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I doubt that yahoo.de has any coding folks (except for the mobile folks who are located in Hamburg).
they likely do. they're likely not very good, but if they needed to they could outsource it.
i've worked in a local web crew for an multinational, and that's how it worked for us.
I also doubt that yahoo.de has been consulted in this issue at all prior to the roll-out
flickr said has said that the decision made at roll-out was done based on not second guessing yahoo.de staff and putting them at criminal risk. i'm sure they were involved before roll out.
Posted 60 months ago.
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striatic edited this topic 60 months ago.
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phoneyman There have been responses from Flickr Staff in the thread.
Keep in mind its not really likely that anyone who works for Yahoo (including Flickr Staff, even Stewart) is going to be able to speak out on this topic if they have been told not to by someone on their legal staff or Yahoo management.
And if there's something in the works to fix the problem that has a chance of falling through then they're not going to announce that in case another route has to be taken.
There's a difference between "No response" and "Not the kind of response we want."
I agree the whole thing could have been handled better, but unless we're inside the organization there's really no way of knowing what the reason is for the limited details we're getting about what's going on.
And I have yet to hear a plausible claim that German law doesn't have a bearing, other than "I don't know of a law" from people who appear to not actually be German lawyers.
If you think Flickr staff are acting in bad faith then there's no rational reason to stay. Since that kind of Staff that doesn't give a damn won't give a damn about ANY of the comments in this thread, why even talk to them? Why bother?
I choose to believe they are listening, and if they could say more they will, and that this issue will be fixed. Not fixed soon enough, and the whole thing could have been handled better, but I can't believe Flickr Staff are directly responsible for this due to their whim or stupidity on their part. More likely due to a chain of bad decisions at a corporate or Legal Department level that have cascaded down to give the current mess.
Posted 60 months ago.
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I want to add:
I don't agree with Flickr / Y! Germany how they managed this. It's not ok to change their rules without warning or changing their TOS. It's not ok to delete our protest images from explore. It's not ok not to answer to our questions. They found a stupid solution for a complex problem. I hope they'll fnd a better one.
Posted 60 months ago.
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@benrobertsabq: More likely due to a chain of bad decisions at a corporate or Legal Department level that have cascaded down to give the current mess.
Trickle down trouble + trickle up grief = A very unhappy workplace.
Given enough protest and market pressure, maybe the suits will take their thumbs off of flickr and the staff will be able to get things back on track. If not, they might as well change the name: how's shuttr sound to you?
I hope those poor buggers in the yahoo.de marketing department aren't working on commission.
Posted 60 months ago.
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Jaboney - Yeah I agree about the protest and market pressure. Just saying attributing it solely to Flickr Staff without knowing what's going on doesn't seem very well directed use of the protest.
EDIT - And at this point its a lot more than a trickle eh? ;)
Posted 60 months ago.
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zettpress: My guess too. I suppose their staff consists of 90% lawyers.
Has anybody seen an official Posting by Flickr staff in German today, BTW?
Flickr loves you! Censorship is love.
Posted 60 months ago.
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striatic, IMO Flickr owes their user-base much more transparency than what has been delivered here. Going days without responding to begin with, and then responding by saying "We can't say anything" is not appropriate to the sense of Community Flickr, the company, has been vocal about being "about". If "Flickr love you" then Flickr should talk, period. After relationships without communication wither and die.
benrobertsabq,
"no rational reason to stay", you say? How about the more than 2 years of Community building I've put into this place? That's what guys like you who are so quick with the "then go" comments seem to miss.
Pierre
Posted 60 months ago.
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on a personal sidenote:
it really bugs me that i can't upload photos until some sort of solution (or at least a comment with substance) has been posted. i made some of my best photos ever last weekend, i want to share, but i have to wait... really bugs me...
Posted 60 months ago.
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I don't know who, precisely, is ultimately responsible for this dog's dinner, but I have a pretty good idea who is proximately responsible, and I'm sure that they'll pass along our concerns.
-----
On transparency (again. Think I raised this on p. 16!).
I JUST NOW spotted this notice:
flickr: The Forum notice states: The Forum is a great place to start if you need help with Flickr (just like our extensive FAQ). Our community is full of helpful, clever people who know more about Flickr than we do!
I'm hoping that they'll start to take that notice seriously. Image all the grief that might have been avoided had they done so:
"Attention please, flickreenos: We've decided to move in this direction, and we'd like you to help steer the boat... make sure we don't run afoul of any hidden dangers. Yes, we're sorry that letting the cat out of the bag this way spoils the big marketing surprise announcement, but don't worry, we'll still have one hell of a launch party, and you're all invited. (Don't forget your cameras.)"
Posted 60 months ago.
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pierre, i agree.
but i think it isn't flickr staff who are to blame for the inability to speak.
obviously, here is some kind of internal communication that is being kept secret. until all the parties agree to make it public, flickr isn't going to tell us whats going on because they don't want to be seen as 'rats' within yahoo.
anyway, something is being hidden, this is true.
and that's bad. clearly. i think that someone or some group at yahoo or yahoo.de doesn't understand that hiding everything behind closed doors only leads to speculation, and speculation will only hurt you in the end.
but i really don't think those people are on the flickr staff. since, you know, they practically invented the whole staff transparency thing.
Posted 60 months ago.
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Striatic: I agree, since the whole Yahoo thing, there has been significantly less communication...more recently than ever.
Did anyone see the issue of Wired where they were talking about "Radical Transparancy"? (The one with the girl from the office on it). It was talking about how the business of the future is about exposing your plans, showing your weaknesses, and opening up to the world. Obviously Yahoo is moving in the opposite direction.
Posted 60 months ago.
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@kabren: anti-transparency is quite common in german companies, i don't know about the U.S., but I guess it's the same there.
i work for a company as developer and i always try to convince my CEO to openly admit it when an error has been made. it's a battle. in theory he understands that transparency is the better way to go, but when something bad happens the first question usually is: "who can we blame others than us?".
i do understand it, it's human. but i believe, that if you can admit and communicate your errors (and they don't happen too often) it's beneficial for for the customers trust. better make some errors (happens to everybody) and admit them right away, than let others find out about them, and that you tried to hide them...
Posted 60 months ago.
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i have to add, of course sometimes, there's a lot of money involved when errors have been made, and the future of your company is at risk. then it's a bit different...
Posted 60 months ago.
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yahoo-shares are going up alot right now... maybe Semel is gone...
Posted 60 months ago.
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www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid={e1bca5b2-cadb-4496-a86f-70b7943c5bff}&link=www.247wallst.com/2007/06/yahoo_up_on_sem.html
Posted 60 months ago.
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phoneyman Actually I understand the community aspect perfectly.
You answered with a great reason why you're still fighting - the community. That's what we all love, so I don't have to wonder what your motivation is any more.
But I also asked why bother talking to Flickr Staff in this thread if you think they don't care or are acting in bad faith?
Or do you actually believe Stewart when he says that they are going to find a solution?
I agree with you that the whole thing stinks, I just don't think it's fair to make accusations and lay blame on individuals or accuse them of "contempt" without access to the facts. Which none of us have.
Without access to the full context of the situation, we're all just guessing, and impugning an individual based on a guess is not something I'm willing to do.
Posted 60 months ago.
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I can't imagine Yahoo! really cares about this issue at all...
We have products like Flickr that are not yet really monetized right now. But we have assets that nobody else has and we plan to leverage those assets, so those assets are not only the quality of our audience, which I think is debatable in some of these other environments, but our targeting capability of not only the environments that they are in, but our profiles of being able to know who they are and that is why our large registered audience base, which continues to grow, is becoming so important.
That user data about who they are and what they have done, and to be able to put ads in different formats and different kinds of buying capabilities into the contextually relevant environment. Of course, we do have we believe the world’s best sales team, who has the best relationships to be able to help shepherd the large marketers into this marketplace.
I think there is going to be a glut for a while. I think there will be a transition for a while, but I think in the end, our assets and our leadership will ultimately help us take the greatest amount of advantage of that opportunity
Daniel L. Rosensweig, Chief Operating Officer, Yahoo
internet.seekingalpha.com/article/18639
Posted 60 months ago.
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benrobertsabq, well ... we ought to do something to keep this topic active.
I really don't see the direct correlation between their stock and the "german flickr incident" as not enough people are directly affected by it but since I have it on my desk anyways ...
.. now what does THAT mean?
Posted 60 months ago.
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striatic, the problem does lie at the feet of Flickr leadership, though. When Yahoo! bought Flickr we were all assured that nothing would change vis a vis the innovative transparency and Community involvement we, as users, had come to know. So either Yahoo! has muzzled senior staff at Flickr, or senior staff at Flickr have decided amongst themselves to ignore their Community in order to allow Yahoo! to save face. Neither option is very flattering. And either way it's up to Flickr to take responsibility.
Assuming that Flickr is being silent to prevent negativity directed at some Y! branch or other, what does that say about where the Community ranks in terms of loyalty from Flickr? Since it's the Community that built this place on the genius of the original idea, it's my opinion that the Community is owed a large share of that loyalty. At the very least continued communication is owed, along with some serious and sincere apologies. What we've had so far is a few "spongelike formulations" that don't address the Community concerns, and actions that are outright insulting, such as demoting this topic out of the "Hot Topics" area, insinuating that the reasonable, if passionate, concerns of the Community are completely overblown, and outright telling us that there's stuff they'd rather be doing.
Sr. Staff at Flickr should find their balls again and start talking to us about what's going on. Choosing not to, either on their own or because some dickweed at Y! told them not to, is simply not acceptable.
Pierre
Posted 60 months ago.
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But what if Flickr telling you what is going on would comprimise the solution they are trying to work out, because it would upset the people, say, who have to greenlight it? Would you still want them to tell you?
I've said it pages and pages ago, and I can just repeat. This is a screwup. Nobody wanted it this way. Flickr is working on it. Be patient waiting for their offer of a solution. Then decide what to do, be happy again, grudgingly settle down, protest, leave, make hideous protest art using photoshop filters you shouldn't even know about.
But in the meantime, there is no use talking about it. There are no deep issues that need discussion. The situation is wrong, bad mistakes have been made, but nobody wanted it this way, and nobody says they wanted it this way.
Until further statements are made by Flickr, this thread is growing in on itself like a bad toenail.
Posted 60 months ago.
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I agree with Genista, actually I thought it as well already often before. I don't really know if it really can help to continue with this discussion for the following week(s) and repeat the same things over and over again. Some of you might have forgotten that there's still a world, a real world outside, so as Lenny sings about it go out and "Live"! =) Ah, and don't forget your camera! ;)
Posted 60 months ago.
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Yves. edited this topic 60 months ago.
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phoneyman: "Since it's the Community that built this place on the genius of the original idea, it's my opinion that the Community is owed a large share of that loyalty."
I completely agree.
Posted 60 months ago.
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i don't think that flickr jeopardizing their working relationships with other divisions within yahoo in order to "demonstrate balls" helps anyone in the long run.
Posted 60 months ago.
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www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid={43C15412-6952-44A4-A2F5-6253C5F994CE}&link=http://www.247wallst.com/2007/06/terry_semel_is_.html
Terry Semel is Out at Yahoo!, Well....Mostly Anyhow (YHOO)
Posted 60 months ago.
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OK. Terry Semel is Out... is there a connection to this censorship?
Posted 60 months ago.
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this all makes sense to me.
of course, flickr wasn't the reason for the change, but future actions on this topic would depend on who would be CEO in the future, and of course, flickr-staff couldn't speak about this process in public.
Posted 60 months ago.
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Another version of the story...Semel out, Yang takes helm..
Yahoo Replaces CEO Terry Semel; Yang Takes Over
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Yahoo Inc. Chairman Terry Semel ended his six-year tenure as chief executive officer Monday and will hand over the reins to co-founder Jerry Yang in the Internet icon's latest attempt to regain investor confidence.
Semel, 64, will remain chairmain in a non-executive role.
Besides naming Yang as its new CEO, Yahoo appointed Susan Decker as its president. Decker, who had been recently promoted to oversee Yahoo's advertising operations, had widely been seen as Semel's heir apparent.
The Sunnyvale-based company announced the shake-up less than a week after Semel faced off with shareholders disillusioned with Yahoo's lackluster performance during the past 18 months and with Semel's compensation. Semel ranked No. 1 on The Associated Press' survey of 2006 executive compensation with $71.7 million, based on the AP formula for calculating executive pay.
biz.yahoo.com/ap/070618/yahoo_semel.html?.v=2
Posted 60 months ago.
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i don't think that flickr jeopardizing their working relationships with other divisions within yahoo in order to "demonstrate balls" helps anyone in the long run.
Then they need to figure out a way to communicate to the people who have been here since before Yahoo! without jeopardizing their working relationships, rather than taking the chickenshit, IMO, way that they've chosen.
Pierre
[edit for grammer]
Posted 60 months ago.
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Does anybody here really think that the Semel replacement is in any way related to our topic? Or is this a desperate attempt from the Y! management trying to appease the german audience - dump Semel... and they'll be quiet?
Posted 60 months ago.
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I'd say no direct relation...
His ouster is a direct result of shareholder disappointment in earnings...but that may be a result of poor strategic vision for assets like Flickr.
Posted 60 months ago.
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I'd say absolutely no relation whatsoever (pure speculation, like 90 percent of this thread). Or he didn't like the germans.
Posted 60 months ago.
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probek, I very much doubt that. They, a internet company that solely source of income is their users, are desperately trying to convince their shareholders to stay with their company. Anyone here sees a problem with that?
Posted 60 months ago.
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@probek: view my last post.
Posted 60 months ago.
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Someone in a different topic said that the filters violate basic rights.
While it is true that general Terms of Service (AGB in German) have to meet the basic rights, you cant force them to do so. because every trial regarding the basic rights has to involve the state - it is public law, and, if you read the Art. 93 closely, it is the human rights against the state. Now, the state shouldnt allow that, which would be the starting point - try to get the state to take care of it's duty to forbid censorship.
however, the secret change of ToS is still not illegal, ToS-changes have to be announced to the users. Ask ebay, they have some experience with that.
however, quite frankly I am a bit sick of the whole stubborn and blind-eyed complain. Rather than suing i would prefer if both sides were capable of finding a solution in a constructive way. However, currently this doesnt work - from either side.
Which is a shame...
Posted 60 months ago.
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Am I missing a point? I just think that his dismissal isn't related to our problem. Otherwise, with a tiny fraction of his earnings I'd surely be capable of implementing a working internationalisation which complies to the local laws of all possible markets flickr is active.
Posted 60 months ago.
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note to flickr staff, for what its worth:
This protest was never personal, from me at least. Until recently, flickr has been a great place and you all deserve a lot of the credit, the rest goes to the community. However this plays out, sincerely, I wish you all the best, no ill feelings, really. Best of luck.
Posted 60 months ago.
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@probek: his dismissal *isn't* related to our problem, but flickr's possible ways of reacting to it are directly connected to the person who is CEO at yahoo. flickr-staff knew about the coming/possible change, but couldn't talk about it, because it would be a disclosure of insider-information, which is highly illegal.
Posted 60 months ago.
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I don't think that this one aspect of an internationalisation of a sub-division of Yahoo is tied to the CEO of the company. I'd think that would be a little out of perspective. What are you implying? Now they've found another one, he surely start his first day as Yahoo-CEO thinking about what went wrong with Flickr in Germany? I'd like that, but I'll doubt it.
Posted 60 months ago.
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probek: I think that's my favorite protest/icon ever.
Posted 60 months ago.
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Searcher: thanks. Just my little effort to retaliate all of those out there who did't have a greyed-out vision of flickr. On an almost microscopic scale.
Posted 60 months ago.
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Dear Flickr,
Please restore the full rights and services to your German, (and other countries that have been affected by this policy), photographers.
Posted 60 months ago.
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last one year Yahoo!
Yahoo at NASDAQ april kill the CEO. Flickr does not kill him but all wrong decisions can kill the company. I don't think the next CEO will be more open minded but...
Posted 60 months ago.
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Then they need to figure out a way to communicate to the people who have been here since before Yahoo! without jeopardizing their working relationships, rather than taking the chickenshit, IMO, way that they've chosen.
i agree. but i think it's more yahoo's lesson to learn than flickr's.
still, flickr needs to better figure out how to get more of yahoo on their side when it comes to transparency.
Posted 60 months ago.
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Unfortunately, flickr is possibly wrong on both accounts:
Most recent staff update: [1] The decision to change the Flickr experience in Germany was never about censorship - [2] it was made to try to ensure that Yahoo! Germany was in compliance with local legal restrictions.
[@1] What flickr does IS censorship according to the definition in the both the English and the German Wikipedias.
[@2] No question: German legal restrictions are not compliant with a global web 2.0, but they do not require that all German users have to be protected against adult content. On the other hand, leaving “filtr-ing” to user flagging doesn’t make Yahoo! Germany comply with local legal restrictions. This would be too easy. The only thing flickr has acheived is the frustration of users with German Yahoo! accounts.
More about this in my blog – partly in German.
Posted 60 months ago.
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last one year Yahoo!
Yahoo at NASDAQ april kill the CEO. Flickr does not kill him but all wrong decisions can kill the company. I don't think the next CEO will be more open minded but...
Posted 60 months ago.
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Today Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea and often forgotten Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein.
Tomorrow maybe Utah ?
Posted 60 months ago.
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Just in case this related forum discussion this hasn't been linked in this thread:
Flickr censors member search function ?
(if it has been linked already, I'm sorry - I am lost in dozens of browser tabs...)
Posted 60 months ago.
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Copy & paste + some editing for readability (see the link above for the originals) from my posts in the linked thread regarding potential member search censorship:
==== post 1 ====
When I search members for "censored" or "CENSORED" to match my current screen name "<name> [Flickr CENSORED]", I am not listed in the search results.
However, my small test is not enough to verify whether this "filter" is intentional or due to technical reasons such as indexing/caching/...
I want to stress that I tried the search for my username and its "[Flickr CENSORED]" tag two times: one time being logged in, one time being logged out. In fact, I even used a different browser (Safari) for the latter test.
==== 2nd post ====
Here are some screenshots to illustrate my previous post in this thread. I changed my screen name some days ago (I really cannot remember when, most likely it was Friday or Saturday).
====
@Flickr: The whole Flickr censorship issue is documented on my blog.
Posted 60 months ago.
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Michael G. Noll edited this topic 60 months ago.
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Kerish: someone made that point about a week ago.
oh wait. it was me.
man, we really need something else to go wrong soon, there's no more angles to attack this one from.
Posted 60 months ago.
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but i think it's more yahoo's lesson to learn than flickr's.
If it is then that means that Yahoo! has more control over Flickr than Flickr does, and that's frightening.
Pierre
Posted 60 months ago.
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@Michael G. Noll [Flickr CENSORED]:
Try looking up your screen name as it was constituted before your recent change.
Flickr searches in some areas have always been notoriously fickle (think group search), and there is often lag involved. It doesn't serve them to try and stamp out every little name change by a tiny percentage of overall Flickr users, and I doubt very much they are doing so.
Posted 60 months ago.
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Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel gets the boot. Co-founder Jerry Yang replaces him:
www.reuters.com/article/technology-media-telco-SP/idUSN18...
Posted 60 months ago.
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RoninVision edited this topic 60 months ago.
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@Michael G. Noll
unfortunate though it clearly is, I'm not sure this isn't to do with flickr's member search generally being a bit borked.
I can find you fine if I search for "noll", although you admittedly don't come up if I search for "censored", while others do. however, if you go from page one of the search results for "censored" to page two, you'll find that several names appear again on page two.
also, although there are clearly meant to be 10 results per search page, I only see eight on the 1st and nine on the 2nd - and some of those are duplicates, as previously mentioned.
my guess is that this isn't censorship, but a rather more mundane cock-up in the paging function.
Posted 60 months ago.
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@fallsroad
Try looking up your screen name as it was constituted before your recent change.
Did you really read all of my post? ;-)
As you can see in the screenshot included in my previous post, I already did that:
(I'm listed in the search results in the upper image - searching for "noll" - but not in the lower image - searching for "noll censored")
Flickr searches in some areas have always been notoriously fickle (think group search), and there is often lag involved.
I know. That's why I added:
I changed my screen name some days ago (I really cannot remember when, most likely it was Friday or Saturday).
As I said, my test is not scientific, but OTOH it's been already a long time for a "lag" explanation (we are talking days since my screen name change here, not hours).
But I don't want to add fuel to the fire, in particular where it's not appropriate. Feel free to try it out for yourself and report back!
Posted 60 months ago.
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If it is then that means that Yahoo! has more control over Flickr than Flickr does, and that's frightening.
i wouldn't say that.
it would mean that in certain distributed areas, like international logins, local yahoo divisions have more control than flickr.
which you could either look at as frightening or appropriate.
Posted 60 months ago.
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seems that flickr tightened another censorship screw today:
guest-passes don't give access to my "moderate" photos anymore
not sure yet if that's a bug, but brenda confirmed the problem.
Posted 60 months ago.
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loupiote (Old Skool) edited this topic 60 months ago.
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wrong. guest passes work as normal, possibly for all but you. why that is, dunno. but you know this, the posts in the other threads you started show they work fine for others. And yet you choose to spread half-truths anyway. disappointing. there's plenty to be actually critical of, without having to make stuff up.
Posted 60 months ago.
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@shining example
unfortunate though it clearly is, I'm not sure this isn't to do with flickr's member search generally being a bit borked.
Thanks for your time and testing it out for yourself. As you said, I (or we) cannot verify with 100% certainty what's happening here. It might be intentional, it might be a bug.
From a developer's perspective, it's possible that the paginator might look messed up because some code has messed up (modified?) the member search results before it gets displayed by the paginator*. Searching for smith, foo and bar works fine regarding the paginator, for example.
However, everything we know so far is speculative. I sincerely hope it's just a bug and completely unrelated to the "big" censorship problem.
Anyway, it's time to get some sleep here in Ol' Europe...
*Paginators can be used to reduce DB load because they enable you to pull only x out of N total items from the DB (= only those X items you see per page - you don't need the remaining N-x items then). However, a paginator needs the total number of items to display in order to generate the page 1 | page 2 | ... links. Getting the number of all relevant items in advance would result in additional DB load (often +1 query) so it is often precomputed/cached. If you now remove some items from the actual results retrieved from the DB, they obviously do not match the cached number.
EDIT: Added explanation about paginators so that people will not think I'm completely nuts on the technical side. I stress it again: it's unclear at the moment whether this is a bug or a "feature".
Posted 60 months ago.
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Michael G. Noll edited this topic 60 months ago.
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believe me, this shitstorm over here, is barely a blip in the radar over at yahoo. it certainly isn't affecting things at the CEO level.
did you see his last year of compensation? over 71M dollars. even thousands of pro users quit and never paid another dime to yahoo, it's such a small drop in the bucket...
bad publicity over this misguided censorship is the way to hit them. keep it alive in the blogs and the news. public opinion can't be measured in dollars, or controlled by yahoo.
Posted 60 months ago.
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And yet you choose to spread half-truths anyway. disappointing. there's plenty to be actually critical of, without having to make stuff up.
i don't spreat half truth. that problem was confirmed by brenda, and i trust her for checking correctly.
granted that maybe it's a bug.
Posted 60 months ago.
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@Michael G. Noll [Flickr CENSORED]::
I did read your post.
Perhaps not all of it correctly - it happens. :)
Under "censored" i get 39 results, at the moment, and you are not among them. I do find you under "noll" with your new, full username in place.
I and others have been complaining for years about Flickr's unreliable searches for user names (there is an ongoing thread about it for weeks now, people not able to find themselves in People Search) and for groups.
Perhaps it isn't lag. Perhaps it isn't crappy search functions. Although if it were intentional, I should get zero results using that term.
I do honestly find it difficult to believe that Flickr is actively trying to hide people's usernames from being searched. They have bigger fish to fry, no matter where you stand on what is happening right now.
Posted 60 months ago.
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right, but you cached your "report" in a blanket this is happening to all of us description. The half truth was skipping the part where so far, this is only happening to you.
And the extent of that is what? Is it only who views your sets, or your view of others? did you try to view mine? What was the result?
[fallsroad: a user search for "kittens" only turns up 55 results. Considering the huge popularity of that subject, I'm concerned it's part of a much larger conspiracy. -sarcasm tag-]
Posted 60 months ago.
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it would mean that in certain distributed areas, like international logins, local yahoo divisions have more control than flickr.
Then why can't they talk about it?
Pierre
Posted 60 months ago.
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The Searcher, is there a particular reason why you started insulting a member that brought quite a few information and passion to this topic? Do you have some sort of agenda to discredit other people? Did anyone insult you when you repeated the same half baked arguments over and over last night? Please have a walk around the block and come back with a clearer mind. thank you
Posted 60 months ago.
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@The Searcher
in general things works consistently on flickr. so when i see a certain behavior, i assume that it is global, not just me. that's usually the case.
i have reported the issue to flickr, we'll see what they say.
thanks for pointing out that the issue does not seem to affect everyone, and maybe (strangely) it affects only me.
Posted 60 months ago.
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@fallsroad
Perhaps not all of it correctly - it happens. :)
No problem! ;-)
I do honestly find it difficult to believe that Flickr is actively trying to hide people's usernames from being searched.
Me too. Let's hope you're right! Flickr's been great until the recent changes.
Posted 60 months ago.
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Phew, if you keep on shouting at each other we might need staff participating. And that won't happen, as we all know. Are they really out there?
Posted 60 months ago.
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@The Searcher
please send me a guest-pass to one of your set that contains "moderate" photos, and tell me how many moderate and safe photos are in the set.
i'll check if i can see them.
Posted 60 months ago.
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drevor: not sure where the insult was. I've been communicating with loupiote in the other forums she created about this issue, trying to help nail down what exactly is happening to her. She appeared to go very quickly to knocking all of Flickr for an isolated issue, which now also appears to not be the case, she realizes it could just be her now.
I certainly hope she didn't take offense. I suppose I'm just getting tired of the near universal slide now for people to jump to conclusions, sometimes while purposefully limiting all sides to the story. If that's "discrediting", then ok. Be fair, be honest, and pile on with the many actual things that Flickr is doing wrong, and I'll be quiet as a churchmouse.
[loupiote: sent you the links]
Posted 60 months ago.
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The Searcher edited this topic 60 months ago.
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loupiote, The searcher posted the guest pass in your other thread (here: www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/42966/236900/
Posted 60 months ago.
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Brenda Anderson edited this topic 60 months ago.
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loupiote: you don't take the "she" as an insult, do you?
Posted 60 months ago.
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loupiote: and you should seriously consider changing the sex of your icon. Just like i did.
Posted 60 months ago.
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she created about this issue
he probably did not check my profile...
Posted 60 months ago.
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loupiote: and you should seriously consider changing the sex of your icon. Just like i did.
no, my "obnoxious" icon will stay, i like it a lot and it makes it very easy to locate my postings in long threads when scrolling fast.
Posted 60 months ago.
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loupiote (Old Skool) edited this topic 60 months ago.
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Then why can't they talk about it?
because it relates to international logins?
Posted 60 months ago.
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@The Searcher
yes, i can see your "moderate" photos using your guest-pass (when signed-off). so the bug / problem affects me, not you, i confirm what brenda said.
Posted 60 months ago.
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striatic,
Either Flickr senior staff can decide to talk about this or they cannot. If they can talk about it, but have decided not to, then they are deliberately ignoring their community by refusing to communicate, which is an insult to the user base. If they cannot talk about it then they no longer call the shots at Flickr, and we should be concerned.
We should be concerned because Yahoo! is now deciding, not only marketing and financial directions for Flickr, but also how Flickr staff are allowed to interact with the Community that has grown up around this site. Furthermore Yahoo! is, apparently, dictating functionality requirements down to Flickr with no concern whatsoever about the viability of that functionality in the user environment that currently exists here.
If the decision not to communicate is Flickr's to make, then clearly they, or at least some Sr. staffers have, have lost touch with the Community here. The outcry hasn't stopped, and people continue to openly question the reasoning behind this: clearly the answers given so far have not been sufficient, or at least have not been sufficiently explained to the Community. People here are upset, very upset, and yet Flickr staff continues to be seen as doing nothing. Rather than calming things down the lack of communication by Flickr has further inflamed the situation, and tarnished the reputation for openness they've carefully built over the years.
In fact the very fact that this decision was made at all shows a clear lack of vision from someone in the Yahoo!/Flickr organization. Anyone who'd kept a half-an-eye open to the Community would have been able to predict this reaction. Restrictions that are not nearly on this scope have also triggered severe user backlash, and should have served as predictors for what this decision would create. That this reaction seems to be a surprise is itself disturbing.
Pierre
Posted 60 months ago.
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This post, from Klauspeter seems to have got lost in a storm of irrelevance I ask a german lawyer who is very familiar with problems like these. Read his answer:
1.Flickr has the right to do so. It's their business and if they don't like red hair (for example) they could remove all pictures with red hair.
2.The german right for child-welfare is more strict than in other european countries or in the US.
3.Of course threre is no problem for adults to see porn stuff, but Flickr has the problem, that they can't authentify the age of their users. So flickr have to handle all german users as childs, because they can't be sure if a user is an adult or not. It rang a bell with me, but I can't quite put my finger on why....
Number 3 is the bit that seems to be most relevant.
Posted 60 months ago.
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"clearly the answers given so far have not been sufficient, or at least have not been sufficiently explained to the Community."
Absolutely true. Unfortunately, there isn't a single answer Flickr staff could give that would be sufficient, other than a complete reversal of this policy. If they came in every hour with a "nothing's changed, still working on it." then everyone would be angry. If they came in with a "our hands are tied, it's going to stay this way" then everyone would be angry.
As Heather [staff] wrote those many many eons ago (four days ago):
"You'll be the first to know the outcome."
No comments yet, leads me to believe that there's no outcome yet. The silence sucks, but that's less of an indication to me of Yahoo Overlords, and more that nothing's been able to move or change yet (which of course, could be because of yahoo overlords. hard to tell without sitting in the room tho.)
Do you really want communication of nothing? I don't. I already know this is a terrible situation and needs to change. Nothing they say will change that, unless and until they say that they're changing that.
Posted 60 months ago.
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iansandThis post, from Klauspeter seems to have got lost in a storm of irrelevance
not really. Ok my source is not a lawyer but someone who is planning to be one in about one year. Since he is my only real source (google doesnt count) I wil have to trust his assessment .
more from the same source here, here and the entire thing with all the sources and paragraphs is somewhere on page 2x
Posted 60 months ago.
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Drevor edited this topic 60 months ago.
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Nobody wants communication of nothing, but nobody wants no communication either. So a detailed explanation of this decision would be welcome. Without giving away business secrets, it would help, I think, for the Community to know how this decision was arrived at, including when and why, and by whom. So far that has not been communicated, and pulling a disappearing act hasn't helped the perception that Flickr is doing nothing any. What they have done by simply putting a few paragraphs out that essentially say nothing is foster the perception that they don't care, and are simply waiting this shitstorm out.
Pierre
Posted 60 months ago.
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I don't think I've gotten your point yet, Pierre. What was it again?
Posted 60 months ago.
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That Flickr is completely failing to deal with this issue in any meaningful way with respect to the community, and that that's a problem, no matter what the cause?
Pierre
Posted 60 months ago.
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Hm. I don't see that. How so?
Posted 60 months ago.
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Nearly 4000 posts in this thread and almost no staff response? I think that goes towards proving point 1, that it's a problem lies in the fact that Flickr is supposed to be a community, not just another web forum. That the cause doesn't matter evolves from point 2.
An immediate solution isn't necessary if they explain:
a) how they got here;
b) why they got here;
c) and what they're trying to do about it.
A comment of "gee, we've got other shit we'd like to work on for the next 6 months" isn't exactly reassuring, nor is it informative.
Pierre
Posted 60 months ago.
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Jeez, Pierre, you not only like repeating yourself, you've also got one of the better sarcasm shields out there. Let me know where you found it, in case I ever need one.
About the point you've been making ad nauseam: what if answering your questions actually harms the process of working out a solution? Oops, silly me, I already asked you that way up there. Sorry for repeating myself.
Posted 60 months ago.
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So where do we go now that flickrcensr has obviously lost it's way?
Posted 60 months ago.
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Slightly OT but since there is nothing new to talk about, here is something that buggs me a little ...
Before some hop out of their seats again a short statement.
I am willing to assume that there is a reasonable explanation for the following and/or that I did, read or understood something incorrectly. thank you
Three days ago I uploaded this image.
I understand that flickr prevented such protest images from showing up on explore and I can, to some extend, even understand this decision. From the comments made by the staff, images should be still available through a persons stream or the search function.
Since this image is a photo I assume it has been removed for "gaming" the fav system. (If you think about it, every "rate my image" group "games" the system .. but thats not my point)
I was never able to search this image using its title or tags. At first I assumed it takes a while for a new image to propagate though the system.
Next day I was still unable to find my image but found a image of someone who used my photo and partially my title (im ok with that, just in case you wonder). So I assumed that I did something wrong and I ran through the images properties and my accounts settings ect looking for anything that might prevent my image from showing up.
Today I am still not able to find my image. What am I doing wrong?
search
Posted 60 months ago.
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That search is wrong. Your tags are "black" and "spot", not "black spot".
I think separately, you're stuck with 15,000 or so results. Try a test and add a tag for your name, or a unique word. It should be pretty fast, and show up if it's there.
[edit: nevermind. it shows up when I click your search link. Probably from the full text part of the search, from the title. whichever, it's in there.]
[PS: a lot of those rate my image groups, due to that gaming, now strike against a person's image getting into Explore.]
Posted 60 months ago.
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The Searcher edited this topic 60 months ago.
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If you search for "black spot" with Full Text checked, it comes back as the 9th image from the top
Posted 60 months ago.
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No idea what that means, but it does show up for me in that search, as the last of nine results.
Posted 60 months ago.
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neither the fulltext search for "black spot" (see title and text) nor the tag search for black spot (no quotes) shows my image.
(sort it by date, and just skip through the first few pages ... its not there)
and just for the kicks ... a uniqueword returns There aren't any photos available to you tagged with "uniqueword".
//edit ... well, does that mean that I there is a second invisible filter for us somewhere in the system?
//edit ... oh thats a real treat ... NOW it turned up ... ok .. now I am convinced that either flickr IS that bugged or that there is someone actually toying with us
Posted 60 months ago.
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Drevor edited this topic 60 months ago.
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Drevor:
Even if you find your shot, you´re not doing anything wrong.
TheY are.
Posted 60 months ago.
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search sometimes not returning results that it should, or returning them randomly, is a known bug that has appeared many times in the past. so no big concern there. it's just that search is sometimes flacky.
Posted 60 months ago.
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Here is a link to an article on BBC.co.uk (BBC NEWS) about previous censoring attempts on Flickr ... It was published in MAY ! , 2007...
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6665723.stm
and here some excerpts from it -
...."Yahoo has been accused of censorship on its popular photo website Flickr, in a row that has highlighted the issue of copyright in the online age."...
..."Late last year photographer Rebekka Gudleifsdóttir discovered that eight of her pictures were reportedly being sold by a UK-based online gallery. "
...eventually..."The gallery withdrew the photos for sale but refused to compensate her, she said.
Earlier this month Ms Gudleifsdóttir posted a photograph on Flickr to highlight her problem with the gallery and received more than 450 comments of support from other users.
But the post was removed by Flickr staff on the grounds it could "harass, abuse, impersonate, or intimidate others".
Ms Guðleifsdóttir said Flickr had alsoTHREATENED to terminate her account."
"The fact remains that they made a profit off my work when they had absolutely no right to" said...
"Rebekka Gudleifsdóttir on the alleged use of her work by Only Dreemin"
"Freedom of expression? Telling the truth? Not popular with Flickr administration, apparently," she wrote on her blog.
The co-founder of Flickr, Stewart Butterfield, has now apologized.
"WE SCREWED UP and for that I take full responsibility," he said. "
Well Flickr, looks like you screwed up again - this time it's a biggest screw up you ever made ...
So why are you repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again ? ... may be it's time for you to change your management people ???
Not only you are enforcing censorship in an ugly form on people in Germany and some other countries, you are now censoring all of us here on Flickr...
Why are you removing anti-censorship pictures from the Explore ???
The ones which appeared lately weren't just messages, there were images and sometimes very good ones and yet they all get removed by you... they don't even come up on Scout search afterwards together with the other dropped out pictures... it is just made to look as if they never ever appeared on Explore....
and don't tell me you removed them because someone had complained about it... I'm not buying it... the reason you removing them because you don't like these images.
They are against your way of managing things... there are plenty of crazy pictures In Explore I can complain about - like strange wardrobe remix girls and etc.... would you remove them for me, please (I really don't like them) ?
The Flickr inspector is down (probably because of your meddling with the Explore) and it's not clear when Nils K. Windisch is bringing it back on... his message on-line is
"nils k. windisch
i will relaunch the flickr tools some day."
nilswindisch.de/flickrtools/?/inspector/
What is wrong with you people???
Ask your management/bosses is this the way things are done in a Democratic society ???
And in case if you want to threaten me with deleting my account don't worry - I'm not afraid of you. I'm a professional journalist and worked in a very extreme environments before - I don't care, I can take my art and photography somewhere else and still get my 15 min of fame somewhere else...
If it continues like that for a while - I'll just leave myself - hell... you people have no sense of what is a right thing to do... or you just choose to close your eyes on obvious...
I lost some of my best contacts - they left in a protest against your censorship...
You desereve a very bad publicity big time in a mainstream media...
Posted 60 months ago.
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ellie 6 edited this topic 60 months ago.
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ABOUT FLICKR
Flickr - once the best online photo management and sharing application in the world - has two main goals:
MISSION
1. We want to help people (except people from Germany, China, Singapore, Korea and often forgotten Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein) to make their photos available to the people who matter to them.
2. We want to enable new ways of censorhip to organize photos.
VALUES
1. We don't treat one another with respect and don't communicate openly.
2. We are not committed winning integrity
Posted 60 months ago.
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Amsterdamned! edited this topic 60 months ago.
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Well, it wasn't sometimes flacky ... in the past 3 days the search never returned my image, no matter what way I tried to search for it. And suddenly, after posting here they suddenly appear? Constantly, for every search? Why do I have the picture in my head of some guy with a flickr tshirt spilling redbull through his nose?
Lucky me, the previous search results where still in my cache. have a look
//edit
yes, enough of this as noone is able/willing to explain that anyways. ;·)
//edit This image was moderated as SAFE, PHOTO by Flickr Staff. hehe .. so there is someone with a flickr tshirt and a redbull can reading all this mess.
Posted 60 months ago.
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@Drevor
maybe you account had not been reviewed and approved by flickr?
photos of accounts that have not been reviewed are not publicly searchable (even if they contain "safe" public photos).
account review of new accounts can take several days (or weeks). and you need to have at least 5 public photos uploaded in order to have your account reviewed.
my understanding is that new accounts not yet reviewed are NIPSA (Not In Public Search Areas). although i couldn't find mention of that in the FAQ.
Posted 60 months ago.
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loupiote (Old Skool) edited this topic 60 months ago.
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hehe .. so there is someone with a flickr tshirt and a redbull can reading all this mess.
Poor bastard.
Posted 60 months ago.
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again, i'll state that their censorship sucks both ways:
a member a few days ago posted hardcore porn (which i flagged as inappropriate, but didn't follow through to see if they'd been removed). this wasn't a bit o' boob, or a buttcheek. it was the whole kit and caboodle. somehow, those images made it through the 'safe search' filter, but a picture of a *street sign*, with absolutely no nudity or controversy was filtered from my view.
conversely, i reported three times an image which i know to be copyrighted, an image which was posted on yahoo news and which was posted by a user as their own, with no credit to the news article they ripped it from, nor the photographer who took the photo.
i reported it to flickr staff, and they promptly shuffled me off to yahoo, but did not request the user take the photo down, nor did they perform their censor act like they're quite happy to do right now. i included the relevant links, stated that i'd swear under oath that i wasn't lying, the whole nine. to the letter.
the response i got? nothing. that picture's still up. (which, i'll note again, goes against the 'community guidelines' they set forth)
so the moral of the story to me is: it's okay to show off your pink parts, and it's okay to rip off other peoples' hard work. but damn you, don't you *dare* post a picture of a street sign, because that's just crossing the line, mister.
Posted 60 months ago.
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