Comment by logicalmonster | Hacker News Reader

Comment by logicalmonster | Hacker News Reader

This sounds great, but I'm just curious how their claim to support unlimited types of art here....

> Photographers have long faced bans and deletion from nearly every online photography community for creating or sharing the “wrong” type of art. We’re rolling out changes to Flickr that welcome all photographers to discover, share, and interact with photography, period. Photographers who craft and create work that might be considered risqué by some will have a safe place online to interact with one another, share mutual interests, and put their art into the world without the fear of it being removed or them being banned entirely from the communities they love.

....isn't in conflict with their stated rules page on restricted content? Here's just some stuff from their guidelines.

> Don’t use hate speech. Flickr has a zero-tolerance policy towards attacking a person or group based on, but is not limited to, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, disease, age, sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity.

Yeah, this juxtaposition of "art" and "safe" is incredibly sus.

We know they're going to have a line about what they'll host. Just say what it is and save yourself the headache later on.

    We know they're going to have a line about 
    what they'll host. Just say what it is and save 
    yourself the headache later on.

They explicitly have done so, right there in the linked article:

    The first change relates to restricted and 
    moderate content. (You might call it NSFW, or 
    explicit, or other terms, but we’ve gone ahead 
    and defined them for Flickr here.)

...which links to: https://www.flickrhelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404064374164-S...

Full community guidelines here: https://www.flickr.com/help/guidelines/

>It seems like maybe you just wanted to tee off on the idea of anybody, anywhere, implementing any sort of community standards?

No, but thanks for the talking down to. I have no problem with them having limits, it's - at the very least - a practical necessity to running their business. Furthermore, for what their business and product are I don't much care what level of control they want to exert.

I mean uncomfortable art. The kind of things that don't fall into their existing categories of "safe to hang in an office", "MPAA R risque" or "fucking".

    No, but thanks for the talking down to

Apologies. You're right. That was unnecessary, and I actually edited my post to remove the snark right before I'd even seen your reply. Probably at the same time you were typing.

    The kind of things that don't fall into 
    their existing categories of "safe to hang 
    in an office", "MPAA R risque" or "fucking".

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking for. It seems like you want a comprehensive list of what will and won't be allowed?

Have you ever run a community, or attempted to create or enforce community guidelines? Coming up with comprehensive rules to cover the spectrum of human expression is an absolutely intractable problem.

What about photos of casualties of war? What about historical photos that feature Nazi symbols? What about photos of lynchings? What about art based around those things, particularly when it's steeped in so many layers of irony and subtext that it's impossible to tell whether or not they're actually endorsing evil, protesting it, or something else?

> I'm not entirely sure what you're asking for. It seems like you want a comprehensive list of what will and won't be allowed?

No. I'd just prefer they don't lie in their marketing. Because it always gets walked back to "Well obviously that blanket statement had all the exceptions that were obvious to me at the time but convenient to ignore. Plus all the exceptions we've discovered in the meantime."

>Have you ever run a community

Yeah, but it was a community back in the old phpBB and IRC days of the internet.

I have not been in charge of cooperate communication to a product userbase I've branded a "community."

I didn't find myself having to talk out of both sides of my mouth to merge lofty marketing proclamations with the hard "if"s and "buts" of reality. Because we talked about community standards, it wasn't a decision of what worked for our business handed down from on high. It was what we as a group were comfortable with. What personal tastes are fine to be violated regularly in front of your face? What things they were willing to tolerate if it was contained in a different sub-forum? What can't be there at all etc...

Yeah, similar experience here. Never done it on a corporate, internet-wide scale ala Flickr.

I'm honestly confused - what's twofaced about Flickr's approach?

I just sort of assume any host of user-created content will have some restrictions, so it doesn't feel to me like they are "talking out of both sides" of their mouth when they announce/implement such restrictions.

I may be completely missing what you're reacting to, though, apologies if I'm being dense.

Can you come up with an example for hate speech, in the medium of photography, without including written works or photos-of-photos(-of-text)?

Besides, the benefit of requiring pro accounts is that it includes identification of uploaders. They can delegate their content policy to the respective jurisdictions and authorities.

One obvious example is symbols. For example, if a Ukrainian photojournalist took a picture of a member of Azov Battalion who had Nazi insignia on their uniform, would that picture fall afoul of the content policy?

Answer: https://flic.kr/p/2n7x3oH (i. e. "apparently not")

At this point, the doublespeak and blatant contradictions are expected. We all know what this means - as long as you kowtow to the kind of blasé, Bay Area, lefty twitter, woke scold, "polite society" zeitgeist, you're good to go. If you have...really, anything at all to say in opposition, look elsewhere - because that's not very safe.

And yet look at you, so over-the-top in opposition it might be parody, and here you are, all safe and upvoted.

It is a fair comment. When open to all becomes open to these safe groups the speak becomes restricted no matter how inclusive one says they are.

It's curious that you're posting this on HN, a highly moderated community with strong community guidelines. Much stricter than Flickr's community guidelines.

How do you resolve this contradiction? It must be suffocating for you to participate here.

HN is pretty liberal in terms of the discussion it allows to take place and the breadth of ideas and viewpoints it allows to propagate. It does tend to have guidelines for tone and rules of engagement, however, and strongly discourages outright flamewars and trolling.

But sure, yeah, Nazis can fuck right off, agreed.

    HN is pretty liberal in terms of the discussion 
    it allows to take place and the breadth of ideas 
    and viewpoints it allows to propagate

It really, really isn't. It's one of the more tightly moderated public communities.

I suggest browsing with showdead on to see how much crap gets silently removed from HN by the mods.

Offtopic remarks are mercilessly downvoted into oblivion by the community.

To be clear, I think the HN mods do a fantastic job. I think HN is one of the clearest examples of why strong and talented moderation is essential for high-quality discussions. Their work goes largely unheralded because they maintain a low profile, in multiple ways.

I've had showdead on for years and years at this point.

>see how much crap gets silently removed from HN by the mods.

Consistent with what I've said.

>Offtopic remarks are mercilessly downvoted into oblivion by the community.

Consistent with what I've said.

This is not a counter argument to allowing a breadth of discussion.

What contradiction? I think you’re reading more into my comment than is there.

Unfortunately, any attempt to give unrestricted <anything> to people results in abuse. See: - Services that offered unlimited cloud storage. - Social communication tools used to plan crimes. - OnlyFans

How does one allow NSFW "art" but not let their platform turn into just another cheap porn site? Flickr seems to be taking a stab at answering that. Time will tell if they are successful, but I hope they are.

Safe and upvoted on HN, a highly moderated forum with strong community guidelines, no less. The irony.

And yet, any time any community enforces any sort of moderation or community guidelines, an enormous wailing and gnashing of teeth in the HN comments. Funny that.

HN has one of the internet's best communities, but it is also possibly the least self-aware community I've ever known.

The difference is that HN doesn't pretend to be something it's not and AFAIK the guidelines and the things dang has said over the years are pretty straight forward. It doesn't pretend to be a place for any and all opinions to have a home with no getting kicked off or whatever.

I find it bizarre that my comment is being attacked for its venue, when HN has never claimed to be the type of venue which I and GP are criticizing for their doublespeak and hypocrisy.

There was no point at which I saw my post upvoted. I guess I'll have to take your word for it.

But yes, this is one reason I generally like HN. I can be as unorthodox or devil's advocatey as I like and generally have a decent convo.

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