Web 2.1?

January 31, 2007 10:19 AM

Flickr pulls the trigger on the Old Skool. The Old Skool takes the bullet badly.
posted by felix betachat (146 comments total)

Internet people with too much time on their hands bitch and moan that their pet obsession totally sold out. Film at 11.

How the hell does one person sanely accumulate and accurately process over 3,000 contacts?
posted by solistrato at 10:24 AM on January 31, 2007 [3 favorites]

Flickr has done much dumber things than this. They do not allow any mention of commerce on photos. Now what the hell is with this guy?

Troy McClure SF: "In short, I don't want a Yahoo! account. I've been there, been burned, and I'm done with the company. Whether that rational of me or not, it's the truth. I don't want Yahoo, and that should be my choice."

Then you should have left when Yahoo bought Flickr, moron.

As for having over 3000 contacts, I can imagine that people who use Flickr contacts for professional purposes can easily reach that many.
posted by mkb at 10:31 AM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

There are some Flickr founders on MeFi, I believe. I hope they drop by to comment.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 10:31 AM on January 31, 2007

As a long-time paying customer of Flickr, my problem with signing up for a Yahoo! account is very simple:

1. Yahoo! can delete accounts at any time for no reason.
2. Yahoo! deletes accounts at any time for no reason.

I've had this happen to me. I don't want to lose my pictures and contacts because of some defect in Yahoo!'s administrative policies.

That's really what it boils down to. If that's "bitching and moaning", ask yourself if you would want to put your valued photo collection at the whims of a corporation which has demonstrated its inability to administrate accounts properly?

One answer is to download all one's pictures and close the account. Unfortunately, for some of us, I suspect that may be the only rational answer.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:33 AM on January 31, 2007 [3 favorites]

Three cheers for convergence!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:35 AM on January 31, 2007

FYI, the second link is not exactly what you'd call fair and balanced.

"Thomas Hawk is Evangelist and CEO for the photo sharing Site Zooomr."
posted by designbot at 10:38 AM on January 31, 2007

Its important to note that this affects about 0.5% of Flickr users - the so-called Old Skool members.

However, that is arguably a very important 0.5% as it represents the earliest users and the core of the Flickr community.

Personally, I just think the Old Skool members want to continue to be acknowledged as such and dont want to get lumped in now with the Yahoo riff-raff.

Given the small size of the population, I think handing them a thank-you gift (a few extra months?) and put an "Old Skool" badge on their profile so they feel special might go a ways toward addressing this problem. Or, perhaps not.
posted by vacapinta at 10:38 AM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

"Psst! Old skool members, please sign in here."

Am I missing something? I can still log in with my Flickr account, which isn't merged with any of my Yahoo! accounts.
posted by murphy slaw at 10:38 AM on January 31, 2007

If the only copy you possess of a photo exists solely on a website, and is not backed up offsite, by you, then you really can't blame anyone but yourself if that photo disappears into the electronic ether.

I use Flickr to share downsized copies of pictures with friends and family, because it is easier and cheaper than maintaining my own hosting site. The originals in my "valued photo collection" are backed up in three physically separate locations. Anyone concerned about data loss should also be doing his or her own backups. Anyone working as a professional photographer who uses a site like Flickr as the only repository of his or her images is really just asking for trouble.
posted by caution live frogs at 10:38 AM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

Am I missing something?

Yes: the March 15th deadline to switch to a Yahoo! account. I did it last night, grudgingly but without any heartbreak. I just don't want another goddam account.
posted by cortex at 10:41 AM on January 31, 2007

murphy slaw: The deadline is March 15.

You have to be signed in to see felix's link.
posted by vacapinta at 10:41 AM on January 31, 2007

If I'm reading correctly, he isn't the Old Skool, he's the competition!
posted by jamesonandwater at 10:42 AM on January 31, 2007

... ask yourself if you would want to put your valued photo collection at the whims of a corporation which has demonstrated its inability to administrate accounts properly?

Why would you put the only copies your valued photo collection on anyone else's servers? I use flickr but I keep copies on my home server and burn periodically to CDs.
posted by octothorpe at 10:42 AM on January 31, 2007

I was confused. Then I figured out that you have to login to read the news. Then I was less confused. Here it is for those without a flickr account:

30th January, 2007

A pair of items for your attention:

1. In our ongoing efforts to Make Flickr BetterTM, we're introducing two additional limits: the new maximum number of contacts is 3,000 contacts (good luck with that), and each photo on Flickr can have a maximum of 75 tags.

We love your freedom, but, in this particular case, limiting these things will actually improve the system performance, making pages load faster across the site for everyone and cut out some unwelcome spammy behaviors. Both of these new limits apply equally to free and pro account members.

If you have questions or comments about these changes, we've opened a topic in Flickr Help.

2. On March 15th, 2007 we'll be discontinuing the old email-based Flickr sign in system. From that point on, everyone will have to use a Yahoo! ID to sign in to Flickr.

We're making this change now to simplify the sign in process in advance of several large projects launching this year, but some Flickr features and tools already require Yahoo! IDs for sign in -- like the mobile site at m.flickr.com or the new Yahoo! Go program for mobiles, available at http://go.yahoo.com.

If you still sign in using the email-based Flickr system (here), you can make the switch at any time in the next few months, from today till the 15th. (After that day, you'll be required to merge before you continue using your account.) To switch, start at this page: http://flickr.com/account/associate/

Complete details and answers to most common questions are available here: http://flickr.com/help/signin/

If you have questions or comments about signing in with a Yahoo! ID, speak up!

posted by wemayfreeze at 10:43 AM on January 31, 2007

You know, they announced they were going to do this like a year and a half ago. I know i'm SHOCKED!
posted by chunking express at 10:44 AM on January 31, 2007

So, web junkies that want everything in life for free are confused and angry when an endless bottom pit of expense ends, and commerce begins...

Never heard of that happening before.

What, do they think web hosting is free? Watch out for riots when youtube changes.

By the way, I've had a yahoo mail account for almost six years now without a problem. I know this because I have e-mails that old in my inbox - rock solid. I don't know what people are doing to lose their accounts, but I'm guessing it is either a terms of use violation or ignoring the account and logging in only once a year.
posted by Muddler at 10:44 AM on January 31, 2007

Hmm. I'm an "old schooler" but not a heavy user. I was just thinking about going pro. Now I'll think twice.

Question: Does anyone know which alternatives to Flickr I should be considering?
posted by washburn at 10:44 AM on January 31, 2007

I merged my account when Yahoo acquired Flickr since I knew they'd eventually do this. I can't imagine Yahoo deleting pro accounts, so I'm not worried. Have any of these account closings happened to paying customers or just people with email accounts they didn't check in 2 years?
posted by null terminated at 10:45 AM on January 31, 2007

Also, the guy who runs zoomr is a tool. I'm not surprised he is bitching about this.
posted by chunking express at 10:46 AM on January 31, 2007

(Sorry about linking behind the wall...thanks wemayfreeze.)
posted by felix betachat at 10:46 AM on January 31, 2007

Everyone should pay for their own domain name, hosted on their own damn server. It's the only way to control your stuff.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:47 AM on January 31, 2007

Old School
posted by matthewr at 10:49 AM on January 31, 2007

Apparantly, I am an "old skool member", whatever that means. Here is a copy of the letter sent to my flickr mailbox yesterday:

Dear Old Skool Account-Holding Flickr Member,

On March 15th we'll be discontinuing the old email-based Flickr sign in system. From that point on, everyone will have to use a Yahoo! ID to sign in to Flickr.

We're making this change now to simplify the sign in process in advance of several large projects launching this year, but some Flickr features and tools already require Yahoo! IDs for sign in -- like the mobile site at m.flickr.com or the new Yahoo! Go program for mobiles, available at Yahoo! Go.

...

Thanks for your patience and understanding - and even bigger thanks for your continued support of Flickr: if you're reading this, you've been around for a while and that means a lot to us!

Warmest regards,

- The Flickreenos

So, web junkies that want everything in life for free are confused and angry when an endless bottom pit of expense ends, and commerce begins...
Muddler, do you use flickr? Many of the people complaining have pro accounts, which means they pay flickr for certain priviledges. That's commerce, dude.

I think most users are pissed about 3 things: 1) having to merge with Yahoo!, while no good reasons are given. This means giving up usernames, etc. 2) The new limits on the number of contacts, and 3) the new limits on the number of tags.

I don't particularly want to get a yahoo! login, because I don't want to have to log in with muddgirl1490532948. Since I only use flickr for sharing photos with people on MetaChat, I'll probably just start hosting them on my own site.
posted by muddgirl at 10:52 AM on January 31, 2007

Man, I can't even get Zooomr to load. Oh well.
posted by mkb at 10:57 AM on January 31, 2007

Its important to note that this affects about 0.5% of Flickr users - the so-called Old Skool members

One point of clarification -- merging accounts has been an option for months now, and many pre-yahoo buyout users have already done the switch. This is just a newly announced deadline where you have to do it, instead of just an 'option'.

Myself I already merged some time ago with no noticeable behavior change at all. But I already had a Yahoo! ID that I use. There seems to be a lot of FUD in the discussions, there are also some legitimate concerns over logistics [dealing with multiple accounts, UI for removing hundreds of contacts 1 by 1] as well as other solid questions to be answered about day to day support questions. I think maybe all the announced changes would have gone over better if a few of the accompanying tools were already built.

There are also good questions the whole event raises about online identities, this article does a good job of raising the bigger picture issues at play here.

But in the end, I think most of the complaints I've read are people who just don't like or fear change just because it is change, or people who for all of their apparent distain for or moral objections to Yahoo have been really ignorant of who they've been working with since 2005.

just my 2.5¢
posted by 10sball at 10:57 AM on January 31, 2007

They sign their e-mails "The Flickreenies"?

Creepy.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:58 AM on January 31, 2007

DELETE! DELETE! O.K.!
posted by Eideteker at 10:58 AM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

Moron here. How is a required $5 for registration a "donation"? Ah well...

I just want to include my entire quote with my reasoning, posted in the original Flickr thread.

I think what this comes down to is that, even after Yahoo! bought Flickr, Flickr has been independent from Yahoo in day-to-day operation, aside from a small Yahoo! badge or the page, and the Target photo printing (though I have my own issues with Target). This was comforting, and as someone who dislikes Yahoo, I had hoped that there would be no more intrusion by Yahoo!, no matter how trivial it would seem to the companies in question. (And I admit that as naïve of me.)

In short, I don't want a Yahoo! account. I've been there, been burned, and I'm done with the company. Whether that rational of me or not, it's the truth. I don't want Yahoo, and that should be my choice.

While this login thing alone may not be worthy of a thread like this, it's the fact (and let's face it, this is a fact) that Yahoo! will be reaching further and further into the Flickr community. Some of this will no doubt be beneficial to Flickr users, but as many people in this thread have experienced, Yahoo! is bound to mess up more than they fix. Basically, our trust in Flickr is vastly outweighed by the bad experiences we all seem to have had at Yahoo!'s hands.

That sucks for us as users, but also as Flickr evangelists, as I'm sure many of us have been. I've brought maybe a dozen people to Flickr, about half of whom are now Pro Users, and when I order prints, I apply the Flickr Stickrs liberally to my camera, bag and other things. I have been happy to support Flickr well beyond linking and Pro Accounts, but if Yahoo! integrates itself more and more into Flickr (which this current issue would indicate), I will be much less likely to support Flickr even myself, much less recommend it to others.

Yes, since I dislike Yahoo! so much, I probably should have left Flickr when Yahoo bought it (or, more accurately, not signed up in the first place... I am not an "old skool" member"). But I already had a lot invested in Flickr, but photo-wise and support-wise. I really like Flickr; by using it just for a bit you can tell that the people behind the site "get it." On the other hand, you can tell by using Yahoo! for a bit, you can tell that they don't. I guess I just hoped Yahoo! would throw some bandwidth at Flickr in exchange for a cut of the Pro Account money and leave well enough alone. I fear this will not be the case, and while I may still be proven wrong (and I hope I will), I expect that over time, Yahoo! will chip away at what makes Flickr great.
posted by troymccluresf at 10:59 AM on January 31, 2007

I'm nowhere near 3,000 contacts, but if I was using Flickr as part of a business, it'd hurt good and fast.

On the other hand, if you think you need more than 75 tags on a photo, you're doing it wrong.
posted by ardgedee at 11:03 AM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

what Blazecock said.

also, flickr is very quick to collect the old skool's money -- very quick. they're not as quick to respect our wishes, though.
posted by matteo at 11:04 AM on January 31, 2007

As a very light user but heavy browser of Flickr, I'm happy to see virtually anyt change that could speed it up. It has become pretty slow lately.

I can't even open Zooomr.com at all.
posted by Western Infidels at 11:05 AM on January 31, 2007

Zooomr.com appears do be down because their DNS is horribly misconfigurd.
posted by murphy slaw at 11:10 AM on January 31, 2007

troymccluresf, not to get into the same endless back and forth some have in the flickr threads, but ultimately, yes, I do tend to think folks like you are speaking from a very odd position -- perhaps this 'forced' move just made it hit home, but you really have been dealing with Yahoo! and their business practices for some time now.

In fact, as you've evangelized the site, new members for some months have /only/ been able to sign up via yahoo account method, which is just the most obvious case that makes me scratch my head. So while you thought you kept yourself isolated by not merging, you were leading your friends or followers right into that which you yourself have conciously avoided.

In some of the other cases cited by others [turning over user information, etc] it just doesn't make sense that the corporate lawyer types wouldn't turn over data, or behave similarly if lawyers or governments came knocking for any part of their organization. What authorization method you use has little effective impact on that. Maybe they didn't have your name before, but they still had IPs/ISPs and user histories and profiles [to whatever level they kept].
posted by 10sball at 11:14 AM on January 31, 2007

Flickr is doing this incorrectly, Your flickr name and your yahoo name are different, so they should simply crate a yahoo name behind the scenes.

As far as the 3,000 contact limit, I'm assuming they simply want to reduce the total number of contacts that everyone has. They should allow an option to pay for extra contacts based on the extra resources needed to accommodate them.
posted by delmoi at 11:22 AM on January 31, 2007

As for the contact limits, I find the idea on a community site a bit silly, but I also can't imagine having 19000 contact as one vocal member does. But again, if having 19000 contacts is stressful for the system then tools to resolve those issues should probably be in place before a limit was set [either contact management like removal of dead IDs, or other avenues for managing people who want to see adult images so people aren't compelled to overload the 'contacts' system.

But really, 19000 contacts? That's like what [does some fuzzy math on the calculator] 15-20 contacts a day since Flickr started? Can't imagine the time spent responding to those requests.
posted by 10sball at 11:22 AM on January 31, 2007

I'm just not sure why everyone is bitching, other than just to bitch. We've known this day was coming since Yahoo bought them out.

I mean, what did they think, it was going to be like this forever? I'd love to have the Bon Marche back too, but Macy's is here to stay, at least until they get bought out by someone else.

As an old skooler (damn, that's fkn pretentious) I guess I'm linking. Whatever.
posted by dw at 11:25 AM on January 31, 2007

Muddgirl wrote: "think most users are pissed about 3 things: 1) having to merge with Yahoo!, while no good reasons are given. This means giving up usernames, etc" (emphasis mine)

Is this true? I changed mine over a year or two ago when this first came up (some time soon after they were bought) and no indication was given that I might have to change my username, just my login id. I agree that it would be pretty lame to have to change your handle, but a login is a login, and most of the time remembered by your browser (if you're using a private computer) anyways.

Anyone know if this is now the case?

I also didn't notice a single difference in usability, and I expected the "hammer to fall" like, a year ago. I don't know why it got drawn out so long.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 11:25 AM on January 31, 2007

Your flickr name and your yahoo name are different, so they should simply crate a yahoo name behind the scenes.

For that to happen truly painlessly, the set of flickr names and the set of yahoo names would have to be disjoint.
posted by cortex at 11:26 AM on January 31, 2007

If you are running a photo business I would suggest not using a free, or cheap online service. Host your own site, it is much more professional.

This may be a step in a direction that will myspacize Flickr, but the point of fact is no one knows yet. Any large, popular, free site is going to change over time.

What are old skool's (truth be told that spelling rankles me more than anything else they've done)deman... wishes anyway?
posted by edgeways at 11:26 AM on January 31, 2007

perhaps this 'forced' move just made it hit home

I think this is probably it, at least for me.

When I canceled my SBC DSL, Yahoo! unceremoniously dumped me. I was fine with that, since Yahoo! had given me nothing but headaches. But when I tried to login to Flickr, I was locked out. I guess Yahoo! was bitter I left their partner's DSL service and decided to ax my account, nevermind that I paid for my Flickr account. I settled things through Flickr directly and hoped (again, probably naively) I'd never have to go back to Yahoo!.

The privacy issues and all that aren't much of a concern for me, and yes, there are plenty of bitching for the sake of bitching, but I don't think, as a whole, Flickr users' resistance is without merit.
posted by troymccluresf at 11:27 AM on January 31, 2007 [2 favorites]

Personally, I'm still a miffed about theglobe.com shutting its doors. Now that was a wonderful concept.
posted by Slap Factory at 11:29 AM on January 31, 2007

For those looking into an alternative, smugmug looks pretty slick.
posted by Pastabagel at 11:30 AM on January 31, 2007

Also, what's up with Yahoo not being a portal site anymore? I don't want to have to sift through pages of messy "search results." What the F is that?
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 11:30 AM on January 31, 2007

This non-event is a case study in how hard it is to manage a community with passionate users.
posted by Nelson at 11:30 AM on January 31, 2007 [2 favorites]

Nelson: see also: every change to every MMPORG ever.
posted by 10sball at 11:32 AM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

*logs into his favorite Massively Multiplayer Playing Online Role Game*

Dammit, they nerfed Mudwrestlers again?
posted by cortex at 11:35 AM on January 31, 2007

I went and took a look at Zoooooooooomr just now. It's a fugly little knockoff of Flickr, isn't it?

Reminds me of how someone I knew ranted against Blogger and MT and declared that he could build his own blog software with blackjack and hookers ASP. And so, he did.

And a year later, he installed Wordpress. Because writing and maintaining his own software was a pain in the ass.
posted by dw at 11:37 AM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

tea tempest pot
posted by Ynoxas at 11:38 AM on January 31, 2007

"Host your own site"

Thank you. I'm not even remotely serious about photography, and all mine goes on my own domain. I put things on flickr to share them, flickr-wise, but I was doing fine before it and will continue to do fine after it.
posted by Eideteker at 11:39 AM on January 31, 2007

10sball: See also: every change made to the way metafilter looks or functions.
posted by mathowie at 11:39 AM on January 31, 2007

I am an 'old skool' Flickr member. I just merged my account with a Yahoo account I created for that purpose. I don't get what everyone is complaining about. Yes, I now have to use a different user name when I sign in but otherwise nothing has changed as far as I can see. My Flickr user name is unchanged and everything else seems fine.

More than 3000 contacts? More than 75 tags? Good lord.
posted by sveskemus at 11:39 AM on January 31, 2007

Yeah, no free account here. Also don't care about 3K contacts or 75 tags. I've been a paying customer for quite a while (two years). Once again, just don't want or need another account. Yes, my life will go on, but had to re-set my yahoo account since I was deleted for non-activity.
posted by fixedgear at 11:40 AM on January 31, 2007

See also: every change made to the way metafilter looks or functions.

*clicks over to metatalk*

Dammit, he nerfed <img>?
posted by cortex at 11:41 AM on January 31, 2007

As for the 3000 contact limit, it really seems Yahoo and Flickr both missed the boat with social networking. I'm getting the sense the Olde Academie purge is part of a broader plan to finally make a play in that area. This is the opening cleanup round.
posted by dw at 11:42 AM on January 31, 2007

See also: every change made to the way metafilter looks or functions

yes and no -- flickr users are customers, metafilter users, thank God, aren't.

metafilter: a one-time fee of 5 dollars (for about 2 thirds of its entire membership)

flickr: 24.95 dollars a year

people get angry because flickr, unlike metafilter, costs money
posted by matteo at 11:45 AM on January 31, 2007

People who put hundreds of tags on their pictures piss me off anyway. Specifically because there's usually no "titties" or "poon" ANYWHERE in their photo.
posted by ColdChef at 11:45 AM on January 31, 2007 [3 favorites]

Another old skooler here (Oct 2004 to be exact), and I bit the bullet and made the change, although in my case I didn't feel like finding my dentures, so I guess I just gummed it a bit.

In honor of the moment, I looked up the passionate preaching I did on a mailing list back in 2000 about the evils of using Yahoo! groups for the list. Then I noticed said group is alive and well without me and so I shrugged my shoulders and had another cup of coffee. I suppose if I was six years younger, I'd have had the same angry response to this change, but I really can't muster the outrage. I'd rather be out taking pictures, really.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 11:46 AM on January 31, 2007

(and because flickr now makes you use Yahoo, and Yahoo sucks)
posted by matteo at 11:46 AM on January 31, 2007

Also, I have 154 contacts. 3,000 just seems completely ridonkulous.
posted by ColdChef at 11:48 AM on January 31, 2007

hooray for flickr for assisting in the commodification of photography
posted by keswick at 11:48 AM on January 31, 2007

Flickr MetaFilter Group
posted by ColdChef at 11:50 AM on January 31, 2007

I just learned that flickr actually edits/filters the photos you upload to make them look better. I'd suspected it for a while now. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
posted by loquacious at 11:50 AM on January 31, 2007

You know, after having gone through the switch last night, because I had the same ID for both yahoo and flickr, it was totally painless and I see no difference.

I think they handled the messaging poorly, since the emails and official posts sound like of flip and glib and a bit too cutesy for a real company, but all this hatred of Yahoo and sellout stuff is nonsense -- it was sold to Yahoo what, a year and a half ago? Two years?

I imagine we'll be hearing the impassioned rants of longtime console TV owners when local TV stations finally shut off their analog broadcasts and rely purely on HD. O how I can't wait to read the screeds we'll see at My1972ZenithWorksJustFineThankYouVeryMuch.blogspot.com
posted by mathowie at 11:50 AM on January 31, 2007 [2 favorites]

My1972ZenithWorksJustFineThankYouVeryMuch.blogspot.com

Easy with the self-links, bub.
posted by cortex at 11:53 AM on January 31, 2007

I just learned that flickr actually edits/filters the photos you upload to make them look better.

Is that true? No, sir. Don't like that a bit! Any proof of this claim?
posted by ColdChef at 11:56 AM on January 31, 2007

I just learned that flickr actually edits/filters the photos you upload to make them look better

That's a rendered thumbnail, which isn't that person's original photo, but a newly created one on their end. When making a photo physically smaller, you can lose detail and running some slight sharpening doesn't seem crazy or invasive to me.
posted by mathowie at 11:57 AM on January 31, 2007

"I imagine we'll be hearing the impassioned rants of longtime console TV owners when local TV stations finally shut off their analog broadcasts and rely purely on HD."

Wait a minute, they're turning off analog TV?

Good grief.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:58 AM on January 31, 2007

loquacious, I imagine they sharpen the photos because when you shrink a photo it gets more blurry. When you view "all sizes" your photo is untouched, so what's the real issue?
posted by chunking express at 11:58 AM on January 31, 2007

Have any of these account closings happened to paying customers or just people with email accounts they didn't check in 2 years?

My yahoo account was deleted just last month for no reason at all. I check it fairly regularly but use it for spam likely things. One day i try to log in and i got a message saying i had either requested cancellation or not checked my email in months.

I emailed their customer support and received a cut-and-paste FAQ fuck off message that I must have done one of the two and that security is my responsibility.

I like yahoo - I use delicious, flickr and the YUI javascript library - but that totally unconcered response to what is the most severe service failure possible in their email system blew me away. I pay for a flickr account because I like it but if they ever respond to any issue like that in similar way I will stop.
posted by srboisvert at 12:02 PM on January 31, 2007

"Personally, I just think the Old Skool members want to continue to be acknowledged as such and dont want to get lumped in now with the Yahoo riff-raff."

I agree with that.

Brain-dump: You can count the non-developers that saw Flickr before me on about five fingers (yes, I'm showing off), but the holier than thou attitude of some of the early adopters really gets my goat. I wasn't pleased when Yahoo got involved, exactly, but I got over it in about 11 seconds. In many many ways it's a great thing, and Flickr uses have been tacitly enjoying the benefits of Yahoo's involvement oblivious of, you know, that Flickr still exists and, oh yeah, we can, you know, upload an assload of photos. Anyone that played GNE will know that that Flickr's success wasn't a given from the word go. The imposed limits seem sensible if they genuinely improve performance for the many. It's a bit poo to make people sign up for a Yahoo account but I'm going to find a bigger fish to get my underpants in a twizzle over. Everyone knew it was going to happen.
posted by nthdegx at 12:04 PM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

Oh, and Flickr earned me £50 today, so I'm really not going to complain. I'm qutting my day job ;)
posted by nthdegx at 12:05 PM on January 31, 2007

I changed mine over a year or two ago when this first came up (some time soon after they were bought) and no indication was given that I might have to change my username, just my login id.

My apologies, you're right - it seems that at Flickr the login id and username are separate.
posted by muddgirl at 12:05 PM on January 31, 2007

Eh. I got the note, merged my old skool account with one of my Yahoo! accounts, and ten seconds later managed to get on with my life with a minimum of fuss. People who are getting all soggy about it should probably take a deep, refreshing breath.
posted by jscalzi at 12:05 PM on January 31, 2007

I imagine we'll be hearing the impassioned rants of longtime console TV owners when local TV stations finally shut off their analog broadcasts and rely purely on HD.

Geez, we're only two years away from that, aren't we?

Looks like I better start saving for my flatscreen.
posted by dw at 12:05 PM on January 31, 2007

Isn't there a vast difference between your Yahoo ID and a Yahoo email account? I hear a lot of stories of people "getting their yahoo accounts shut down" but it sounds like inactive email accounts are blocked or closed (probably due to the massive collection of pointless spam no one is checking), but the Yahoo ID itself still functions.

So for those that got "shut down" can you still do something like save a map to your favorite places by logging in with that account?
posted by mathowie at 12:07 PM on January 31, 2007

For that to happen truly painlessly, the set of flickr names and the set of yahoo names would have to be disjoint.

[e-mail]

to be followed in a couple of years by

[e-mail]

and finally, after the singularity

[e-mail]
posted by Armitage Shanks at 12:07 PM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

Wait a minute, they're turning off analog TV?

On: February 17, 2009
posted by octothorpe at 12:09 PM on January 31, 2007

flickr: 24.95 dollars a year

Only if you want to pay. You can upload and post for free. Meta on the other hand does cost money, albeit a tiny $5.
posted by DieHipsterDie at 12:09 PM on January 31, 2007

Eh. I got the note, merged my old skool account with one of my Yahoo! accounts, and ten seconds later managed to get on with my life with a minimum of fuss. People who are getting all soggy about it should probably take a deep, refreshing breath.

Exactly.
posted by danb at 12:10 PM on January 31, 2007

mathowie writes "That's a thumbnail, which isn't your original photo, but a newly created one on their end. When making a photo physically smaller, you can lose detail and running some slight sharpening doesn't seem crazy or invasive to me."

I didn't really mind linking my flickr account to a Yahoo account, but I was about to round up a pitchfork-toting mob over the modification of my uploaded photos. Thanks for clarifying, Matt.
posted by mullingitover at 12:10 PM on January 31, 2007

See also: every change made to the way metafilter looks or functions.

Yes, that place too ;)
posted by 10sball at 12:13 PM on January 31, 2007

I'm a Flickr user. I like to think of myself as old school. But I merged with my Yahoo account about a year ago, and I didn't think twice about it. I login with my Yahoo account name (which is an ancient online handle that I'm glad is far behind me), but all of my Flickr photos show up with my Flickr user account name.

I can't seem to muster up any outrage at this long-known and delayed change (See the "why should I have to merge?" question -- it says "Some time in 2006").
posted by Plutor at 12:14 PM on January 31, 2007

(I work for Flickr, but these words and thoughts are mine.)

Flickr users are marked as such in the Yahoo user database. What this means is that the account is permanently protected from deletion, even if you cancel your SBC-Yahoo DSL and even if you never check your Yahoo Mail (if you elect to have one). Both free and pro accounts are protected. And your Yahoo signon name will not be displayed anywhere on Flickr -- your existing Flickr username will stay the same.

We also never, ever, ever touch the originals that you upload.
posted by crawl at 12:16 PM on January 31, 2007

and finally, after the singularity

Or, if things go badly, [e-mail]
posted by cortex at 12:19 PM on January 31, 2007

Has anyone told the Zooomr guy that his logo actually says "Zooamr"? Or maybe "Zooanr". Either way the typeface design (I'm sure there's a better word for that but IANA font expert) is a bit rubbish.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 12:20 PM on January 31, 2007

We also never, ever, ever touch the originals that you upload.

Be that is may, but you liked "Son in Law", and that's just not okay.
posted by cortex at 12:21 PM on January 31, 2007

Liked? I still like "Son in Law".
posted by crawl at 12:25 PM on January 31, 2007

(I work for Flickr, but these words and thoughts are mine.)

Is the outrage over this change about what y'all expected or worse?

Also, could you help me find "titties" and "poon?"
posted by ColdChef at 12:26 PM on January 31, 2007 [2 favorites]

It's about what I expected. Can't speak for anyone else on the team though.

I'm not getting anywhere near your titties and poon.
posted by crawl at 12:30 PM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

Drama! It makes the internet go 'round!
posted by Cyclopsis Raptor at 12:30 PM on January 31, 2007

What Mathowie said (about the thumbnail sharpening. I'm glad they do it, otherwise the thumbnails would all look kinda crappy).

I've had a pro account for about a year now. These changes don't affect me one bit. I use nowhere near that many tags, and I have nowhere near that many contacts. Who uses more than 3,000 contacts?? Do you actively check the photostreams of your 3K contacts? I have somewhere around 40 contacts and I can't keep up. If I really want to check someones photos, I add them to my list of bookmarks that I check daily.

I really hope these minor changes don't deter anyone from using Flickr. I recently renewed my proaccount, and plan to continue doing so until things get Orwellian.

Not a big deal, really.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 12:32 PM on January 31, 2007

I'm another one of those old-skool flickr (pro) users who was grumpy when it got absorbed into Yahoo, and grumpy when I got the recent "change your login" mail.

Flickr has my photos. Delicious has my bookmarks. And I don't make as much use of Upcoming as I could, but I'm on there. I've got no great love for Yahoo, and this was a reminder that they're effectively sneaking into my life through the back door. The thing is, individually, each of those services are good on their own merits, and better because of the social-networking aspects (which could be replicated, but you'd have to convince everyone to move). I can imagine my logins to Delicious and Upcoming getting Yahoozled, and then they'll be tracking all kinds of information on me to sell on to marketers (though maybe they are already). Not cool.

Plus, changing my login broke my uploading software.
posted by adamrice at 12:34 PM on January 31, 2007

I want GNE back!!
posted by TuxHeDoh at 12:36 PM on January 31, 2007 [3 favorites]

Drama! It makes the internet go 'round!

Spam pr0n Pop-ups Ceilingcat Drama alone moves the wheels of Internet history!
posted by dw at 12:37 PM on January 31, 2007

I don't use flickr that much and I have a free a/c. My only (modest to minor) gripe is that when I was required to start a yahoo a/c, I consider the obligatory data fields (name, date of birth etc) to be an over the top intrusion. Now, as to whether I handed over entirely accurate information in that signup process...that's a matter between me and my lawyer.
posted by peacay at 12:39 PM on January 31, 2007

My Yahoo account turns 10 this year.

Just thought I'd say that for no reason.
posted by zsazsa at 12:41 PM on January 31, 2007

Why does this FCC notice read like a brochure from Sony?

</derail>
posted by solistrato at 12:41 PM on January 31, 2007

None of this would have happened if they had just done what they were supposed to do and finish Game Neverending.

on preview: TuxHeDoh beat me to it.
posted by solistrato at 12:44 PM on January 31, 2007

By the way, I've had a yahoo mail account for almost six years now without a problem.

I've got you beat! I just went in and checked and the earliest saved message in my yahoo mail account is dated 10/1/1998. I'm not sayin' it's something to be proud about, I'm just sayin'.
posted by SteveInMaine at 12:46 PM on January 31, 2007

I'm not going to ply through the comments here to see if anyone else said it, but when the content (and utility) of a site is created by it's users, then yeah, the users are stakeholders, more so than anyone else that's a user.

Also, we've seen it before, but when people get engaged and invested in a site, in consider it "their community", they tend to be protective of it (think MySpace or Facebook), just like they would in real life. Those companies face the same kind of backlash that Coke did with New Coke - and sometimes they survive it, sometimes they don't. Furthermore, I'm sure if mathowie made drastic changes here, the same would occur.
posted by rzklkng at 12:48 PM on January 31, 2007

Agreed. I was trying not to be another "Wahh, GNE, I miss it", but honestly? I do. I'm one of those "old skool"ers, and I haven't merged yet, but I imagine I will, with a minimum of grumps, before the deadline.

As for the contact limits - yeesh. I can't imagine anyone needing more than that. Of course I tend to weed through my contacts and get rid of people occasionally, and I may be unusual in that I like my contacts to actually *be* contacts and not just random photogs I ran into one day, or people I added just out of a sense of reciprocity.

I like to think of the GNE as a big idea factory, and once it produced a money maker (flickr), they shut it down. Maybe someday when Stewart and the others are completely hands off and Yahoo is doing everything flickr related, they'll think of revisiting it for more inspiration. (Yes, you see that denial? What do you mean my cat's dead? No, I just saw it last year! It was moving then! Stop it, just leave it alone, it'll move again, really! It's just cold, that's all.)
posted by routergirl at 12:53 PM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

On non-preview: My "Agreed" was aimed at solistrato.
posted by routergirl at 12:55 PM on January 31, 2007

Oh, man GNE..... paper..... trees..... I miss it too :(
posted by dpx.mfx at 1:13 PM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

See also: every change made to the way metafilter looks or functions.

We're not talking adding a pretty gold star next to people's usernames. We talking about the basic function of being able to log in and access a paid resource.

I recall there were some technical issues surrounding adding captchas to Metafilter logins, for example. These kinds of issues affect users and are relevant concerns.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:03 PM on January 31, 2007

I miss GNE too. But man, I also love flickr. But not as much as GNE.

I merged my accounts when they first announced it, because I thought I didn't have much of a choice. Little did I know. I had a year and a half of choice!
posted by artifarce at 2:07 PM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm Old Skool, Pro, not affected by the tags and contacts limits...and was irritated by the email this morning.

For me, the following speculations are both off the mark:

...Personally, I just think the Old Skool members want to continue to be acknowledged as such and dont want to get lumped in now with the Yahoo riff-raff. ~ vacapinta

But in the end, I think most of the complaints I've read are people who just don't like or fear change just because it is change, or people who for all of their apparent distain for or moral objections to Yahoo have been really ignorant of who they've been working with since 2005. ~ 10sball

I don't have moral objections, and don't think Flickr "sold out," in the pejorative sense. I think they got a big truckload of cash, and right on. I'm sure I get some sort of unseen benefit as a user, from the additional support/structure/folderol.

I don't care about being acknowledged as Old Skool by Flickr... as was previously said, I just don't want another damned email account.

Does it only take 60 seconds to set one up? Maybe. But before crawl came in to clarify (and, thanks for the perspective), I had no idea that Yahoo! Flickr accounts were flagged as such on the backend.

So, I'm thinking, "#@$% this... I now get to either start and actively use a new Yahoo account -- which I don't want or need -- or risk losing my access to Flickr when Yahoo! deletes me for inactivity."

I agree with whoever said that, rather than the cutesy pablum from the FlickrYaYas or whatever they called themselves (which is so, so twee -- you've got a big truck of money now -- act like it), I would have appreciated instead a better explanation of exactly how I'd be inconvenienced, and an acknowledgment that they are asking me to inconvenience myself in order to remain a user.

The irony for me: I don't need all the networky/palsy-walsy/community stuff, but I do like the ease in which I can incorporate Flickr bits into websites. Still, I was considering leaving Flickr for Picasa Web, and I bit the bullet just two weeks ago and re-upped my Pro account... because I couldn't be arsed to relocate all my photos. You win, Yayaneenos.
posted by pineapple at 2:07 PM on January 31, 2007

I set up my Yahoo! account a long time ago -- maybe a decade ago -- and they promptly resold my e-mail address and I started getting spam from their "partners." That pissed me off. I complained, they apologized, the spam stopped.

Then, in 2002, Yahoo! decided that anybody who'd set their "marketing preferences" to opt out of receiving spam had probably done it by accident, and they reset every option to "yes." May we send you e-mail about your account? Yes. May we send you promotional e-mail? Yes. May we share your e-mail with related businesses? Yes. May we sell your contact information and internet usage habits with third parties? Yes.

I spent a week trying to erase my Yahoo! account, but it turned out to just not be possible. But this was 2002 -- Yahoo! had long ago slid into irrelevance and, eventually, I just changed my settings to use fake information and an invalid e-mail address, and that was that.

Then, last night, I got that e-mail. I'm "Old Skool." Lucky me. I managed to dig up an e-mail with my old Yahoo! ID and password, which was in the folder where I stored my account information for various GeoCities sites I'd set up in the mid 90s to pull pranks on the media. (Remember the photo allegedly taken of a flying saucer by Pathfinder in 1996 that was widely reproduced in the media? I faked it. Put it on GeoCities. This is the first time I've confessed that.) Anyhow, I resurrected the Yahoo! account and tied my Flickr account to it because, hey, I just paid for another year.

But I'm angry about having to do business with Yahoo!. They've screwed me over twice before. Pretending they're all hip now that they're doing business with Flickr ("Old Skool"? WTF?) is just lame, like your grandmother telling you she's "chillin' with her homies." I don't doubt they'll screw me over again.
posted by waldo at 2:07 PM on January 31, 2007

Pretending they're all hip now that they're doing business with Flickr ("Old Skool"? WTF?) is just lame

Lame, yes, but calling pre-merger members "Old Skool" is not some new Yahoo thing -- that's been on the login page of Flickr's site since the buyout, which was what, summer 2005?
posted by pineapple at 2:11 PM on January 31, 2007

I wanted to point out that, while Thomas Hawk is the CEO of Zoomr.com, he's also an avid member of the flickr community with over 7,500 photos and 5,000 contacts. He is exactly the sort of power user who often influences online community decision making.
posted by muddgirl at 2:15 PM on January 31, 2007

(I work for Flickr, but these words and thoughts are mine.)

Flickr users are marked as such in the Yahoo user database. What this means is that the account is permanently protected from deletion, even if you cancel your SBC-Yahoo DSL and even if you never check your Yahoo Mail (if you elect to have one). Both free and pro accounts are protected. And your Yahoo signon name will not be displayed anywhere on Flickr -- your existing Flickr username will stay the same.

If this is genuine policy — and not just your words and thoughts — those words and thoughts should be made prominent on Flickr for people reluctant to change. That would help Flickr's position greatly. As it stands, this policy is nowhere to be found in the email we were sent, so I have to remain skeptical that Yahoo! would ever agree to this.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:20 PM on January 31, 2007

Further vis-a-vis crawl's statement, I have a problem with this, from the Flickr FAQ page (emphasis theirs):

"I'm going to delete my Yahoo! account. What happens to my Flickr photos?

If you associated your Flickr account with your Yahoo! ID and you delete your Yahoo! account, you won't be able to sign in to your Flickr account. And all your photos will be deleted."

Nice. Either you are committed to that Yahoo! ID or losing all your photos FOREVAR!!!!1!!!

-- or there's an option that one can change to a new Yahoo! ID before deleting the old one, without repercussion. And yet, nobody thought to clarify that to the users?

(I guess with that huge truckload of money, they did not hire any customer service experts)
posted by pineapple at 2:27 PM on January 31, 2007

My yahoo account was deleted just last month for no reason at all. I check it fairly regularly but use it for spam likely things. One day i try to log in and i got a message saying i had either requested cancellation or not checked my email in months.

Funny, I log into my free Yahoo! account only once or twice a year and the only bad thing that happens is that they shitcan all my mail after I haven't logged in for four months. I don't care, since it's only ever been used for unimportant things. It is sort of irritating that they bitch at me every time I log in, though.

Back when Hotmail was the only free web based email around (what, '95 or '96?), they deleted my account for no particular reason. I logged into it at least once a month, too.
posted by wierdo at 2:28 PM on January 31, 2007

What interests me about this is that in a few short years Flickr has become so entrenched in a few short years that we have collectively forgotten that it was just a simple start-up, and it can be replaced by another simple start that does exactly the same thing, in the same way; and, perhaps it can be even better by learning a bit from history.
posted by David Williams at 2:44 PM on January 31, 2007

I am an unmerged old skool user, who is currently holding off on merging until they clarify their Terms of Service.

Yahoo seems to think that setting up "Brand Universes" entitles them to post a stream of flickr photos in their Brand portal, including photos that are marked "non-commercial" or "all rights reserved". See http://wii.yahoo.com/.
posted by fings at 3:19 PM on January 31, 2007

Nice. Either you are committed to that Yahoo! ID or losing all your photos FOREVAR!!!!1!!!

Or, you know, you could save your photos to your computer (assuming you don't have them there already) and post them online using some other gallery service.
What you are actually losing is everyone's comments, tags, and notes on your photos, which obviously are what make Flickr more than a plain photo gallery, but it's not like you'd actually "losing all your photos FOREVAR!!!!1!!!".
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:21 PM on January 31, 2007

Fuckrs^GAMMA
posted by George_Spiggott at 3:51 PM on January 31, 2007

My yahoo account was deleted just last month for no reason at all. I check it fairly regularly but use it for spam likely things. One day i try to log in and i got a message saying i had either requested cancellation or not checked my email in months.

Sorry, I just read this and then skipped down to the end here to ask:

HEY WAIT. I'm going to have to USE this fucking yahoo account?? Like, go in and log in and pretend to "check my email" on a yahoo account that I don't use, and only signed up for because I had to? And if I don't, they will/may delete it and my photos?

Please tell me this isn't right. If I stay logged into flickr all the time (which I do, on two computers, and I upload every day), will that count as logging in to the yahoo account and keep it active? I suppose I should direct this question to the "flickereenos."
posted by peep at 3:56 PM on January 31, 2007

I'm also an "Old Skool" pro user with an unmerged account - I haven't even recieved the email about this forced merge, I learnt about it here in this thread. That kinda annoys me slightly.

I'm now wondering when Yahoo will start 'merging' del.ico.us and upcoming accounts?
posted by X-00 at 3:59 PM on January 31, 2007

Or, you know, you could save your photos to your computer (assuming you don't have them there already) and post them online using some other gallery service.

Which is exactly what all the unmerged users are currently thinking. "Why, exactly, should I bother with this, and why shouldn't I just up and leave for another service?"

I thought the "!!!1!!!" helped indicate my tongue-in-cheek alarm, but apparently it did not. Of course I have my photos on my computer, and of course I could just move if Yahoo screws me. But why wait for that? Sitting here now, pondering my options, why on earth should I take the time to move them from my computer onto a site that can't even clearly communicate to me how I will be able to access my own material, a service I pay for?

My point remains that Flickr seems really unclear as to how best to retain its earliest users -- if they are even concerned. This is a perfect example of a change management failure.
posted by pineapple at 4:09 PM on January 31, 2007

I used to use Flickr all the time. Then my flickr name somehow became associated with one of my Yahoo screen names.

Of which I have several. So it's now a royal pain in the ass for me to log into flickr, because doing so logs me out of Yahoo.

It means that I use Flickr maybe 1/10th as much as I used to.
posted by aerotive at 4:13 PM on January 31, 2007

peep: You have nothing to worry about. Flickr accounts are marked as such in the Yahoo user database, which counts as permanent "activity". Since we set persistent cookies on flickr.com, it's conceivable to be a very active Flickr user, and never "login" more than once, hence the reason for the "this is a Flickr user their account is actually active!!!!" flag.

aerotive: Then good news! We have a tool in development (very soon now, definitely before March 15th) that will allow you to move your Flickr account to a different Yahoo account. So you'll easily be able to associate your Flickr account with the Yahoo account that it sounds like you use the most. Then we can hopefully max out your tenths.
posted by crawl at 5:00 PM on January 31, 2007

But I'm angry about having to do business with Yahoo!. They've screwed me over twice before. Pretending they're all hip now that they're doing business with Flickr ("Old Skool"? WTF?) is just lame, like your grandmother telling you she's "chillin' with her homies." I don't doubt they'll screw me over again.

Wow, that took like, two hours from the time that I forecasted that they'd screw me over until they posted my copyrighted photo of my new Wii on the front page of wii.yahoo.com. Now I hate them even more.

Yahoo! never, ever fails to fuck things up.
posted by waldo at 5:06 PM on January 31, 2007

HEY WAIT. I'm going to have to USE this fucking yahoo account?? Like, go in and log in and pretend to "check my email" on a yahoo account that I don't use, and only signed up for because I had to? And if I don't, they will/may delete it and my photos?

AFAIK, this isn't correct. They might delete your Yahoo e-mail account if you don't use it for however long, but your Yahoo account will still exist.
posted by gyc at 5:11 PM on January 31, 2007

Yeah, ok, "old skool" here. My yahoo email has been my flickr log in id since before Yahoo bought it, I didn't merge it for two reasons; I didn't feel like it, and I'm lazy. I probably won't do it until I can't log in any more. Not a biggie, as long as flickr's TOU remain the same.

The ones complaining about the 3000 contact limit must be either using it for commercial purposes, don't fully understand Favorites, or have a bleeding bad need to feel popular. Three THOUSAND is the limit you can make - but many more than that can make you a contact. There isn't a requirement to reciprocate.

Why would anyone complain about a limit of 75 tags? That isn't tagging, it's narrating. As for the Yahoo commercial use of tagged photos, remove the tags or protest; it has nothing to do with the old skool issue.

And about "The Flickreenos"... They are dorks, they admit they are dorks, and I love them because they created GNE (which was a Glorious Empire of Dorks).
posted by figment of my conation at 5:23 PM on January 31, 2007

Pissed that I missed the obvious "it goes up to 11" joke in my response to aerotive.
posted by crawl at 5:25 PM on January 31, 2007

Well some months ago I had someone with several 1000 contacts add me as a flickr contact.

http://www.flickr.com/people/journalism/

not sure what the point was at all.
posted by lilburne at 5:55 PM on January 31, 2007

As a "new skool" Flickr user, I demand that the Flickreenos immediately unmerge my account so I can quit having this horrible experience that I didn't know I was having.
posted by TBoneMcCool at 6:56 PM on January 31, 2007

I love flickr. I do. I switched/merged it up today to my Yahoo acct. which is my former Geocities Account, from 1996, Bitches! Awwyea. OLD SCHOOOL WHUT WHUT.

Really though, who gives a crap. My favorite online service made a change! I hope it makes my experience better. I think it will.
posted by BrodieShadeTree at 7:04 PM on January 31, 2007

BBC: Flickr to require Yahoo usernames

Many, including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, have left negative comments on the company's forum.

"I like being Old Skool. Please reconsider!" he said.
posted by vacapinta at 7:30 PM on January 31, 2007

Holy crap! I just found out I was Old Skool! How cool is That? Old SKOOL! WOOOH! (I thereupon merged my dusty, unused yahoo account. 3 mouse-clicks I'll never get back...)

That using Flickr pictures to shill Wiis is bullshit, though -- but the user rebellion of tagging random shots with "wii" seems to have paid off in spades. The wii.yahoo page had a few real gems show up a while ago, including a very pointed "Yahoo Sux" hand-painted sign. Heh. They're removing copy-restricted wii pix "soon."
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:43 PM on January 31, 2007

Man, it's going to be awesome when Yahoo buys Metafilter.
posted by Loser at 8:44 PM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

Muddler writes "By the way, I've had a yahoo mail account for almost six years now without a problem. I know this because I have e-mails that old in my inbox - rock solid. I don't know what people are doing to lose their accounts, but I'm guessing it is either a terms of use violation or ignoring the account and logging in only once a year."

Great for you, Yahoo screwed me over when they bought GeoCities and not for either of those reasons. I'm not sure what the reason is because of course their customer support blows; but I didn't do either of those things.

dw writes "We've known this day was coming since Yahoo bought them out."

Yep, and I've been gnashing about it since then too.

Ynoxas writes "tea tempest pot"

It's not, Yahoo is a blatantly unethical internet company and they've already started the reaming. They broke GeoCites, they really broke eGroups, and they are starting to break Flickr.
posted by Mitheral at 9:53 PM on January 31, 2007

Yahoo has lost/deleted/changed my login password on several occasions. This is an account I use daily, so it wasn't a matter of delinquency or lack of use. The only way I could get them to act on the issue was through a friend of mine that used to work for them. Now that he's left, though, the next time it happens, and there was no reason for the previous instances so it will probably happen again, I will be well and truly screwed. I am definitely not looking forward to having to re-upload thousands of pictures and information.
posted by Poagao at 12:21 AM on February 1, 2007

Oh man did they ever rape the living shit out of Geocities and eGroups. Once perfect web communities fucked to death by a grandma branded 'web portal'. At least they aren't fucking them over on the backend, the way Microsoft shoved Windows servers down Hotmail's throats until the site was down for days.
posted by blasdelf at 1:36 AM on February 1, 2007

I've been on the Internet since 1992 and that's the first time I've heard anyone call Geocities and eGroups "perfect."
posted by keswick at 6:55 AM on February 1, 2007

The saying is "a picture is worth a thousand words". Not all of those words have to be tags.

People who tag their photos to death have a special kind of obsessive sickness, or are spammers.

75 tags is still obscene, but at least more reasonable. If I were The Boss of Flickr (tm) I would make it 20 tags.

Of course, the REAL solution to this is incredibly simple, and a revenue generator:

Add a new user level called Super, and make it $59.99 per year. 500 tags, unlimited contacts.

So, you're not saying the super-leet-oldskool people CAN'T have what they want, you're just saying they have to pay a premium price for premium features. Simple enough.

Then, you would have a real metric to read for future info. Did many people upgrade to the Super account? If not, then it is clear this is all needless blustering and noone "really" needed 5000 contacts and 250 tags on every pic. At least not enough for an extra $3/mo.

As far as anecdotal Yahoo experience goes, I've got two Yahoo accounts, one for about 10 years, and except for letting a bit too much OBVIOUS spam through that any decent spam filter should catch, my experience with them has been without any drama or difficulty.
posted by Ynoxas at 7:46 AM on February 1, 2007

In case anyone's still reading, Stewart answered the "What happens when I delete my Y! account/my Y! account gets deleted?" question better than I did.
posted by crawl at 3:04 PM on February 1, 2007

If you are concerned about having your photos on Flickr and then Yahoo having a delete party on you, then back up.

Through all the broohaha the last two days, I learned of Flickr Backup, downloaded it, backed up all three of my Flickr accounts, and am now feeling safe and happy.

Thanks to the nice open source folk at SourceForge for the backup tool.
posted by msjen at 3:14 PM on February 1, 2007

MetaFilter: An Endless Bottom Pit.
posted by Wolfdog at 8:58 AM on February 2, 2007

Holy cow. Heather makes it personal.
posted by Loser at 2:09 PM on February 2, 2007

Huh. I wonder if it will be predominantly with biting satisfiction or with seeping embarassment that the majority of those refund requests will be submitted.
posted by cortex at 2:21 PM on February 2, 2007

does heather strike anyone else as a smirking, self-satisfied, self-important bitch, or is it just me?
posted by keswick at 4:13 PM on February 2, 2007

I'm leaning toward just you, fella.
posted by cortex at 4:17 PM on February 2, 2007

Loser writes "Heather makes it personal."

Interesting, Flickr higher ups can downgrade user accounts for personal reasons.
posted by Mitheral at 5:46 PM on February 2, 2007

I was caught up in the kerfluffle when Meetup started telling groups to pay up or be shut down a couple of years ago. I took issue with how they were doing the process. One of their marketing people called me a whiner in his blog. The Usual Drama ensued. Eventually, he apologized.

A couple of my comments got pulled into the MovableType-is-going-to-start-charging kerfluffle, too. In the end, they made good on my issue (being a beta tester, not being able to downgrade, told to pay up) by cutting the price on the license.

That's why I think I don't feel that pissy about Flickr forcing everyone to Yahoo. For one thing, it's been coming for at least a year. The other cases were sudden announcements. And also, I'm really tired of the Usual Drama. I mean, I feel sad that Flickr is doing nothing for the "Old Skoolers." Any of us. And I don't completely trust Yahoo -- they did fix the scalability problems with eGroups, but not before breaking things more than once. Still, it's Flickr, and it works better for me than my other options.

I do wish Flickr would do SOMETHING for the "Old Skoolers" -- everyone who had pre-Yahoo logins. Free Pro credit would be nice.
posted by dw at 6:38 PM on February 2, 2007

does heather strike anyone else as a smirking, self-satisfied, self-important bitch, or is it just me?

You could ask her yourself....

Having seen what happens when good companies piss off their loyal customers, it doesn't surprise me. I mean, if you're getting hit with a message every 15 seconds telling you to FOAD, wouldn't you be getting cranky?

I've only seen one person handle these sort of barrage with any grace. It was a person working for Meetup who was very upfront about the changes and what was going on. After a couple of days of "you suck" 24x7, the commenters suddenly turned nice and thanked her for being upfront and willing to help.
posted by dw at 6:47 PM on February 2, 2007