SLer Confusion Over New Flickr Announcement Leads to "Witch Hunt" Fears

Last week's widespread concern that Flickr's new policies would lead to virtual world photographers being booted off the platform were so acute, Flickr's support team was bombarded by pleas from Second Life users, some fearing they were about to be victims of a "witch hunt". That's literally the words from a Flickr support rep contacted by NWN correspondent Cassie Middles-- see message at right, with reassuring words that virtual world photographers are very welcome on Flickr, as long as their images are properly tagged.

This is similar to what Flickr's own CEO said in a message board and on Twitter (below) -- that the company fully supports virtual world photography. So basically, the SL community was unnecessarily roiled by a panic over a non-existing policy, apparently by the words in this Flickr blog post announcing a new effort to curb Spam:

Flickr has always been a vibrant, photographer-focused community. And we want it to always be a safe place for our members to share and appreciate images they love. Flickr is not a place for people who have nothing to do with photography to sell things or otherwise influence our members.

However, nothing in Flickr's statement says anything specifically about virtual world screenshots, and the overall context of the blog post is about minimizing Spam. When I started looking into allegations that Flickr was planning to ban virtual world photographs, it quickly became evident an updated version of the telephone game, except with avatars, was taking place. And so the last people to learn about Flickr's supposed plans were Flickr staffers themselves. ("I don't know where the idea that you aren't 'real' photographers," Flickr's clearly bewildered CEO told one SLer, "or that virtual photography is somehow spam, came from but that's not from me.")

Takeaway from this totally needless Sturm und Drang? On the positive side, this suggests how tight-knit the Second Life online community is, that a rumor could spread so quickly. By the same token, it also suggests how vulnerable it is baseless conjecture or, dare I say, fake news.

And for the future?

Virtual photographers are photographers. You love photography. We love photography. You pay us. You rock and we love you.

— Don MacAskill (@DonMacAskill) November 1, 2018

As the next rumor takes shape, maybe consider contacting a news outlet, before repeating it? Or as Strawberry Singh did, go right to the source.

Comments

[isabelle cheren]

Seriously I couldn't believe the whole thing unfolding on my bus ride home as I was looking at my facebook feed. Yet no one actually read the blogs as there were two blogs about changes to flickr. Everyone relied on the whisper of the previous person and then 2 hours later...ARMAGEDDON!!
So I too went direct to source in a private message as amazingly you can do such things and find out truths. Same information, exactly what is written on the blogs. I cannot understand the misreading of the blogs because after I read them I didnt think oh lord my work is compromised at all.
Hence I had to do a talk on My YouTube coffee yesterday about drama. Also about the fact that no platform can sustain free accounts having the same as member accounts or fund them forever. SL is not the only community on flickr and so they are hosting for thousands.

Flickr has always had options for screen shot, photos and video. Not sure why its a big issue as technically sl photographs are screen shots then worked on in a 3rd party software to look better. Nothing wrong with the terminology and certainly no one should feel that its dissing their art. Its just separating work so actually its categorised correctly in communities. That my penneth contribution...

[Han Held]

>Takeaway from this totally needless Sturm und Drang?

That M.I.B. was right (w.r.t. the difference between a person and People)?

[Monica Querrien]

I understand the concern.

When Flickr changed their policy on sharing photos to groups (60/30 group limit), there were a significant amount of people on the Flickr forums who said that people from SL were spamming their pictures in groups, and that they were not real photographers. The few people from SL who spoke up in the forums found their accounts reported for different reasons. This gave the impression that people from SL were not welcome.

So now Flickr says that Flickr is not a place to sell things (which SL content creators do) or otherwise influence our members (possibly SL bloggers). Wouldn't you be at least a bit curious at to whom they were referring? So I was glad for the clarification.

The people who use Flickr as their blog only should go pro if they wish to continue to promote marketplace and SLURLs, or else they will face the same issues content creators have and get reported for advertising/selling items.

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

/me chuckles at Han Held's M.I.B reference, thought of that myself lately in regards to something else.

IIRC someone told me years ago that flickr was just fine and dandy with screenshots as long as they're tagged as such, which I started doing. SL screenshotting has much in common with real-camera photography, we use the same concepts, depth of field, aperture (virtual for us), rule-of-thirds, composition, etc etc. There's even a blog post out there telling how to create the equivalents of certain lens types using the SL phototools:

https://kultivatemagazine.com/2016/07/25/sl-photography-simulating-popular-lenses-in-phototools/

And has been reported here on NWN before, flickr originates from screenshot tools intended for the never-released game "Game Neverending". It turns out that good screenshot sharing tools were useful for sharing real-camera shots as well.

I've been flickr pro for YEARS, I can actually upload images from the command line in batches.