What Is It With People?

Don't get me wrong, I think flickr is a great idea, well executed and a superb way of sharing photographs. I've tried it and continue to have an active flickr account. So I have no gripe with the people who manage flickr, or with Yahoo, the parent company.

But there are so many people with flickr accounts who think that they have the right to dictate what should and should not happen on that site. They pontificate about what is morally right and what is morally wrong as though they, and only they, have the moral high ground. I single out no one community here, nor do I point to any belief system. But I suppose that one of flickr's problems is that it is serving a world-wide customer base and as such has to take account of a myriad of differing opinions and points of view. That I don't take issue with. Google has to perform a similar miracle, especially in relation to blogger, and it seems to me that they do a good job, carefully charting a middle path.

Flickr however seems constantly to be moving the goal posts. What is and is not acceptable is determined by a set of terms and conditions that are so loosely worded that they can be interpreted any way you like. A recent example related to pictures that were deemed to be "creepy"? What on earth does that mean? I think Nightmare On Elm Street is creepy, but I'm not trying to get it banned.

Meanwhile, those who protest about the latest action by flickr are jumped on by a number of others, whose attitude seems to be, "If you don't like it, leave." That's all very well, and people can always leave if they want to, but surely we should be having healthy debates about issues like this, not arguing that it's my way or the highway?

It's perhaps unfair of me to single out flickr for this commentary, but that is where I've had my most recent experience. I hope it gets better and perhaps it will. But at the moment it reminds me of a totalitarian regime, where people are encouraged to inform on each other and no-one knows who to trust. Meanwhile, people disappear overnight without any apparent reason.

So it seems to me that a lot of the flickr members are constantly looking over their shoulder, wondering when they are going to be punished for whatever reason, while others enjoy seeing them being deleted. Or am I being unfair? Tell me what you think.