted greatly from it. i hope flickr feels the benefit of having me and others like me around providing content while they provide an accesible, hungry audience.
so yeah -- not sure i see how realistic it would be to find a person who added more than 3000 non-reciprocated contacts who really was doing it to keep track of their photos -- but as my grampa always said, the answer in business when someone comes lookin for a service is "yes, and it will only cost you $xxx"
this will all evolve the way it should. my crystal ball tells me that the future of flickr is more options and more control so that people can tailor their experience just how they like.
Posted 30 months ago.
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For a photo sharing site, the NIPSA thing seems reasonable. Limiting tags? Yeah, that's probably a wise thing. Limiting the number of groups you can send a photo to can only improve the quality of the groups by forcing us to be more parsimonious about what groups we send them to.
But limits on contacts? I hope Flickr rethinks THAT one. The psychological affect of in essence saying that you can only X amount of friends and no more will have a negative effect.
Seriously, ask yourselves why MySpace and Facebook are so successful?
Posted 30 months ago.
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I think the threat of locking the thread says it all.
Posted 30 months ago.
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We don't do permissions checking against contact lists for logged out users as well (what would we check?).
Myles. Please do not be insulted. I just logged out of my primary account and logged into a secondary account and accessed my photostream as a logged in user. It loaded in less that one second. The load times here are not the issue. There is absolutely zero way that for the folks that this affects that this is the real reason.
I tell you what. You give me any flickr user that per your outrageous allegations that it "(sometimes it takes a few minutes!) " to load their page and I'll check it out. Yep, that's what I thought.
I'm sorry. I know enough about how this shit works to call this one out.
Again, I implore you to instead of changing this to follow Merkley's plan of limiting your contacts to 3,000 non recipocating contacts.
And how are you proposing that I drop 2,000 of my contacts? Randomly? A-F? S-Z?
You can't seriously expect that I'm going to spend hours and hours and hours dropping them all individually.
If I have to drop 2,000 of my contacts every single one of them will be getting a flickrmail from me through flickr multi mailer apologzing, telling them why I am no longer allowed to monitor their photography, and blaming you guys.
This is a very bad decision -- it can be reversed.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Thomas Hawk edited this topic 30 months ago.
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ok, but if Flickr is forcing me to have at least 3000 contacts, they'd better come up with some better way to organize them and/or search through them.
but seriously folks. That tag thing, the little drop-down link for the "machine tags"? very cool. Nice to see the technology is now available and possible. So maybe those suggestions for only displaying say, the first 20 tags on the photo page, will have one less hurdle?
Posted 30 months ago.
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is this 3000 contacts limit is just because of a technical issue (bad implementation or sub-optimum algorithm causes unacceptable server load), then the issue should be resolved by using a better algorithm or more optimized implementation (or both).
BTW what is the precise rational given by Flickr for the 75 tags limit? is that to control tag hoaring / spamming? or is there another reason?
Posted 30 months ago.
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loupiote (Old Skool) edited this topic 30 months ago.
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Although I dont have 3000 contacts and wont be directly impacted by this limit or the tag limit, I do like the idea of a contact organization tool through flickr. I would be very interested to see which of my contacts I visit most, that way I can either prioritize my favorite photostreams or know which of my past favorites I've somehow neglected to follow. I dont really care who's viewed/commented on my stream as a selection criteria to keep a contact, rather who I view and comment on.
I think its a fine decision to establish limits. I believe if there was a distinction on number of contacts for pro vs trial you may have trial members join to get above 100 contacts. Perhaps a more select set of contacts will even work to foster a stronger sence of community and mutual photographic appreciation.
I live in a city of about 19,000 people but am sure I've never seen them all or spoken to more than a few thousand.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Shit. If I drop A-F I'll have to get rid of Aqui-Ali, but if I drop S-Z, I'll lose Shhexy Corin. What will I ever do?
Posted 30 months ago.
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Drop G-R?
Posted 30 months ago.
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But then I'll lose Merkely and he's got the best nudes on Flickr. Sure does feel good to be "old skool" right now.
Posted 30 months ago.
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I am very pleased and happy with flickr decision limiting contacts and tags
I was already blown out of proportions.
Nobody can interact with even 3000 .... and writing the story of my life in tags is pretty boring....
Therefore applaus to flickr, and that is that.
PS:
The gentleman so furious ( with 19K + contacts) named me since many months and NEVER EVER commented on a single photo.
Please sir never do , I can live with this pain in my soul :-)
It is only a matter of ego for all these people.
Cheers flickr and congrats.
Posted 30 months ago.
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the tag limit is cool
and the contacts limit should be under 3000 !
people like shanoble should not be allowed to have an account anymore.
Posted 30 months ago.
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people like shanoble should not be allowed to have an account anymore.
hahahahaaaa!
Oh, sorry.
Posted 30 months ago.
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--------
DEAR STAFFS :))
I am among world's most "clever plus experienced" people. Please LISTEN ME !!!
(Normaly I can't give any idea without CASH
Because
Flickr is a commercial formation ( isn't she ?) and I have spend 38 years and a lot of many for personal development
But only this time I want to give an IDEA ! :-))) )
I am not a bosting man ! Only I want to be heard !
*************************
THIS IS A CLASSICAL( naturally WRONG) WESTERN APPROACH:
***FORBID IT , BLOCK IT, DESTROY IT , BREAK IT and HANG !
***First MAKE a RULE ...Second ASK OPINIONS IN PRETENCE !!! Flickr staffs made a rule ! Everything is OKEY ! Guys, open a topic in pretence for hoodwink ( I remembered this behavior ! Ahaa! Bush has same behavior too !!! Is there any chemical weapon in CONTACTS too)
POOR WESTERN :((((((( POOR WESTERN :((((( POOR WESTERN :(((
********************************
SOLUTION......
First ASK OPINIONS, second THINK, third MAKE a RULE ! This is right method !!! (This right method is used by only MUSLIMS )
Let's think about CONTACTs . Why choose a person another member as a CONTACT ?????
What is main reason ?
If there is a Value (Very GOOD thing) "among a member's page or photos", another member will want to choose him/ her as a contact.
Because HE/SHE doesn't want to LOSE this VALUE
Because HE/SHE doesn't want to LOSE this VALUE
Because HE/SHE doesn't want to LOSE this VALUE
(Example esthetic, great art, new technic, amazing approach, important visual knowledge, etc ...)!
***************And there is no SIMPLE WAY for remembering
EXCEPT making him/her as a contact !!!!!!*********************
Firstly, FLICK STAFFS must invent a GOOD SOLUTION to this problem !!! 3000 contact rule is NOT A GOOD SOLUTION !!! ( Cleaver people have finished among FLICKR STAFFS ?????)
For example a simple LINK page !!! There can be only a simple LINK (NO AVATAR, NO OTHER ADVANCED FEATURES) ! And an explanation space too: Someone will be able write a NOTE this space why he/she has chosen this link of member's main page !
This simple link method can solve all of the problems. Thsi is my opinion.
But I REPEAT :
What is main reason ?
If there is a Value (Very GOOD thing) "among a member's page or photos", another member will want to choose him/ her as a contact.
Because HE/SHE doesn't want to LOSE this VALUE (Example esthetic, great art, new technic, amazing approach, important visual knowledge, etc ...)!
And there is no SIMPLE WAY for remembering except making him/her as a contact !!!!!!
Firstly, FLICK STAFFS must invent a GOOD SOLUTION to this problem !!!
Yours sincerely....
Posted 30 months ago.
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"POOR WESTERN :((((((( POOR WESTERN :((((( POOR WESTERN :((("
More like "POOR LITERACY :((((((( POOR LITERACY" from where I'm sittin'.. although I'm NOT among the world's "clever plus experienced people", so I might be wrong...
"I am not a bosting man"? Among the world's most "clever plus experienced" people?? Sounds like boasting to me....
Quick question - the decisions to cap the number of groups to which one image can be posted, number of tags each image can have, and number of contacts each user can have, have all been explained under the "decreasing the load on our servers" line.
Fair enough.
Just wondering if there's some strange relation to the load increase on those same servers since the "unlimited uploads for Pro accounts" was introduced...
Posted 30 months ago.
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----
I don't discuss, because there is no discussion approach in Islam. There is only "Telling Ideas reciprocally and with goodwill".
Please THINK with figures, NOT estimation without QUANTITY and knowledge !!!
3000 LINKs load servers only what ONE PHOTO loads( if there is no AVATAR no ADVANCED FEATURE ! )
Yours sincerely....
BUT
if 10 million persons write to paper (or to wordpad) "their Flickr contact's webadresses" during one year,
in this state will lose your country about 1 BILLION $ in a year !!!!!
Please calculate !!!!
Posted 30 months ago.
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lonely walnut tree edited this topic 30 months ago.
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!
Posted 30 months ago.
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As web programmer i can clearly say that the limitation of 3000 contacts and 75 tags wont have that much performance improvement for following reasons.
1. the 3000 contacts are usually never all shown
2. a single image has a larger amount of data (filesize) than 3000 contacts
3. most users dont have 3000 contacts, so for the 20%? or less? wont improve the performance
4. difference can be only in the database size, but that can be easily solved with a cluster or better database structure
5. it will not prevent any spammer, as spammer open multiple accounts for that purpose.
Same applies to tags.
Why should we pro members have same limitation as free counts?
Why should the users who are lucky to have many contacts sacrifice?
Posted 30 months ago.
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ghostwriter78, you may be a "web programmer" but I don't really think you're qualified to make those points; going through them -
1 - irrelevant, they're not talking about page loading times, they're talking about the time it takes the system to calculate the various permissions related things when it's deciding "should this image be displayed or not"
2 - irrelevant, see 1.
3 - as I'm sure you'll be well aware as a "web programmer", 1 transaction which locks half the rows in your database and takes 10 seconds to run will degrade performance for everyone else as well.
4 - I don't think you can comment until you've seen the database schema in question.
5 - possibly true, but it might at least hinder them.
Now of course you could be entirely right - maybe the database schema is crap, or maybe their locking & isolation strategy is all wrong, but until you have an understanding of the architecture they're using I fail to see how you can make such definitive statements. Even if you are a "web programmer" (although past experience suggests that term is normally an oxymoron.)
Posted 30 months ago.
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Shit. If I drop A-F I'll have to get rid of Aqui-Ali, but if I drop S-Z, I'll lose Shhexy Corin. What will I ever do?
Don't worry, Thomas, my hearts mean I'm listed somewhere in the A section!
Posted 30 months ago.
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I don't see any abyss? If I saw an abyss I'd just log out.
Posted 30 months ago.
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> irrelevant, they're not talking about page loading times, they're talking about the time it takes the system to calculate the various permissions related things when it's deciding "should this image be displayed or not"
there are very fast hash-coding based algorithms for finding if a name is in a very long (sorted) list.
so if correctly designed, this should take very little time. just like finding the routing from the name of a web domain. this is almost immediate, even though there are zillions of registered domains and servers.
Posted 30 months ago.
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loupiote, I think the likelihood is quite high that they are using a relational database which already implements said algorithms for indexing purposes.
The point is you have no idea what query they are trying to optimise. Every time someone comes out with an "I heard of an algorithm which means it must be easy to fix" or "I once built a Geocities page so I know all about web development" post they just make themselves look stupid.
Posted 30 months ago.
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tim_walls edited this topic 30 months ago.
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some easier way to manage and organise your contacts would be a good idea. At the moment it's tricky.
Posted 30 months ago.
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> loupiote, I think the likelihood is quite high that they are using a relational database which already implements said algorithms for indexing purposes.
then they should have no performance problems caused by a large number of contacts.
if they do, it's probably because they made poor architecture decisions, and did not envision the case of many contacts. then they should correct their design.
i'm an engineer, and even though i don't know the detail of their problem, i know that it can be fixed (but this might require some work, as usual when poor or non-optimum design decisions were made).
Posted 30 months ago.
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I am very disappointed with this 'improvement'. If anything it is a step backwards. I have been paying for an account for a number of years now, I have sold countless people of the benefits of Flickr.
Tags to me should be used as someone likes, whether it be poems, symbols, key words, whatever. I use tags in a fashion that help me organise my photos. Others may use them differently.
As for Contacts, this is a social site. Some may argue that is a social networking site. How can we (read: you) limit the amount of people we are in contact with? I think this is a poor decision, a very poor decision.
Thomas Hawk and merkley??? please keep it up! You both have a lot more weight to throw around than I do. I'm waiting to see Rebekka chime in.
Posted 30 months ago.
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i would say this is BS. why be here? Why even get a pro account? I do not make dinero here like SmugMug and Fotki. the only benefit of like is networking. Yahoo really has lost touch with its users. They are becoming THE NEW AOL = YAHOO. It is a wonder the stock price is terrible. Well ifeel better that i can vent, i wish it would do something, now I feel good i did not sign up for a Pro account. www.SmugMug.com - you can make money doing what you do on flickr and the same goes for www.Fotki.com . Both have no limits to the # of contacts as well as being able to generate money from your photography.
Posted 30 months ago.
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good stuff
Posted 30 months ago.
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Hey Thomas Hawk, take care of your contacts, I'm you contact for a year or more, and the only activity i see in my photostream from your are 2 favs, nor a reply of comment, (but reply for comments aren't necessary all the time), i just want to mean, take care about your contacts, they will like it. Feel Free to remove me as contact if you wish.
This apply for everyone that have more that 3000+, I'm thinking how all of you can take care of so many contacts, see their photos, comment on them, know that they are 'individual', they do some kind of photo, they have some kind of interests, i have 700+ and find it so hard to do (yes, i check flickr every day also), please play more attention to individuals..
I think that a private group could be a good reason, and the default message for people that added you as a contact Thomas Hawk have suggested is a good idea, maybe with a invite for the private group, huh? Lot of people (I'm included) make photos private to hide them from family or someone else, or to comply with Flickr guidelines, and marking every people as a friend or choosing who can and cannot see your photos.. A best way to invite them for private photos will be good!
And good to know Flickr has always been improving, we can expect in future a limit like 4000+, this depends of how Flickr grows...
Posted 30 months ago.
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This is ridiculous.... a limit on the number of contacts to help performance of the site?? Why not cache results of certain queries once a day and rely on the cached results instead? I agree with other commenters... Flickr is ALL about networking... with a limit on that it makes no sense whatsoever... So what am I supposed to do if/when i reach the limit? Start deleting old contacts?
what's gonna happen next? Google will say that we can open only 200 emails a day? MSN will tell us that we can't do more than 1000 messages a day? Google allowing only 500 searches a day?
Come on...
Posted 30 months ago.
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Francesco Gallarotti edited this topic 30 months ago.
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The Tag Thing Is No Problem To Me ..
But The Contacts ! .. Come on ! From Millions & Millions Of Users Just 3000 is A Maximam ? ..
Look At Explore .. Each Day 500 Photos Gets There From 500 Different Photographers .. What If I Want To Add Them All ? ..
Oh Well .. Nothing We Can Do ^^" .. But If It Helps The Server Than Fine ! ..
& We Highly Appreciate Your Efforts ^^
Posted 30 months ago.
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i'm an engineer, and even though i don't know the detail of their problem, i know that it can be fixed (but this might require some work, as usual when poor or non-optimum design decisions were made).
As an engineer, then you also know the important question is not whether it can be fixed, it's whether it is economically feasible for it to be fixed.
Those are the sort of decisions real engineers have to make on a daily basis. And I can imagine the maths is pretty simple; do we:
(a) Re-engineer our database at a cost of (x) in development and deployment time, in order to satisfy a set of (y) users (where y is tending towards 0 in the grand scheme of things) who account for (z) revenue.
(b) Make a change at a cost of (n) in development and deployment time, which will upset set (y) (accounting for (z) revenue) but improve the experience for everyone else.
Given (x) >> (n) and indeed (x) >> (z), the choice is pretty damn clear.
In plain English, do we spend a lot of money fixing the problem, or spend a little money doing so with the only disadvantage being that it will upset a tiny group of inveterate whingers who pay jack all for the service we provide anyway. All of whom will doubtless stick around anyway because this is the Internet, where words speak significantly louder than actions.
Edited to remove unnecessarily personal comments.
Posted 30 months ago.
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tim_walls edited this topic 30 months ago.
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Tim I'm amazed that you have to resort to personal attacks against anyone that doesn't agree with this change.
Posted 30 months ago.
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> If you were really an 'engineer'
a personal attack of the sort is unjustified, and as i understand, you are not part of flickr staff.
i *am* really an engineer - and i do understand that there may be economical constraints. i also understand that flickr is just a division of yahoo, and that yahoo can afford paying money or lending engineering force to fix database-related enginering issues.
i did not "pronounce the solution to their problem" nor did i say it would be simple and would require no work.
but introducing limitations looks more like a quick workaround than a real fix.
i don't specialize in database development. i am more into video codecs, which are at least as technically challenging, as far as algorithms and optimizations go.
and by the way, i am not personally concerned by the contacts limit. the tag limit bothers me more (i would have prefered 100 or so tags as a minimum for the maximum).
Posted 30 months ago.
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loupiote (Old Skool) edited this topic 30 months ago.
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OK, fair point, I accept that "If you were really an 'engineer'" is probably unnecessarily personal, and I apologise.
I do get frustrated though by armchair critics who always know how a problem should be fixed, but have absolutely no real-world experience of running a website which gets more hits in 10 minutes than their operations do in a year. Out here in the real world, where money does not grow on trees and every decision has to be cost justified, compromises have to be made.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Oh, by the way, .myke. - I've got no problem with people who are against this change. It doesn't bother me at all, but if you want to complain about it go right ahead.
What I've got a problem with is people who are effectively claiming that the staff/engineeers are either lying, or incompetent. If you're going to do that, you better be on pretty firm ground - and I don't believe that to have been the case so far.
Posted 30 months ago.
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striatic....do you honestly FOLLOW the work of all 662 of your contacts? I doubt it. If I randomly named some of your 662 contacts, could you tell me something about their work or why you added them?
In general, it's obvious that some people are using the "contacts" list as a way to allow an "underground" subset of the Flickr population access to their "nudes" or NSFW photos, or simply as a Myspace-like popularity list.
Me personally, I know "in real life" maybe 10 of my contacts, and I know "from the Internet" maybe 100 of my contacts. The others are people who's photostream I found interesting AT THE TIME that I added them, either because they caught my eye after they commented on one of my photos, or because I saw them in a group or set somewhere. So I guess I use "contacts" as a type of bookmarking service.
I personally don't mind deleting all or most of my contacts and starting over, since I'm sure many of them are inactive at this point, but I think imposing a limit is kind of silly when it affects 300 of, what, 1 million users?
So is there a way to blast my contact list clean, or do I have to do them individually?
Posted 30 months ago.
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- irrelevant, they're not talking about page loading times, they're talking about the time it takes the system to calculate the various permissions related things when it's deciding "should this image be displayed or not
I think the exact phrase Myles, who actually seems to be the engineer responsible for not being able to fix this, provided was:
"For accounts with more than 3,000 contacts, many pages take longer to load (sometimes it takes a few minutes!)"
When I challenged that my page with 5,000 contacts loaded just find when I was logged out he responded that the slowdown only occurs when someone is logged in. When I logged in as one of my second accounts to see, my page loaded in less than 1 second.
This excuse is BS. pure and simple. Flickr has how many servers now? And how many engineers to work on optimizing their system?
If pages really take "a few minutes to load" simply provide us an example of one to see for ourselves. There is no way that a group of 300 people are negatively affecting the load time on pages on Flickr to the point that it takes a "few minutes" to load a page.
Check my photostream out now if you are logged in (I've got over 5,000 contacts). Did that take a "few minutes" to load? That's right it didn't.
www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/
Posted 30 months ago.
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Jardel, but the point is that there is interaction even if small. I have tried to reciprocate to the extent I can, even if it's only two faves. And I assure you for every photo I've faved of someones I've actually looked at many more of their images, yours included.
Yes of course it's difficult for me to give a lot of attention to 5,000 different people, but on a random basis (depending on when they upload) I'm likely to be able to look at some of their photos at least periodically even if I don't always fave them or comment.
How often I view someone's photostream who is a contact has more to do with how frequently they post than anything as I use the contact screen which will serve up my contacts photos in the order uploaded 1 or 5 at a time.
Even though we are not close personal friends I like seeing your and all my contacts work. And even only the two faves I gave you still mean something to me. They still are important photographs to me. And I look at my faves on my home screensaver all the time. Every one of them is important to me. Having to randomly cut off 40% of my contacts and not being able to reciprocate in the future sucks.
Killing reciprocity here is a bad move. It's bad for community. Merkley's idea is the correct one and needs to be addressed. 3,000 non reciprocating contacts seems like a fairer limit.
Posted 30 months ago.
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all else aside, what earthly reason could myles have for "BSing" you, thomas hawk? it's not as if there's a super pro flickr account where you can pay more to have more contacts, so he's not trying to sell you anything. it's not as if you'll get more contacts if you merge your flickr account with your yahoo ID, assuming you're oldschool, so it's not a carrot/stick thing. it's not as if he's trying to hide some error - he's saying that flickr hits its limits when someone has more than a certain number of contacts, and while you're free to disbelieve that statement, it is just that - a statement of fact, misstating which he has nothing to gain by, regardless of whether it might be fixable by other measures than those taken here.
so why would he?
oh, and you don't have to delete any of your 5,000 contacts. you just won't be able to add any new ones unless you do.
Posted 30 months ago.
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With regards to all the people talking about databases and performance, if the database were designed properly, there should really be no issue.
A relational database table designed to store the relationship between a person and another person (a contact), including viewing permissions, could look like this (in simplest form):
CREATE TABLE Contacts
(
UserID INT NOT NULL,
ContactID INT NOT NULL,
IsFriend BIT DEFAULT(0) NOT NULL,
IsFamily BIT DEFAULT(0) NOT NULL,
CreatedOn DATETIME DEFAULT(GETDATE()) NOT NULL
)
where UserID is the contact list owner ID, ContactID is a reference to the person being added, and the rest of the fields represent bit flags which are simple 1/0 yes/no options.
If an UNIQUE INDEX is placed on the (UserID, ContactID) columns together, any query to this table will be significantly optimized since this is a unique relationship, and a person can only add someone as a friend ONCE. Of course, both the UserID and ContactID fields are foreign keys pointing to your main User table.
Now if someone clicks a photo of mine, either the user clicking is anonymous or they are logged in. If they are anonymous, and my photo has a bit flag enabled that says "only show to users, friends, family, etc" then you don't show the photo. If the clicker is a logged in user, all that needs to be done is a quick check to the table I showed above:
SELECT IsFriend, IsFamily FROM Contacts WHERE UserID = @PageOwnerID AND ContactID = @ClickerID
The index will make this query very fast, since both elements of the WHERE clause are contained in the index. The data returned to your page is trivial - it's just two bits!!
If you are using stored procedures (as any good enterprise system should) then your query is precompiled and lightning fast.
The only complexity I can see (without knowing anything about your database whatsoever) is when a logged in user visits a page showing more than one of my photos, a set page for example. In that situation, not only do you need to see if the logged in user is a friend/family of mine, but also what the permissions are on each of the photos.
Again, if the database is relational, and was designed properly with good architecture, normalization, foreign keys, clustered unique indices, etc. - you should not have a problem with this. It's just an additinal JOIN and returning a result set of photos that qualify for the visiting user to see/comment on/etc.
There must be another underlying issue affecting your performance here, unless your database was not designed properly the first time, with future growth and expansion in mind.
Posted 30 months ago.
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without knowing anything about your database whatsoever
And there's the rub...
Posted 30 months ago.
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oh, and you don't have to delete any of your 5,000 contacts. you just won't be able to add any new ones unless you do.
I will want to add more people in the future. Not being able to add any future contacts is just as bad as having to delete 2,000 of the ones I have today.
all else aside, what earthly reason could myles have for "BSing" you, thomas hawk?
God only knows, things aren't always the most transparent at Yahoo.
But if what he is saying is true, how hard is it to simply present up one of theses pages that takes up to 2 minutes to load, because with 5,000 contacts it certainly is not my page.
Killing reciprocity for your most active users is a boneheaded move.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Thomas Hawk raises a good point. One of the coolest things to do is to check out other peoples faves; great discoveries are made this way - also, other peoples contacts too. I'm sure I get views in this manner as well.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Limiting contacts? BIG MISTAKE!!!!
Posted 30 months ago.
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tim - I was not purporting to know anything about Flickr's database, but relational databases in general are similarly architected and designed, IF done correctly. No need for you to try to discount my comments...I know what I'm talking about.
I was merely commenting on the situation and providing a simple analysis, from the perspective of a database architect who has worked on similar systems. If Flickr's database was not designed correctly, they WILL have serious issues.
Posted 30 months ago.
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I've blocked and unblocked all of the obvious contact collectors who've added me to remove myself from their lists.
I hope this helps some of them to get under the limit.
I can assure all of them that I had no intention of viewing any of their private photos, and I seriously question their aesthetic tastes if they actually want to look at my mediocre snapshots of people they've never met.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Flickr shoots itself in the foot, reloads, and does it again! Flickr is first and foremost a social networking site. Limiting contacts is a very poor idea for a social networking concept.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Hi,
I'm a newbie and not all that familiar with Flickr.
However, I just accessed Merkley???s account and had no problem seeing his photos, profile, contacts, favourites, etc. even though I am not a friend, contact or anything.
So why would limiting the number of contacts prevent anyone else from doing the same thing?
Would this only affect contacts who have marked everything as private?
Posted 30 months ago.
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Who the hell needs more than 75 tags on a single photo? I thought photos were worth at least a thousand words. And too, who really needs 3000+ contacts? Someone who collects them for vanity maybe?
Posted 30 months ago.
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Thomas Hawk: I have a really slow computer but it took me 4 seconds to load your photopage via the link you provided above.
I have no idea what that means, just passing the info along...
Posted 30 months ago.
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Oh. And I suppose I'm "NuSkool." I joined flickr in February 2006 and have never encountered a problem yet.
Posted 30 months ago.
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I was merely commenting on the situation and providing a simple analysis, from the perspective of a database architect who has worked on similar systems. If Flickr's database was not designed correctly, they WILL have serious issues.
I've spent large chunks of my life building mission-critical enterprise-level systems and wouldn't even dream of presuming that I could tell the Flickr staff anything about how to manage their systems. From what I've seen of them, they're pretty smart people. And as for the SQL for dummies lecture, well, that just made me cringe.
For a system of this size, with this much traffic, and especially having seen such explosive growth over the past couple of years, I think it works fabulously well. I'd certainly be proud if it, if it were mine.
Posted 30 months ago.
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I have to agree with Kurt, 75 tags are really enough in my opinion ("amuses" me everytime which pictures I get for a 'loft' tag-search) and 2.000 contacts... Who knows (!) 2.000 people?
Posted 30 months ago.
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I paid my money and this is what I'm getting? I hate YAHOO! I really, really do!
Posted 30 months ago.
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*Kitto,
It's not about knowing 2000 people. When you go to a night club do you know all those people? No! It's about mixing with the local color and having fun. Sand boxes are fun, but I'd rather be in a garden. Gardens are also nice, but wild forests are far better and certainly more interesting.
Not the greatest analogy, I admit.
*Edited for my sucky grammar.*
Posted 30 months ago.
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Conor Ryan edited this topic 30 months ago.
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It's about mixing with the local color and having fun.
but that's what groups are for. contacts are more like people you arrange to meet elsewhere, or give your phone number to. or something.
Posted 30 months ago.
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shining example,
I respectfully disagree.
Posted 30 months ago.
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The limit on contacts won't directly affect me, but in my opinion this nixes Flickr's status as a social networking site.
I have long wanted a way to organize contacts, like Livejournal lets you make custom friends groups (crafty friends, serious photographer friends, personal real life friends, cooking friends, etc). Since there's not, I have just kept my contacts to a minimum, adding only the people whose photostreams I really want to track.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Just dropping in to say that the post opening up with "In our ongoing efforts to Make Flickr BetterTM, we're introducing two additional limits..." made me giggle. And it shows me that Flickr is more concerned with themselves than with customers. Do limits make Flickr better for customers? No, of course not. Perhaps limits give customers better performance, but then really Flickr is saying "We'd rather impose new limits than buy new hardware or write better performing software."
It's like "Windows Genuine Advantage." Who is getting the advantage with WGA, Microsoft or the customer?
I'm not affected by either limit, but I do think people tend to say what they really mean, and the words Flickr chose to make this announcement are revealing.
Posted 30 months ago.
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OMG! How will I survive with just 3K contacts and 75 tags for each photo?!
Just joking guys! Those limits really make sense to me.
Posted 30 months ago.
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amber in norfolk,
I totally agree.
I mean, like, all this nipping and tucking that Flickr is doing, It's going to start looking like Joan Rivers, or something.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Richard...from way way back there...i seriously doubt Flick would impose these limits for no reason, what can they possibly gain from that?
The same beef over the group limits and thats died down. Since those limits were imposed long loads and browser crashes have ceased to exist and nobody bothers to point that out, just moan about potentialy losing something. This site must handle 100x the traffic of any photosite on the net and its quicker than any out there. Just my opinion these people deserve some credit for doing such an awesome job.
Nobody has really come up with a valid reason for having more than 3000 anyway, beyond self serving "topless" ..."clubs?"
Posted 30 months ago.
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@thomashawk,
"I think the exact phrase Myles, who actually seems to be the engineer responsible for not being able to fix this ..."
I enjoy your photos Thomas, but not your snarky attitude here in this thread. Calling Myles a liar and then incompetent is a bit rich. You've likely benefited from Myles' engineering work here on Flickr, yet you're so quick to run him down personally. Not nice - does nothing for your credibility.
Oh, and by the way, I'm in agreement with most (not all of your arguments) just not in the way you're presenting them.
Some decorum might better serve the purpose here.
And without a shred of sarcasm, since you are (I think) the CEO of Zooomr, why are you still so heavily invested (personally) in Flickr anyway?
Posted 30 months ago.
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If you want 3,000 or more contacts, to go MySpace.
The limits seem very reasonable to me. Who the hell needs 3,000 contacts, let alone more? Maybe ThomasHawk and Shanoble (the guy with 19,000) have an ego thing going on, maybe not. However, it's not what I would consider "reasonable" or "normal". I can only imagine teenyboppers on MySpace wanting that many.
Tag Limits: so what? Focus on useful tags.
Re: Flickr vs. Yahoo ID.
I can see this as a legitimate complaint, but only from the point of view that you're forced to use a different login name and may lose the one you've got. However, your identity on Flickr remains the same.
Get over it and stop whining about it!
Posted 30 months ago.
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Omsel,
You said: "Nobody has really come up with a valid reason for having more than 3000 anyway, beyond self serving "topless" ..."clubs?"
GLAMOUR! And that is a valid reason! I just don't understand why people have such a problem with self serving vanity. Why do you get up in the morning? Why do people have children? To help humanity? No! It is a totally egocentric act.
Come on!!!
Posted 30 months ago.
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@Richard Querin - the possibility that he's only here to rabble rouse in order to try and get people to use Zooomr (a website most people have never heard of) instead leaps to mind.
Mind you, given the aforementioned site currently takes about 5 minutes to load the front page, I think we can safely ignore any advice from that quarter on how to optimise websites for heavy traffic!
(As an aside - Zooomr?! I thought flickr not buying "flicker.com" was a WTF, but to repeat the mistake and not buy zoomr & zoomer seems madness...)
Posted 30 months ago.
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"Super ego" keeps us grounded, But it's "id" and "ego" that make life worth living!
*edited for rotten spelling*
Posted 30 months ago.
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Thanks for the announcement and explanation, guys--much better handled than the group posting limit. And the tag/contact limits do make sense.
Posted 30 months ago.
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---------
Hi,
I MUST REPEAT:
If 10 million persons write to paper (or to wordpad) "their Flickr contact's webadresses" during one year,
in this state your country will lose about 1 BILLION $ in a year !!!!!
Please calculate !!!!
****************
Let's think about CONTACTs . Why choose a person another member as a CONTACT ?????
What is main reason ?
If there is a Value (Very GOOD thing) "among a member's page or photos", another member will want to choose him/ her as a contact.
Because HE/SHE doesn't want to LOSE this VALUE
Because HE/SHE doesn't want to LOSE this VALUE
Because HE/SHE doesn't want to LOSE this VALUE
(Example esthetic, great art, new technic, amazing approach, important visual knowledge, etc ...) !
***************And there is no SIMPLE WAY for remembering
EXCEPT making him/her as a contact !!!!!!*********************
Firstly, FLICK STAFFS must invent a GOOD SOLUTION to this problem !!! 3000 contact rule is NOT A GOOD SOLUTION !!! ( Clever people have finished among FLICKR STAFFS ?????)
Yours sincerely...
Posted 30 months ago.
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I had north of 3000 contacts because I did a lot of reciprocating and looking for talent. There are more than 3000 talented people on Flickr that I liked paying attention to. I do web development, so I kind of understand - but at the same time these things can be overcome technically. Maybe a limit of 6000 or even 5000 contacts.
75 tags seems a little low, how about 100? I suppose there are those that will be upset with any limit, even 1,000,000. Still, it would be nice to be able to use more than 75.
I merged my accounts, luckily I've had a Yahoo account since Yahoo Instant Messenger first came out. When I merged the accounts, however, everything about my Flickr account (including the URL to my photos) was the same - which was a great relief.
Posted 30 months ago.
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I'm certaining going to write my Congressman to demand an intervention to stop the $1 Billion drag on the economy this contact limit is going to create. Can you please send me information on how you carefully calculated this figure so my Congressman doesn't think I'm some kind of loon? kthx.
Posted 30 months ago.
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If there is a contact limit or not, doesn't concern me much, but the argumentation why it is needed is a little bit strange.
It seems, that only a few hundred have more than 3000 contacts (before I read this thread I didn't know anybody, now I know two or three...) so how it is then possible, that the entire system with one, two or whatever millions of user could be slowed down by the behavior of 100 people?
The normal user will never reach the number of 3000 contacts, the most will never reach 300... So why introducing a limit?
So what will happen now? Some of the people with more than 3000 contacts will reduce the number down to 3000 (others will do nothing...). So their average number of contacts will go down from 3500, 4000, whatever to 3000. That seems to be not so much (100 user will reduce their contact number by a few hundred, while in the mean time the overall number of contacts will increase by some tenthousands...) . Could that really make any difference?
What will happen in the near future if more and more people will reach 500, 1000, 2000 and in the end 3000 contacts (the overall number of contacts will steadily increase as long as the overall number of members will increase...) ? Will the performance problem be there again? Will then the number of allowed contacts be reduced again?
Posted 30 months ago.
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wooble,
What's wrong with being a loon? Hasn't hurt John McCain any.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Thank you manganite. Flickr is losing sight of what makes Flickr so special.
Posted 30 months ago.
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While I have no problem with the tag limitations, the contact limitations are silly, especially when you consider the requirement of being someone's "friend" to see some of their photos.
I am also not happy about the Yahoo account requirement.
EDIT: I also just renewed my Pro account, and now I kind of regret it.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Agent69 edited this topic 30 months ago.
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Id like to know who has the time to keep up with 10000 contacts anyway and WHAT could possibly be the point of having that many... the real play is to get people listing you as a contact... not the other way around.. and as far as spelling the end of flickr.... good God people find something more useful to do... LOL
Posted 30 months ago.
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Here, here, Chris...well said.
3000 contacts seems so large of an amount that is shouldnt bother alot of people..... Why one would have over that amount is crazy ( IMO )...but still limitations are nessacary for some reasons.
Posted 30 months ago.
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I don't object to either the contact or tag limit. I can't imagine why someone would need 3000 contacts.
If you really have more than 3000 people who are interested in your photos then start a blog to display your photo stream. That also precludes the need for the viewer to have a flickr account.
Flickr does a great job of supporting blogs.
The 75 tag limit is great. More than 75 tags starts to smell like spam to me.
I wish you'd have kept the old skol logins, even though Yahoo bought Flickr, Flickr and Yahoo are different animals entirely to me.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Ha a site called Zoomr taking 5 mins to load is like calling a donkey "lightning"
@ Conor...i'm all for glamour but it was mentioned way back the logical solution would be to start a group and a group is the effective way to interact when dealing with a specialized subject like that....but the reponce was he was having trouble starting a group. Making a group is so simple you don't even have to read the help.
Posted 30 months ago.
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So, now, I have to make my plea for non-deletion.
At first glance, Flickr's announcement with merging old accounts onto the Yahoo system was understandable. I can live with using a Yahoo account to log into Flickr, but then I wake up this morning to this.
Now, with the recent Flickr announcement of limiting contacts to 3000 (to "improve system performance"), I have to start asking popular Flickr users to not delete me? I thought Flickr was all about social networking!
So, now, I have to make my plea for non-deletion. I'm one of Thomas Hawk's 5000 contacts... I've been following his work (captures and blog) for a while. Ever since I read what happened with his bait and switch camera purchase over a year ago. Should he delete someone else since I've known him longer? Should I remove myself to make room for someone else more deserving? Why should it even come to this point?
Why can't Flickr optimize their database, code and servers to faciliate their growing userbase? I hope someone figures out this is not how to run a community-driven site. This will only hurt Flickr.
Flickr, please reconsider. Thank you.
Posted 30 months ago.
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It seems the majority ( not all) of people who have over 3000 contacts are people photographing nudes. I have a feeling that flickr doesn't want to have the reputation and is trying to stay away from the reputation of a site where people can go to look at porn. That is only assumption I have, but I bet there is something to it.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Friends, friends ... with the whole pain of my heart I have to suppress 3655 contacts to remain with the 3000 of flickr.
I you want to all!!!!!
Not whom choosing.
I ask for pardon you.
Many kisses, thank you, thank you very much, and up to(even) always
gloria
Posted 30 months ago.
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I dont have that manty contacts, but do not like these limitations regardless. I think something else needs to be figured out
Posted 30 months ago.
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Chris, Lasre, Omsel,
*sigh* I give up. You're righ. You're right. I always thought manifest destiny was a pretty stupid idea anyway. Silly natives, all they ever did was make baskets anyway. Glass cielings for everybody! And for the Great Goddess' sake unbind your feet and put on your stilettos - OK?
Posted 30 months ago.
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* Approximately 0.00156 % of photos on Flickr have more than 75 tags
* 300 people have more than 3,000 contacts (but this doesn't mean they're more popular than you)
If this is true then why is it a problem? Why is flickr running slow because of users with too many contacts when there are only 300 such users? Why is flickr running slow because of excessive tags when only 0.00156% of the photos have more than 75 tags?
The real reason you are making this whole change is so Yahoo! can appear to have more users which is a load of BULLSHIT! When I gave Flickr my money, there was no stipulation to have a Yahoo account. I do not want nor will ever want a Yahoo account.
I have removed all of my pictures until this is resolved.
I urge other pro members to do the same.
Posted 30 months ago.
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The whole load time issue is garbage. It's just poor algorithms or lack of experience with advanced database and system design techniques. More likely its just an excuse.
And yes, I know what I'm talking about, I design big systems. And no, I would not impose arbitrary limits on paying customers for something as basic as contact list size. In fact, I would feel quite embarrassed if I couldn't efficiently handle extremely large contact lists for paying customers.
We're talking about a contact list and permission checks, people. It's not a technical problem unless your design is flawed.
Posted 30 months ago.
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I have removed all of my pictures until this is resolved.
I urge other pro members to do the same.
And that will inconvenience whom, exactly?
Posted 30 months ago.
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Zoomr looks nice. Since they are small it would appear they aren't yet prepared to handle the load of getting visited by all the many people looking for a way out of Flickr all at once. Good luck to them though, since it got a lot of potential.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Zooomr's not even loading now... connection refused... that doesn't bode well.
Posted 30 months ago.
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I think Ill move our photos to a new service/site
Posted 30 months ago.
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I don't like this one little bit... "old skool" - bloody patronizing.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Yeah, the traffic on these flickr lists is so big, and zoomr doesn't have the infrastructure to handle such a large load of click throughs all at once. It's a common problem, just wait a little while, they will be back, and if they manage to hold up well enough in the next couple days they'll probably have a good infusion of customers to build out more quickly.
Posted 30 months ago.
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Wow...that was a fun read.
Here's one 'old-school', paid pro member who thinks these 'limits' are perfectly acceptable, not really very limiting at all, and that this whole brouhaha is...amusing. Yeah, there's a good word for it.
Sure, this isn't contributing a whole lot to the discussion, but there's so much sturm und drang in progress, that I figured I'd add to the small number of voices who really _don't_ see this as a problem. :)
Posted 30 months ago.
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