The Brutal Regime / Joseph Dunphy posted a reply:
Over two years later, that last post looks amusing.
I had hoped that this group would become a community, but I guess I was the only one who did. I'm going to try to polish away the over 7000 high mountain of submissions some of you dropped on me during that period when Flickr allowed for unlimited crossposting, but I'm not sure why.
As I said before, your photos weren't complimenting each other by chance. I consciously chose the order in which they were approved in order to make them do so. Given that Flickr is going to be discarding the vast bulk of the photos on its site, destroying that carefully crafted composition, in just a few months, I'm done doing that. I'm more than a little sorry that I ever bothered.
Long hours of work, not just spend putting all of this in order, but vetting photos, both those submitted to this group and those I saw outside of the group, as I looked for photos and people to invite - by now, I've literally gone through millions of photos over the last ten years, and now all of that is going to get thrown into the dumpster so that the aptly named Smugmug can complete what would appear to have been what I was fearing it would be at the time I first heard of the purchase - an aquihire in all but name.
All so that a third rate businessman can try something that I've absolutely never seen work - boost his own business by buying out and shutting down his main competitor. People aren't going to flee Flickr for Smugmug, or buy pro memberships if (as will often be the case) their content gets discarded before they get the news. They'll free to Tumblr, Typepad or Livejournal (without controversial content in the case of the last of the three, one hopes) if they get the news in time to save their photos, or very likely leave the Internet altogether if they lose so much of their creative work to yet another suit's inflated ego.
Narcissism truly is the gift that keeps on giving.
So, that's how it goes, ten years of work, wiped out, as a major cultural resource (the photography that has accumulated on Flickr over the years) is casually destroyed. But the problem always was that it was a resource that Flickr, itself, never valued, because neither its owners nor its employees did the work to create it, nor did they pay for it. Other people took those photos. Other people spent all of that time sifting through the bad work of others to find the good. So, when all of that work is thrown away, management gets its narcissistic fix, while those unpaid others bear the expense. Sure, the company bears an opportunity cost, but people who've just been handed things seldom appreciate what they have until it's gone, and often, not even then.
There are lessons to be learned in this. One of them is "don't ever trust the social networking sites." If some of you were thinking of jumping over to DeviantArt in light of recent developments, don't. If you think that the troll problem has been bad here, you haven't seen anything, yet.
But a more important lesson is - don't be so darned generous. Yes, as provoked as I am, I'm going to keep this group clean to the end. Don't give people so much of yourself that they end up getting spoiled, because, past a certain point, the more they are given, the less they'll think they've gotten. They won't appreciate it, at all, and in this, I'm not just talking about the suits.
I've been moderating groups for a little over ten years. I've seen a lot of "excrement" over this time, including that magical moment when a pair of users starting planning my murder, brilliantly choosing to do so in the comments section of one of their photos. Endless backbiting, which I got to deal with, attempts to get me thrown off the site, racial abuse ... it's been special. As I went through that, for over a decade, how many times do you think I heard the words "thank you"?
ONCE
Just once. It was such a remarkable event, that I remember exactly where and when it was. I was at the last "Around the Coyote." I'd name the member, but if I did, I'm afraid he's get harassed.
So it goes. Flickr refuses to appreciate the photographers who provide it with content, and the photographers refused to appreciate the admins who find them, pull them together into communities and promote their work for free. No, we end up as scapegoats. I've lost track of how many times I've explained Flickr's insane position that nude statues are the same thing as nude people to members, who then refused to understand that I didn't work for Flickr and had played no role in the creation of that company policy. Even providing a link to Heather's infamous comment in the Help Forum, in which she laid out that police and wrote those immortal words
"What is common sense?"
did no good. People would go on abusing me over the bizarre decisions Flickr chose to make, as if there was anything I could do about them.
The group will stick around as long as Flickr allows it to, albeit probably in mangled form, given how much of its content will be deleted. But, after I process those last 7000 photos, which should take a few weeks, I'm going to lock the photo and discussion section and wait until the great content purge of 2018 happens, before deciding what to do next. Which, to be honest, probably will be nothing.
I've given myself vacations and put this group on hiatus, before, but this is different. On previous occasions, I'd have a headache because, say, somebody who turned out to have a criminal record and have talked about gouging people's eyes out found support as he created drama over the fact that I wouldn't invite him along on a photowalk. Yes, that really happened. I'd go away, and give you guys some time to think about what you had done. But when I got back, for the most part, what I had assembled was still there and I could resume.
This time, that isn't likely to be true, so continuing might not make a lot of sense. What's the point of laboriously putting together that which others will smash to pieces, just for giggles? There is a much better than 50% chance that when I come back and take a look, that the losses will be so great that I'll never open the group back up, because I'll never be willing to put in the time, again.
Which raises the question - if this group is done, here, where will it be moving to, next? Just look at all of the dead links to companion groups and sites that used to be, think about it, and I think you'll get your answer - nowhere. If I'm going to get put back to square one, I'm not going through this, again. I have no plans to establish any new groups, anywhere.
Moderation has been a largely unrewarding experience that has taken time away from other, more valuable pursuits and in the end, done nothing for me. Most of those more valuable pursuits have nothing to do with the Internet, but there is one that does - my own blogging. The time I've spent promoting the creative efforts of others, only one of whom ever thanked me for that, is time I haven't been able to spend on my own.
No more of that. In the unlikely case that I open this group up, again, I'll expect some of you to finally step forward and take some of the weight from my shoulders. If, as I suspect will be the case, nobody will be willing to do so at that time, then we'll be closing up for good, and this group will be an archive. Period.
Even the blogging will be limited. I'll put out some samples of my work as a sort of personal introduction for people who do searches under my name, but as for putting out vast amounts of creative work on the Internet and sharing it for free? We just saw where that leads. No, the bulk of the writing I do is probably going to be submitted to small literary journals and other magazines. The photography I do will be shown to friends, or maybe displayed on the walls of a certain coffeehouse, if my own work is ever good enough to be seen there.
But as for spending a lot more time on the Internet? Why would I want to do that?
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