1 Participation Inequality

I wonder if, in the described Flickr groups, you observe a small group of people who contribute a lot of comments and photos and a large group who contribute a lot less. Like described by Jacob Nielsen in Participation Inequality: Lurkers vs. Contributors in Internet Communities

posted at 04:52 pm on May 6, 2008 by Richard Reumerman

2 The Flickr Lobe

“People don’t like being told what to do. We like to explore, change things around, and make a place our own. “ Isn’t that the essence of this whole ‘internet’ thing?!?

This web of ours is becoming a place where all the rules can be rewritten to suit our individual and 21st Century needs. Community architecture is, I agree, about nurturing and empowering the individual to be as creative and connected as possible.

You state that as Flickr continues to grow, “it seems to operate more like a society.” I think the analogy can even be expanded further, Flickr as an institution on the internet, even the beginnings of a visual processing (occipital) ‘lobe’ of the internet. Each portion of the ‘society’ acts to contribute, aggregate, processe, etc. the inputs from the edge of the network and therefore adds their own value to it. Over time rolls form, personalities emerge and ‘governing bodies’ need to suggest guidlines/rules that will help these complex networked individuals to conduct their ‘business’ in these networks.

As a governing body (i.e. the host of the site and the people who decided what users are and aren’t able to do from a technical and thus social level), I agree, it is “very hard to remain neutral while our members jostle and collide and talk and whisper to each other” and I commend Flickr and so many others in this frontier for doing so.

Wouldn’t it be fun to see a window into the Internet 10 years down the road? What are the possibilities if a community is nurtured just right. What ‘guidlines’ will need to be in place to support sustainable social architecture? How will these communities evolve over the coming years?

ahh well, too many good questions and things to think about. Thanks for getting me started!

A well written and insightful piece. Thanks you for your thoughtful perspective.

posted at 08:06 pm on May 6, 2008 by Charles Feinn

3 Broadly relevant lessons

I’m impressed by how useful these takeaways are for understanding what makes for effective communities in the offline world. Brilliant.

posted at 10:43 pm on May 6, 2008 by Ben Field

4 Flickr is great

I spend too much time on Flickr.

But as part of my work involves photography it’s not too surprising!

One thing not mentioned in the article is blogs – and more specifically the Flickr widget.

My main Flickr group is http://www.flickr.com/groups/cyclingedinburgh

This ‘supplies’ pictures to http://cyclingedinburgh.info (strip in right hand column).

It currently has 92 members (I only know who half a dozen are ‘in real life’ even though most of them live in the same city!)

Maybe I should organise a meet!

People add photos to do with cycling in Edinburgh – not always pictures with bikes IN.

This is a random process – though I also seek out contributions by simply searching http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=edinburgh&s=rec

The resulting vertical strip of 10 images changes several times most days and can produce some really interesting juxtapositions. (Which are occasionally worth grabbing to form another image! – http://www.flickr.com/photos/chdot/2338879304/ )

Then people comment on the photos (in Flickr)

It really is a web of connections.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chdot

posted at 01:19 pm on May 7, 2008 by Chris Hill

5 Anonymity

I adore your comments about anonymity vs identity. I think anonymous participation is something that isn’t explicitly discussed enough – we’re forever rattling on about managing online identity, premised on the idea that most people are happy to have their online activity centred around a publically projected identity, and this doesn’t seem to be the case among the wider group of Web users, ones who aren’t bloggers, opinionators, and other types of Web mouths. As you suggest, anonymity doesn’t have to condemn a user to passive consumption.

You made a comment that users who choose to remain anonymous tend to be treated, eventually, with suspicion by other members, and leave us with the rather elliptical suggestion that “identity and connections appear to have social value”. That doesn’t explain any actual suspicion, though, and I’d be very interested in your take on where this suspicion comes from, and the rights and wrongs of not coagulating your online identity in online fora such as Flickr.

posted at 02:51 pm on May 7, 2008 by Douglas Greenshields

6 you set the tone, carter

great article. good things to think about as i work on a new project. my biggest struggle is accepting the dark underbelly of the society in microcosm – there is a creepster component on flickr. there are ways to deal with it, but it’s there. the flickr community is large enough that you can stay in the “good neighborhoods” .. but in a smaller, growing community, how do we make sure trolls don’t set up shop and dominate the conversation?

posted at 03:04 pm on May 7, 2008 by Lori Pickert

7 Add as a Contact?

hmm how do I add this user as a contact? where is that link again!? dang flicker interface..

posted at 09:42 pm on May 7, 2008 by Richard Anderson

8 Great post!

I like to read such great posts about creativity and mutual esteem! Thanks!

posted at 06:49 am on May 8, 2008 by Cecilia Illes

9 Untitled

Interesting that you mention gaming as I believe Flickr was originally designed to be a game! (“Game Neverending” I think it was called.)

The design is great – love the pink and blue colours, which have translated into real life events. But the white background does not show photos at their best. You’ve probably all seen those links under some photos: “Best viewed on black”. Sites like Blackr (?) and some blogs exist to showcase photos directly from Flickr on black backgrounds. I checked one blog and the photos made my jaw drop. Amazing deep colours. Yet I’d already seen the same photos on Flickr with a white background and not been so amazed. The difference was stunning. Black simply makes the colours richer. The problem is that text isn’t as nice on a black background.

I then wrote a few lines of CSS and made a custom stylesheet that could be applied to Flickr automatically by the browser. The styles set a permanent black background and I thought it worked really well. See an example screenshot along with the code .

Video! I’m surprised the article didn’t mention this. It’s interesting how negative the reaction has been to its introduction on Flickr. So much for the community spirit of love. This could be a good example of how a community fights change introduced by its creators. What will happen when the next big feature is introduced? Or would some users prefer Flickr to stay fixed as it is now, forever? I hope not. I personally enjoy videos on Flickr and can easily avoid them if I didn’t. It’s great to finally upload some of my digital camera shorts that I’ve made over the years, without going to another site like YouTube. The 90-second time limit is genius. (Though I hope it gets extended over time.) We are also seeing some superb talents emerge who are complimenting their photostreams with videos.

posted at 12:33 pm on May 8, 2008 by Chris Hester

10 Great post

Fantastic post – I run a site thats in its formative stages. I barely even own a camera but love browsing flickr. The more I hear about how you guys built such a great site the more I realize what we need to do to make our site as engaging.

Thank you
Philip
Snooth.com

posted at 05:40 pm on May 8, 2008 by Philip James