Do you remember when flickr was good? I do. It was actually the best photo sharing website available for quite a while.
Nice gui, good navigation, sensible policies, easy to embed photos from flickr into websites, forums and threads. Really quite nice.
Then, about three years back it all went tits up. They changed the sharing options so for a while it was impossible to place code on a forum that shared photos. They fixed that but then they changed the gui which was and still is absolutely terrible, so hard to flick (eh?) through all your contacts photos. They changed things so if you found a photo in someone’s photostream you couldn’t easily look sideways at associated photos. The apps were complete and utter bobbins.
And now this. I get this email from flickr.
This is a message from the Flickr Abuse & Advocacy team to
let you know that we've changed the safety level of your
photostream to "moderate". Having a "moderate" warning on
your account means we've determined there are items in your
photostream in the wrong categories.
*** If you'd like to resolve this, we ask that you please
read the following email and follow the instructions
completely before writing back for a re-review of your
account. ***
When people browse or search on Flickr, they can filter what
they want to see based on a safety level that they are
comfortable with - either Safe Search is on, set to
moderate, or off. As you upload stuff to Flickr, you need to
make sure that you're applying appropriate filters ("safe",
"moderate", or "restricted"). If you don't apply filters
correctly, there's a very good chance another member will
let us know - in fact that's why we've taken action today.
NEXT STEPS:
You will need to moderate your content before asking for a
re-review.
1) Check out the Content Filters FAQs:
- http://flickr.com/help/filters/
A good rule of thumb is, bare breasts and bottoms are
"moderate." Full frontal nudity is "restricted."
(Please note: Content that you're sharing privately needs to
be moderated as well.)
Eh? My photostream consists almost entirely of pictures of me on top of big hills or bad drawings. What the hell could have offended anyone?
Ah, well while that’s not very pleasant I don’t think it actually violates flickr’s rules. SO what could it be? My drawings? Again, they’re not great but maybe one of them has offended someone….
Aaah…
Naked-ness. Bottoms. I’ve upset someone incredibly prudish, clearly. And obviously because they’re such insanely good drawings they’re so lifelike that someone is right now, vomiting because you can see someone’s bottom. You know, those things every single one of us has got. NO BOTTOMS.
Right, well I’m sorry about that flickr (not really), but FUCK YOU.
I could tolerate the appalling interface, the useless app, the webpage that’s always slightly bigger than my computer screen, but this, no, fuck…you.
Goodbye. I will maintain my flickr account, but I shall use it to display random acts of disobedience because stupid rules are stupid.
Wet, cold and angry 