

How Flickr polices 2.8 billion photos - browser411
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/09/29/onthejob.DTL

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dangoldin
Great article! What struck me was how difficult it is to automate such
"policing" tasks and how much work is put in to keeping a community on track.
I'm always trying to automate things but I guess in this case it's not so
simple.

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rrf
I was hoping for an insight into some cool algorithm they use, instead I get a
piece of puffery.

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bootload
_"... I was hoping for an insight into some cool algorithm they use, instead I
get a piece of puffery ..."_

If you want to read about the precise, analytical technology that by and large
has been solved - yesterdays news then try Cal Hendersons blog ~
<http://iamcal.com/talks> Hendo has some excellent talks on massive scaling,
unicode filtering, how to build cheap & fast, etc. If you want to read about
the messy, yet to be solved problems that could really use a technological
hand this is the type of article you should be reading.

Once the most of the easier technical problems are solved you are left with
the hard ones to solve ones. Well written stories like this one about those
_"messy, hard to predict humans"_ and their complex interactions in Web Apps
as big as Flickr are unexplored territory. Read here for more on this thread:

\- [http://thomashawk.com/2008/10/use-swear-word-in-private-
emai...](http://thomashawk.com/2008/10/use-swear-word-in-private-email-
at.html)

\-
[http://digg.com/arts_culture/Potty_mouthery_deletion_at_Flic...](http://digg.com/arts_culture/Potty_mouthery_deletion_at_Flickr?t=19416393#c19416393)

\- [http://yaniv.golan.name/blog/2008/09/22/you-may-or-may-
not-b...](http://yaniv.golan.name/blog/2008/09/22/you-may-or-may-not-be-
aware/)

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drewr
"The idea is to sell the stuff -- a clear violation of the company's no-
commerce rule."

You can't post pictures of stuff to sell? That's what half of craigslist uses
flickr for.

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jodrellblank
"To roam Flickr is to wander through crooked teeth, local politics, nesting
osprey, birth, spaghetti, divorce and every other aspect of existence."

And wonderfully interesting it is, too. I've spent ages, on and off,
refreshing <http://www.flickr.com/photos> just watching the world go by.

Note also <http://www.flickrvision.com/> is also quite good for watching the
world go by, in a slightly different way.

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colortone
Killer article, thanks for posting...

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ld50
a few thoughts:

this guy sounds like he comes from an english/journalism background.. heavy on
the words, light on the substance.

there is virtue in brevity

tl;dr

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brandnewlow
Yeah, I liked the story (I'm a words guy) but was surprised people on here
did, since most are anti-"words for words sake."

