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[edited] - my mistake.
indeed i don't see why flickr would have delete your account www.flickr.com/photos/rianflynn/
i remember seing some of your photos in explore (i think) or in some groups, e.g. www.rianflynn.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=a...
cool photos.
scary to hear stories like that.
Posted 34 months ago.
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loupiote (Old Skool) edited this topic 34 months ago.
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Only people that can tell you why you were deleted is Staff. You need to give them 5-10 business days to respond. Make sure any inquire you make is clear and precise with as much information about the old account as possible. As for a specific rule of the TOS of the CG you broke, otherwise you may get a generic response like , "You violated the TOS."
If you have received an automated response do not send in a new request for help. Wait 10 days and then rep[ly to that email with the corresponding case number.
You cannot get your old URL back. it is locked up.
Posted 34 months ago.
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mhhh... assuming that all the photos are his work and he did not infringe on anyone else's copyright, it would seem pretty strange. Rian does not seem to have any controversial or adult photos.
some of his photos seem to be collage / photoshoped from other photos, so the question is: where do the original photos come from?
many of his photos were posted on sacramento.craigslist.org/ (music section), with deep links to some of his hi-res his flickr images, which, by the way, still seem to exist on the flickr farm, e.g.:
farm4.static.flickr.com/3098/3159331610_ba27336572_b.jpg
farm4.static.flickr.com/3190/2669267547_66b12c65fa_b.jpg
so if the images above were in his account, it is very strange that they are still there - unless his account has just been blocked, but not really deleted.
Posted 34 months ago.
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loupiote (Old Skool) edited this topic 34 months ago.
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Flickr account name was his website's URL - possible that was a factor...
Posted 34 months ago.
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well, the same is true for me, since people know me under that nick-name. i was never told that was a problem, and it's the case with a number of flickr users. people usually register a domain with their name (or nickname) if they can.
Posted 34 months ago.
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"many of his photos were posted on sacramento.craigslist.org/ (music section), "
There's a serious problem. You cannot use your Flickr account to host images for business sites such as eBay and craigslist. Also, if all of the photos were watermarked with a commercial site URL, that could be another part of the problem.
But as BU said above, the only way you'll ever know is to use the
www.flickr.com/help/with/other/ Help By Email system and ask if you were violating the Community Guidelines, and if so, which one(s).
The alternative explanation is that your account was compromised, and someone else deleted it. Staff will be able to tell you if that was the case.
Posted 34 months ago.
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It's nothing to do with nick-names - your Flickr user-name is loupiote (old skool) - that's not a website URL. The OP's user-name was his actual website URL: "www.RianFlynn.com".
That's a whole different can of worms...
Posted 34 months ago.
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ah, ok, i see what you mean. but then, if that was an issue, flickr should have just asked him to change his username.
OR BETTER: flickr should just detect if the user-name is in the form of (or looks like) a URL - using pattern-matching, and not allow those user names! that's an easy thing to do (for software engineers).
Posted 34 months ago.
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The alternative explanation is that your account was compromised, and someone else deleted it.
if that was the case, the images would have been deleted from the farms, no?
Posted 34 months ago.
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loupiote (Old Skool)
Sometimes synching up all across Flickr takes an unusually long time. And other times the process gets stuck. Flickr staff have had to complete the removal process by kicking the tires in a couple cases.
Posted 34 months ago.
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haha :) i see!
Posted 34 months ago.
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riyanflynn
my account has been mysteriously deleted as well yesterday, I have been in touch with flickr staff and they have emailed me the following :
I have escalated your email to a senior representative in
an effort to obtain the best answer. Please allow some time
for a follow-up reply to your question.
Posted 34 months ago.
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I would like to see an official and public statement from Flickr as to why customers do not receive an email before an account is deleted.
I would also like to know why there isn't a safety net. Why aren't 'deleted' accounts held for 14 days before they are purged?
Why isn't there an official appeal's process for customers?
It is inevitable that people make mistakes, we all do. But there should be a decent safety net to protect bonafide customers.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Flickr's "public statement" as to why customers don't get a warning email is right in the Community Guidelines. It says "accounts may be deleted without warning." So there's your warning.
However, just because it's a posted policy, doesn't mean it's an effective customer service strategy. At the very least, they should send an email at the time of deletion, with a specific reason for the deletion. Since most people don't read the guidelines, it would at least limit the confusion that some have when they don't realize they broke a rule.
That said, there absolutely should be a way to recover a deleted account, for those times when it was in error, or is not on a level of eggregious illegality, and can be easily fixed. They set accounts to "unsafe" for misflagged content, they should be able to set accounts to "unseen" for some deletion-level offenses, and give customers a chance to fix the issue, or point out Flickr's error.
Posted 34 months ago.
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As for this particular case, it could very well be that significant traffic from Craiglist, raised an alarm for Flickr staff. If he was using Craigslist to sell prints, or otherwise promote something, and it wasn't an every-so-often thing, that could be enough to run afoul of the "don't use Flickr for commercial purposes" rule. Or the "don't use Flickr to host web graphics" rule.
Only Flickr staff will be able to clarify.
And yeah, if those images still visible aren't a fluke, it'd be darned cool if they did have a "holding" pen now, and not an irreversible deletion.
Posted 34 months ago.
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A "holding pen" for deleted accounts has been requested many times - at one point, a Staff member even said it was being implemented...
Posted 34 months ago.
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I would guess that their main argument would be that while the account isn't deleted, the original photos would be accessible by hard links.
It's not difficult, however, to think of ways that difficulty could be circumvented, by temporarily changing the image filename while an account is being investigated.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Jim: it wouldn't be reversible, but they could set the account to a higher form of "private", one that even contacts can't be given permission for. Setting the images to this would automagically break ALL external links.
It'd be a pain for the person who got their account back, but it'd be better than losing the account altogether.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Hi rianflynn,
We don't discuss issues of why an account was deleted in the forum but we have received your help case and will be getting back to you soon. I'll try to make sure you get a reply today and I'm sorry about the delay.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Zack Sheppard
Hi Zack,
I trust you read my post and conveyed it to the rest of the team.
Gwen
Posted 34 months ago.
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The Searcher 'However, just because it's a posted policy, doesn't mean it's an effective customer service strategy.'
Exactly.
I think it's time for Flickr's TOS to become more 2010.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Wow thank you so much everyone! Its nice to have the support of the community through this! Whatever i did wrong i will happily stop doing! All the photos were in fact mine! Most of the elements were shot by me and the occasional add-in i purchased the rights to use from stock.
Craigslist posting? I just post the photos to get the attention of musicians where my parents live while i'm visiting! I can easily host these from my site from this point on. It just sucks! One of my photos just hit 20,000 views! It would be dumb to have to start over because i made some sort of tos mistake.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Thanks a lot Zack!
Posted 34 months ago.
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rianflynn the occasional add-in i purchased the rights to use from stock.
Not allowed. The CG talk about images you have created yourself, not images that you have a license to use.
that they themselves have created.
Do upload content that you have created.
Don’t upload anything that isn't yours. This includes other people's photos
Posted 34 months ago.
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Yes, those are the community guidelines. Not the community hard & fast rules.
I am proud to have incorporated others' work into my photographs, and I won't apologize for it, and I know Flickr won't delete my account for it because that would be customer-hostile behavior. Flickr is a customer-friendly.
Guidelines. Not rigid requirements.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Yeah I'd imagine an occasional section of building or background person, isn't really going to raise the alarms. Besides, content "not yours" usually falls under Flickr's "we won't do anything unless someone issues a takedown notice" which 1: wouldn't happen in this case because he licensed the images and 2: wouldn't lead to account deletion, it would lead to the specific images being removed.
So I doubt that would be the issue here.
Posted 34 months ago.
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rianflynn the occasional add-in i purchased the rights to use from stock.
Not allowed. The CG talk about images you have created yourself, not images that you have a license to use.
no no i'm not just posting images i purchased. haha i'm talking about elements within my art. photoshop brushes, stock props ect. I didnt personally make every thing and i didn't personally write the software.
Posted 34 months ago.
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rianflynn
That's probably fine then. As The Searcher and jakerome suggest, there is some flexibility when you're using other people's stuff as elements of your own creations.
Posted 34 months ago.
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It's not yet been shown that the images themselves had any bearing on the account deletion - I'd be betting more on either the URL being used as the user-name, or the Craig's List matter.
It's all speculation until you've heard back from Flickr with the definitive reason...
Posted 34 months ago.
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Dr. Keats
Yeah, flagging problems usually result in a "unsafe" review, not account deletion.
Posted 34 months ago.
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so, how about we stop speculating, and wait for staff to get back to rianflynn.
Posted 34 months ago.
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there seems to be a pattern. Flickr deletes your account without warning. You try and contact them via email to object and they won't return your emails. You post about your account deletion in the help forum. Flickr locks the thread where you complain about being deleted so as to diminish bad PR. Flickr has no way to restore deleted accounts so you are just screwed. Maybe they offer you back a credit towards a new Pro account.
Posted 34 months ago.
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You're dead on about that pattern except the bottom 2/3rds.
Unless like some other words you use far too often, "locked" doesn't mean what you think it means.
Posted 34 months ago.
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locked = closed.
Sometimes it's better to bring up the whole threadlocking BS ahead of time, sometimes it works as a deterrent for them as if you call them out on it before they actually do it -- then they are less likely to do so. But to your point, both threads where Flores was complaining about his account being deleted yesterday were locked by Flickr staff.
www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/102331/
www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/102335/
So much for transparency.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Thomas Hawk edited this topic 34 months ago.
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Yeah we shall see. I'm really just interested in getting my old url back. I can reupload the photos. I'm sure they will get views!
I had sooo many contacts though! This really sucks. If i was doing something wrong it would have been nice to be emailed about it.
I hope flickr makes this right! AND FAST!
Posted 34 months ago.
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rianflynn I hope so too rainflynn, but I suspect you are likely screwed here. Even if Flickr does actually possess the ability to restore accounts, they'd be unlikely to use it in your case because then it would prove that they could do it for others as well. If they can do it for others and people knew this, then they'd bitch a lot more about it when Flickr deletes their account thus potentially exposing them to additional bad PR. I do wish you the best though. If it's any consolation, Butterfield said it was a mistake for Flickr not to be able to restore accounts almost 3 years ago.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Well i dont think this topic is getting heated. if anyone should be mad its me, but i'm just waiting to hear back from the staff!
I really appreciate all your responses here!
Posted 34 months ago.
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rianflynn I'm really just interested in getting my old url back.
If Flickr deleted your account for rules violations, that won't happen. If someone else deleted your account, Flickr can give you the old URL back.
Posted 34 months ago.
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TH - rianflynn said he was ok with getting the "old url back" - something that has been done (and is documented here in threads in the Help Forum) several times (and like Colleen says, only when the account has been *not* deleted for violating ToS/CG). Nothing mentioned in that last post about getting the entire account restored.
Posted 34 months ago.
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I just checked the hard links for my site. it looks like my photos are still on the server!
check it:
farm4.static.flickr.com/3614/3656503484_880444f3fc_b.jpg
it would be really nice to talk to someone on the phone!
Rian
Posted 34 months ago.
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I played with the url on that link rian, and the smaller sizes are still there, too. Which could, cross fingers, point to a shift in their technology-ability-policy that has been heretofore not yet seen.
Could also be a database fluke/bug, but that's what the crossing fingers is for.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Hello folks,
Actually, Kevin and I shut the two threads down yesterday about a deleted account not because we want to censor anyone, but in order to diminish rampant speculation about the account.
Often, these threads devolve into a lot of finger pointing & guessing in offball ways about why an account was deleted. There are times when the speculation is so far off the truth that it ends up creating confusion, especially for the account holder who is already feeling confused.
I also personally reached out to that user whose threads we closed in order to bump the case up the food chain here. So, on a personal level, it's difficult for me to see "censorship" bandied around when the actions taken were taken specifically to
A) Benefit the end user
B) Solve the problem
Our policy is not to discuss account deletions in public because of privacy issues. I'm sorry if that seems like censorship or seems like a brick not-transparent wall, but it's not.
Users should consider that an endless back and forth of "Well, look at this and this, this is probably why you were deleted," just isn't useful.
Sometimes the speculation is just wrong. In the best interest of the user yesterday, we closed those threads.
Rian - I am sorry that it's taken so long to get back to you. My understanding is that someone is doing that right now.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Plus it's probably bad PR to draw a lot of attention to the fact that Flickr might have deleted an account for no discernible reason, or the wrong reason (as Flores was given yesterday by Flickr staff) -- especially when Flickr has no way to restore accounts once they delete them -- something Stewart Butterfield said was a "mistake" almost three years ago.
Posted 34 months ago.
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I do think it's worth speculating about the technical things going on with this issue. For instance, I went and looked up rian's old account on Google, and every single image I found, still existed, including the various sizes. Not just one or two, but every one I tried.
Unlike the paranoid ramblings of some, I see no reason why Flickr would want to hide the fact that it has a capability to restore deleted accounts, if in fact it can do that. Following the tortured "PR" logic, it would make more sense from a consumer perspective, to have that capability public.
Posted 34 months ago.
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TH - rianflynn said he was ok with getting the "old url back"
While rianflynn may be ok with this, personally I'm horrified that Flickr might simply delete an account, even in error, and have it gone permanently and irrevocably forever. I've invested hundreds if not thousands of hours in my own Flickrstream. To lose all that at the whim of some underling in the censorship division terrifies me. It's not even the pictures that I'm worried about, it's the vast and rich social metadata surrounding the photographs.
Flickr owes their users better than this. They owe us a sane and responsible account deletion policy where accounts are not permanently deleted, but rather are suspended temporarily allowing mistakes to be reversed and an appeals process for users who think that their deletion was unfair.
Stewart Butterfield said to not have this was sort of operational functionality was a mistake almost three years ago. If Flickr won't do this, they owe us at least an explanation for why they will not.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Unlike the paranoid ramblings of some, I see no reason why Flickr would want to hide the fact that it has a capability to restore deleted accounts, if in fact it can do that.
In the past they've said they cannot. I'd love nothing more than to hear them articulate that they actually can.
So I'll ask this specific question to Flickr staff. Can Flickr restore deleted accounts? And if so, when was this functionality developed because it's been stated in the past that Flickr cannot. In the spirit of transparency it would be nice to have an actual informed answer to this question from Flickr staff.
Careful there by the way Searcher. Flickr closed one of these threads just a few weeks ago when you said I wore a tinfoil hat. Even though I could care less if you call me paranoid or not, I'd just as soon see this thread stay open so that they can answer rather than locking it to avoid answering the question.
Posted 34 months ago.
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No one is more self-fulfilling when it comes to threads closing than you TH, but in this case I agree. Regardless of what occurs with the OP's account, there appears to be something unique about the "deletion" compared to even the most recent similar account deletions. It would be great, and important even, to determine if it's a fluke, or Flickr finally has a decent recovery option available for those rare times when an account didn't deserve to be deleted.
Posted 34 months ago.
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In fact, if you go look at the other recent case you championed, TH, the same phenomenon doesn't occur. Many of his images still appear in Google Image Search, yet none of them still exist on Flickr's servers.
So if this isn't a fluke, it could just be that this is a very recent change, and Flickr just hasn't gotten around to advertising it yet.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Ideally, when Flickr "deletes" an account, they would disable the account and make the account. the users images, and the users comments "invisible". for a certain retention period. If the account needs to be restored, they remove the invisible flag and re-enable the account. If an account is invisible longer than the retention period, then and only then is it actually purged.
If only Yahoo/Flickr hadn't laid off developers back in April....
Posted 34 months ago.
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Maybe they're beta testing the new account undeletion feature.
Posted 34 months ago.
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I'm very confused.
Is this not his account? www.flickr.com/photos/rianflynn/
Doesn't look deleted to me... did the OP have his Yahoo account deleted perhaps and assume that the Flickr account was gone too?
::confused::
Posted 34 months ago.
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Ok So i spoke with support and they are restoring my account! They did lose my photos. :( Its not that hard to start over.
I asked for two years of flickr pro and they gave me four years to compensate for the lost time. Its a drop in the bucket, but overall i'm happy with how flickr has handled their mistake.
-Rian
Posted 34 months ago.
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That does look like restored with images AND comments intact...
Maybe it's just some of them? Which is weird. Did you have more than twenty?
Posted 34 months ago.
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The Searcher edited this topic 34 months ago.
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Also, did Flickr explain to you what their mistake was, exactly? Because that's exactly the sort of thing that they swore "safeguards" would be put in place to prevent, well over a year ago. And makes an ability to recover an account with images and comments intact, pretty damned important.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Brenda: it was deleted an hour ago, I personally encountered the "this user no longer active on Flickr" screen a dozen times while googling his images. Now it is not.
draw your conclusions from there.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Hey yeah it looks like they restored my photos as well. I just lost all my contacts and messages. not nearly as bad as it could have been and it looks like I dont have to worry about pro until 2013
cool. thanks flickr!
Rian
Posted 34 months ago.
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Actually having a way to quickly delete all of my messages, I would consider a feature.
That's awesome, Rian. You are the very first person I'm aware of in my three+ years on this site, who has had their content restored from an account "deletion".
Here's hoping that's a new feature as well.
Posted 34 months ago.
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i'm happy it turned out well. did they say why they deleted your account? and if they did, are you at liberty to disclose it? (so that this does not happens to others)
Posted 34 months ago.
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they restored my photos as well. I just lost all my contacts and messages.
this probably means that they don't backup contacts and messages. good to know!
Posted 34 months ago.
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Wow. Maybe my joke wasn't a joke!
I hope they really do have an undeletion feature.
Posted 34 months ago.
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or a restore from backup.
Posted 34 months ago.
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So I'm assuming that if they can recover Rian Flynn's account then they should have no trouble restoring Edelson Flores' account from yesterday too no?
It would be nice to hear from Flickr staff as to exactly what their capabilities are in this regard and when they've had them as in the past they've indicated that they are unable to restore deleted accounts.
Posted 34 months ago.
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yeah i dont know! Maybe they will still be deleted!
Customer service told me they werent able to get the files back. He said the process had been set in motion and couldnt be stopped... nonetheless the photos are there!
Posted 34 months ago.
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It seems you're famous, Rian.
Posted 34 months ago.
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TH: the difference is, your guy's images are gone. Any google searches for the farm URLs return dead links. While Rian's images were still sitting there, in hiding.
So either this was a fluke/bug, or they just flipped the switch on a recovery option and your guy missed the cut.
And maybe they didn't tell customer service about the new feature yet, either.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Rian, did they tell you why your account was deleted in the first place?
Posted 34 months ago.
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It seems like there is a lot of speculation here as to exactly what Flickr's capabilities are in this regard. It would seem to make sense to have someone from Flickr explain exactly what their new found capabilities are, that is if a little transparency is not too much to ask.
Posted 34 months ago.
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The reason my account was deleted was because I was posting the images without linking back to flickr.
The posts were on Fredmiranda.com/forum/ and i didn't link back. They said it was overkill and they are trying to insure things like this dont happen.
All being said, i understand the mistake and i am happy with the way flickr handled this one.
Posted 34 months ago.
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The posts were on Fredmiranda.com/forum/ and i didn't link back. They said it was overkill and they are trying to insure things like this dont happen.
definitely an overkill.
my photos are posted on hundreds of blogs with deep links and no back-links. that happens all the times. i don't do that, but other people do.
i guess that for some reason your photos were generating heavy traffic, causing them to blip high on flickr's bandwidth radar. congratulations!
but they have other ways to address the bandwidth issue. they can block the offending website from accessing flickr servers, for example . or they could have notified you of the problem, since it was easy for you to correct it.
someone is a bit too trigger-happy at flickr?
Posted 34 months ago.
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Hi all,
I'm on a cross-town bus right now but I'll be back on to explain what's happening when I get home. Sorry about the wait ttyl :)
Posted 34 months ago.
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definitely looking forward to that explanation Zack.
someone is a bit too trigger-happy at flickr?
Definitely a bit too trigger-happy.
What staffer deleted your account?
Posted 34 months ago.
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or maybe it triggered some automatic account deletion process. maybe no staffer was directly involved.
Posted 34 months ago.
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www.RianFlynn.com
Please don't post the staffer's name here. It has gotten people in trouble in the past, and the Help Forum staff will simply remove it as soon as they see it.
Posted 34 months ago.
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What staffer deleted your account?
I doubt that would be appropriate to state in the Forum (ok, actually I know)... calling out staff members and all that. I can just imagine the backlash that could happen against that staff member, regardless of whether what (s)he did was an appropriate response (deleting the account). Once Zack explains, I'm sure we'll get the whole story and if they're claiming outright that what whomever did was overkill, I'm sure they are also taking care of that issue behind the scenes.
Posted 34 months ago.
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zyrcster said, Users should consider that an endless back and forth of "Well, look at this and this, this is probably why you were deleted," just isn't useful. This is so true. There is a definite pattern of people looking for any possible stretch of ToS/CG to blame the person who has been deleted. There's a whole, "let's eat our own" thing going on that's hard to explain and it just compounds the problem.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Whew, ok here we go (you all have built up so much intrigue around this that I'm actually all nervous to post!)
So as noted to Rian in the email to him, after looking at this again, it looks like maybe the deletion wasn't the right course of action so we restored his account as we do from time to time when we make a mistake. We are also going to work with the team to do what we can so we don't make this kind of error again. We are still human and not perfect, but when we make a mistake we want to try to do what we can to fix it and learn from it.
The reason the photos are still there is...
(Excuse me gotta go to the bathroom.)
Posted 34 months ago.
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(Sorry I couldn't help prolong the intrigue a little longer)
I'm afraid this isn't the result of some work we're doing on a restore feature. At the moment the process that deletes photos is very backed up. Usually photos are gone almost immediately but because this process is backed-up you were still able to see the images via the direct URLs as noted in this thread. And when the account was reactivated, the photos were still there.
Rian, don't worry they should stay there.
So basically the reason that they are still there is because Rian was lucky.
I'm sorry to disappoint that it's not the result of a feature. We have heard your feedback about that here, and in the past, and we know it is on some people's wish list, but it's not something that we are working on currently.
[edit to add:]
Also, to Rian, even though we already apologized to Rian by email, I thought I'd apologize here to, and thank you for being a colossal good sport and having a good attitude during all this.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Zack Sheppard (staff) edited this topic 34 months ago.
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Ugh. This thread and rian's case are a pretty stark example of why not being able to recover from an "accidental" account deletion is a colossal mistake.
To quote the guy in the other thread talking about the lake he was standing in: "Huge."
Posted 34 months ago.
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Zack you need to consider something real quick. What if he wasn't lucky? Flickr would have deleted his entire account for no reason whatsoever, and that is something that is starting to happen a lot more lately than everyone would like to think. Since you said you're not working on that feature, I'd highly suggest that the team start because at the rate this is going, people are going to start being afraid to post their photos on Flickr and will go to other websites.
Posted 34 months ago.
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and Rian has only 20 public photos on flickr.
Some pro members have thousands. Restoring that many could be a daunting task.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Trust flickr (and every other type of online storage) like you trust your hard drive. Any one of them can go belly up, crash or sizzle without notice.
Back up anything that's important to you: images, descriptions, contact lists, contact's e-mail addresses/ blog addresses/ websites, e-mails (sent or received by you) that you want to keep. If you have a page with really great comments you can save it as a PDF or screen capture. It can be a huge job, you have to consider what it's all worth to you.
If none of that matters then no worries, gone is gone and no harm done.
Posted 34 months ago.
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add: "tags", "sets", "collections", "favorites" to your list!
Posted 34 months ago.
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Problem is, there's no good solution currently for backing up descriptions and comments. Some of my images have hundreds of comments, and they often make up the fabric of the history of the image. And my images are stolen all the time, and used on external sites and forums with no regard for pesky flickr rules.
If flickr decides to blame me for the actions of others, and deletes my account? I don't care if they acted "heavy handed" or "rashly", they would still destroy unrecoverable content and history, with that mistake.
They've demonstrated here that their "safeguards" are ineffective. They need to consider this more than a "not at this time" objective.
Much more.
Posted 34 months ago.
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"I'm sorry to disappoint that it's not the result of a feature. We have heard your feedback about that here, and in the past, and we know it is on some people's wish list, but it's not something that we are working on currently".
As I've said (several times now, in several threads), the whole "holding pen" / "limbo" for deleted accounts was officially on Staff's "to-do" list 23 months ago: www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/54689/page2/#reply309440
So, what happened to change that?
Posted 34 months ago.
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So, what happened to change that?
i guess they todo list got longer, and it is sorted by priority, not FIFO.
Posted 34 months ago.
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I'm pretty disappointed to hear that the 'holding pen' idea seems no longer to be on the to-do list.
Maybe Zack just meant that they aren't actively working on it.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Zack Sheppard 'I'm sorry to disappoint that it's not the result of a feature. We have heard your feedback about that here, and in the past, and we know it is on some people's wish list, but it's not something that we are working on currently.'
On some people's wishlist? I'm sorry but I strongly feel this should be on Flickr's wishlist!
Not being able to correct mistakes/misjudgements made by personnel, is something a company like Flickr should be working on yesterday!
Posted 34 months ago.
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I agree on the pressing need for a better way of dealing with this sort of thing; you can either go for a holding pen/undelete approach, or simply email a warning before deleting people in the first place, but you've got to do better than this.
Also, on zyrcster's point that Users should consider that an endless back and forth of "Well, look at this and this, this is probably why you were deleted," just isn't useful. I agree in principle that it's a bit crap, but the problem is that it's often the best anyone can do. Lots of these posts start (as this one did):I have tried emailing CS, but i haven't gotten a response! Even when people do get a response it usually amounts to "You violated the CGs" rather than anything specific, and further follow-ups just get the infamous "We can't reinterpret the CGs and TOS" bullshit. In the absence of solid information from Flickr, the Help Forum guesswork, though it is indeed a bit crap, is the only help these people are getting, and those people providing it shouldn't be slammed when they're simply trying to do their best to help.
Posted 34 months ago.
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apologies, because i haven't read all this, just the reason why the account was deleted.
Just to clarify, if i post a picture on my blog (without linking to flickr) and also post it here, am i breaking some rule that risks me getting deleted?
Posted 34 months ago.
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sweet distin - The problem arises only if you're using Flickr to store the actual copy of the picture that appears on your blog without linking. So if you posted the picture and used the blog to store it you would be OK.
Posted 34 months ago.
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sweet distin
You are not taking any risks if the image is stored in both places. The problem that arose here was the image being stored on Flickr and displayed on another website without linking back to Flickr.
When you use Flickr's resources to store a picture so you can use it somewhere else on the web, you must provide a link back to the photopage on Flickr any time you use it somewhere else.
If it's not stored here, Flickr doesn't care.
(must drink coffee soon)
Posted 34 months ago.
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I'm not sure what you mean by store?
i store it on my computer and post a copy in both places....is that okay?
Posted 34 months ago.
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Yes, you're absolutely fine! :-)
Posted 34 months ago.
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phew!
:)
Posted 34 months ago.
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So if other people blog my photo without linking back to flickr (something that none of us have any control over and I've had plenty of people do this sometimes where I'm not even aware) then I risk having my photostream nuked?
Zack, how is it that Flickr has time to code the entire site so that it shows me Thomas Hawk a different staff on the ""about Flickr" staff page then every other Flickr member, but they don't have time to code a far more important thing like account deletion recovery? Seems like the priorities are a bit out of order there.
Because Flickr refuses to offer us a reasonable and sane account recovery option, would flickr be willing to warn all users prior to account deletion and give them a reasonable time frame to respond to a warning and object to account deletion? This would involve no programming resources whatsoever, is simply a policy change, and seems like a fair request given your track record for bad account deletions and you're unwillingness to consider an account recovery option.
Didn't Stewart Butterfield say it was a "mistake" not to have a mechanism to recover deleted photos almost 3 years ago? Has your thinking changed since then? Is it still a mistake and if so why not address it? How about a little more transparency?
Posted 34 months ago.
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Thomas Hawk
Heather explains why they can't send a wee note notes warning about account deletions
www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/80850/#reply511487
Alas, we're a big site... To give some scale, there are something like 5,000 new photos and video uploaded every minute. Of every day. While it would be nice to be able to be send out "wee notes", it would be a daunting task with the amount of content flowing through. It's just not scalable, so there will be those moments where people who are otherwise wonderful Flickr citizens run into our process around content flagging, etc.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Alas, we're a big site... To give some scale, there are something like 5,000 new photos and video uploaded every minute. Of every day. While it would be nice to be able to be send out "wee notes", it would be a daunting task with the amount of content flowing through. It's just not scalable, so there will be those moments where people who are otherwise wonderful Flickr citizens run into our process around content flagging, etc.
yes, it's a big site, and the 5,000 new photos and videos uploaded per minute sounds daunting. But they do far fewer than 5,000 new account deletions per minute. in the spirit of transparency, and given that Flickr's said it's basically "too much work" to warn people over account deletions, would flickr please tell us on an average day how many account deletions they do. If the number is less than 5 (despite the 5,000 new photos uploaded a minute) it would seem that sending out 5 warning emails would not in fact be a substantive work load increase for someone. Can Flickr provide a little more visibility specifically on why warning their users over account deletions represents such a, in their words, "daunting" task?
I sure would hate to see my photostream that I've worked hundreds if not thousands of hours on get deleted simply because some blogger somewhere posted one of my photos without linking back to Flickr.
Also, if pressing a button to send an automated warning email is simply "too much work" for Flickr prior to deleting accounts, how about agreeing to warn paying Pro account users which probably represent less than 2% of the users on the site. Can Flickr provide how many Pro accounts they delete per day?
Posted 34 months ago.
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TH - you've got to be one of the biggest thorn's in flickr's side - if your account hasn't been "accidentally" deleted by now, I'd say your account is probably safer than anyone else's here on flickr.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Hopefully RubyMae. But they are reasonable questions nonetheless. For months, Flickr had my entire photostream, each and every one of my thousands of photos marked NIPSA. Trying to make Flickr better for all of us.
Posted 34 months ago.
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Thomas Hawk edited this topic 34 months ago.
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This now officially has me spooked. I have started a plan to inventory my flickr photos and make sure they are completely backed up. I have had them backed up before, and I have multiple copies of that backup, but to get them all from their backed-up state to flickr again would take more man hours than I would have have to give. I am drafting a plan to move the photos as they are on flickr to a backup disk and drive. Can anyone recommend a flickr - disk move utility? I will start searching as soon as possible. I'm afraid I can no longer trust my photos here. This is the first time in five years I have felt this way. I'm truly terrified. :(
I know we aren't supposed to trust flickr with our photos, but I always felt that we could. I don't know anymore.
TH, thanks for bringing this to my attention.
Posted 34 months ago.
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It's nothing to do with nick-names - your Flickr user-name is loupiote (old skool) - that's not a website URL. The OP's user-name was his actual website URL: "www.RianFlynn.com". 
A "holding pen" for deleted accounts has been requested many times - at one point, a Staff member even said it was being implemented...
Zack Sheppard 
The Searcher 'However, just because it's a posted policy, doesn't mean it's an effective customer service strategy.'
Dr. Keats 
Plus it's probably bad PR to draw a lot of attention to the fact that Flickr might have deleted an account for no discernible reason, or the wrong reason (as Flores was given yesterday by Flickr staff) -- especially when Flickr has no way to restore accounts once they delete them -- something Stewart Butterfield said was a "mistake" almost three years ago.
TH - rianflynn said he was ok with getting the "old url back" 
What staffer deleted your account?
What staffer deleted your account? 
sweet distin 
Hopefully RubyMae. But they are reasonable questions nonetheless. For months, Flickr had my entire photostream, each and every one of my thousands of photos marked NIPSA. Trying to make Flickr better for all of us.
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