Let’s start with “Striatic’s a prick” and work our way backward.

Seriously. If this isn’t emblematic of why flickr sucks eggs lately, I really don’t know what is.

Over the weekend, numerous threads popped up, each one more strange than the last. In the end we had threads like “Post your 34th most interesting photo that’s not one of your typical photos.” For me, for example, it would be the 34th most interesting photo that wasn’t a NYC street photo. It got people thinking about their photos and even got them to think outside their boundaries.

There were a lot of these asking for such esoteric things as your 8th most favorited photo.

Overall, lots of photos were submitted, people enjoyed it, etc.

So what does the almighty Striatic, flickr Rockstar do?

He shuts the thread, of course.

i’ve locked all the ‘nth most viewed’ threads except one.

the one i didn’t lock was left unlocked because i think it actually asked an interesting question in an indirect manner.

anyhow, the threads i’ve locked could be considered either self promotional or not leading to novel discussion. take your pick.

if you like ‘numbers threads’ you ought to start a ‘numbers threads group’ and start inviting people to it.

Self-promotional? Sorry, but isn’t all of flickr’s group ecosystem self-promotional?

And the discussion wasn’t “novel?” What the hell?

And don’t even get me started on the whole “if you don’t like it, start your own group” thing.

Jesus, what an asshole.

Unfortunately, this is what flickr has become. A clique of petulant little children with stars in their names or titles after their names telling the rest of the site what to do. While flickr Central isn’t an “official” flickr group, it does sort of serve that purpose as the most trafficked general discussion group on flickr. It had become, in some ways, a state-sanctioned monopoly. Along with the tone change of flickr lately, comes crap like this. Threads that are purely about photography with no ambiguity whatsoever are locked because someone with an itchy finger decides he doesn’t think it contributes value to flickr.

Sorry, but doesn’t the fact that it’s photography, that lots of people have shared their photos, and the fact that it made people look at their photos differently count for anything?

Apparently not because in the new world of flickr, they think you can have too many contacts, tag your photos too much, and your threads in a group can be shut down just because some jerk doesn’t like your thread and doesn’t think it adds to the service.

Quote of the day from the “lock” thread:

Striatic, I disagree with locking the “2nd and 4th-Most Interesting and 8th-Most Viewed Photos”. There were a lot of posters there and everyone was enjoying themselves. That thread was 100% about photography, and I discovered and favourited several photos that I would have not seen otherwise.

Nope. Enjoyment will not be tolerated, Mark. The great Striatic has spoken, dammit!

And, of course, such relevant threads as “American Idol,” “Daylight Savings Time“, and “Pedophilia: It’s the new terrorism” all remain open, and all of them are obviously related to photography. *COUGH COUGH*

I can’t wait until something I can’t say happens so I can rescue my photos from this shithole.

Technorati Tags: flickr, striatic, balls

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