Why I turned off comments at Flickr
Published on June 21, 2007 at 10:50 pm by Raoul 
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Tagged with flickr, manners, me, people, photo sharing, truth 
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Loading ...On June 8, 2007, I turned off comments on my photos at Flickr. Things had gotten out of hand. I’ve gotten a few emails about it since, so I thought I should explain why I did it.
I started using Flickr seriously in January of this year. At first, I was interested in seeing what people had to say about my photos. I guess things were fairly new. But after a few months of that, I’d had enough. It was all the same stuff: either praise, or really banal comments like “Awesome!” or “Great!” or “Wow!” It was very rare that I saw a comment out of the ordinary, such as a question about the particulars of a photo, or some heartfelt thought, or maybe a pointer. I was so frustrated with the comments that I started thinking of them as virtual graffiti — and I’m not a fan of graffiti.
I had to laugh at myself when I got to that point. Jim Goldstein had published a post entitled Top 10 Most Annoying Photo Critique Comments back in March, and at that time, I was midway in my own journey to comment frustration. I didn’t share Jim’s opinion, and he actually took a lot of flack for what he said, but here I was, just three months later, being fed up with comments altogether…
I was also getting too many invitations to groups in the comments. It got to the point where I belonged to 60 or so odd groups, and I never frequented most of them. Who has time for 60 groups? I’d need to either be independently wealthy or retired to find the time to view, fave and/or comment on photos in that many communities.
After using Flickr for a while, it was also easy to see how comments were viewed by most people as reciprocative, as currency, if you will. If I commented on someone’s photos, they in turn came to my photo stream and commented on mine. If I flattered enough people, I could get a photo in Explore very easily. I know for a fact that Explore is such potent crack for lots of Flickrites, that they game the system as often as they can to get back there again. You just have to kiss enough behinds through comments, submit to enough groups and/or contests, and boom, you make it to Explore. It also helps if you have at least a few hundred contacts. That way you get enough views, faves and comments to make it very quickly.
I don’t know about you, but such “victories” would feel very hollow to me. Not only would I be using others, but I would be tricking the system, and even though I’d make it, what’s the point? I wouldn’t make it through my photos’ artistic merit, but by hook and by crook, and that’s no fun.
At any rate, I found faves to speak a lot more about whether or not someone likes a photo. I noticed quite a few people commented on my photos, but almost never faved them. What’s the point, then? Why comment with “Great photo!” and never show it with a fave? Makes no sense to me…
I realized that comments were a constant source of frustration for me, and were detracting from the pleasure I got out of photography. The constant praise also inflated my ego, and didn’t allow me to step back and continue to improve myself. After that became clear to me, the choice was really easy to make: I had to disable comments, and that’s just what I did. I wish I could do the same over at Zooomr, but at least comments there are still pretty decent. There aren’t enough people who are trying to game the system there, though at some point, there will be. And when that happens, I’ll really want to close comments.
A quick tangent: I’m not opposed to comments on photos altogether. I think some photos are meant to spark discussion. What I think would really be nice is to be able to turn off comments on every photo by default, but have the ability to enable them on a per photo basis.
Now, my photos stand on their own. People can fave them if they like, and if they don’t, they don’t. And I’ve found that people only fave when they really like a photo. That means that I get to see very quickly which of my photos are really popular, and I get to find out what other people like. It’s a truer way of measuring a photo’s artistic merit, or likeability, if you will. No games, just the truth — and less headaches for me.
I hope those contacts of mine at Flickr who were truly sincere and offered heartfelt compliments in the comments won’t be offended by my move. They know who they are. I may not know, because sometimes it was really hard to tell who was sincere and who flattered with ulterior motives, but I feel that I did the right thing for me. I can continue to grow as a photographer, and my time won’t be eaten up by meaningless flattery and trivialities. I’m no longer eaten up by Explore or the number of views I get, either. I’ve whittled down my Flickr contacts to those people who inspire me artistically, and I’m cutting down on my Groups as well. In the end, I’m being true to myself and my goals, and if others don’t like that, that’s okay with me.
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Ah now it all makes sense! I was looking through your photos yesterday and was wondering what was up. I can understand where you’re coming from. The novelty of it all wears off after a while. I still enjoy it for what it’s worth, but I think I’ve had my expectations tempered for sometime. One benefit from the comments even though they’re not critical is how they provide as an introduction to other people and their work. I suppose the same could happen from just Favorite designation. I have to tell you it is weird seeing your photos up with out comments.
Thanks for the link to my article as well.
Great post!
I’ve noticed some of that at Flickr as well. I also dislike the gaming, but I don’t use that service enough to consider turning comments off. I’m still trying to decide whether to upgrade or just ditch Flickr. Haven’t made up my mind yet.
Why I turned off comments at Flickr…
Why one man got fed up with comments on his photos……
I SURE Hear ya on the new plethora of flashy-gif’d and rules-laden group invitations! Whew! I do have Adblock installed and will block the graphic, when I get one from an otherwise good contact. I don’t have time for all those groups, esPecially to try to live up to silly tit-for-tat rules, just to belong to some group that claims to speak for the Standard of fine photography.. ;-0
I agree that perhaps the true measure of whether someone likes my photo is their ‘fave’ing it, although I wonder if it means any more about the quality of my work than the comments do… I doubt that. Popularity never never really was a measure of merit or effectiveness –even in a “photography community”, I say.
My own policy for faving is that I Rarely do… only for those images which are outstanding to me in a particular way or which exemplify a principle I like to stand for. So in my case, a fave IS a full-on Vote for your image… Whether for Your intended reason or not.
I have empathy with your choice. Some of my flickr friends are, indeed, often frustrated with the whole Explore/SecretAlgorithm workings, and they want the Exposure, they say, more than the inane comments, really… and there’s no arguing that Explore gets a exposure bump for them. I’m not sure to what end, but, they want it, so I don’t argue with them on that point, at all, anymore.
As for gaming the system… maybe that process worked for you… my friends have experiences/conclusions that seem to negate your method, really, for automatically getting into those first two pages of Explore.. . maybe it gets you into the 500 Interestingness “cream”, but Explore pages seem to be a different animal, in some ways, and the algorithm that determines it seems to shift every so often. That’s when I hear the wails of my friends. ;-/
That brings me to my reason for leaving commenting turned ON:
my flickrfriends.
I am glad I met them and I can say that it would have been less likely for me to have met them if it were not for comments. I know there’s flickr mail, and that’s a powerful option. To my way of thinking, though it’s like adding a “Do you Really Mean to Communicate?” hurdle to the point of my being on flickr… sharing of my images And myself.
I do my best to leave only comments that are honest feedback (Not Critique, usually).. often something about the photo that I notice as especially interesting to me or really makes the photo for me. Sometimes I comments specifically in the face of those who are finding fault with a photo I admire, or seem to be missing the point. I don’t mind the inane commments, though I am getting fewer, lately… but I like leaving the door open for others, who Also don’t have the kind of time I do for writing full emails, to leave a thoughtful or personally playful comment and to just keep in touch.
Now, I regularly have a skype conference call with a small group of flickr buddies and am always glad when that rolls around, since they are now treasured friends. I don’t have “enough” of those.
I am ambivalent on comments. I try to comment something meaningful. But I think comments are often used to express the emotions people have, viewing a picture. And that emotion could be ´WOW!´.
I think people don´t often comment on a picture negatively. Indeed it would be nice if someone viewing my photo´s would say: “hey, this picture would even be more nice if you’d shot at a lower angle …….’ etc.
Maybe it helped if there were different levels of faving. Like ‘WOW / /GREAT / NICELY DONE / GOOD TRY’.
I try not to end up with tonns of faves. So I am faving only when a picture meets ‘certain criteria’, though I’m still not shure what these exactly are…
PS hope you like my comments on your pictures
Yes boring comments indeed but when a world renowned photographer stops by your photoblog and leaves some appreciative comments, that makes your day. Such as it did with me on an old photoblog I once had.
I completely agree. I too have recently noticed the fall in quality of flickr comments.
And the worst remains with the group invites, when a popular photo is followed by lots of little gifs- and not even decent quality ones, but awful, cheap-looking things.
Use of capitals throughout are also annoying, and forced comments made from adding a photo to a group that requires them- this is a reason why group rules can sometimes be bad. People are only commenting in order to stick with the commenting rules, making them pretty meaningless.
[...] Why I turned off comments at Flickr [...]
[...] It’s not me. I wouldn’t be true to myself if I did that. This is also why I chose to disable comments on all my photos. They’d gotten to be a [...]
I spent a year on Flickr. Eventually I just placed an explanation that I would no longer be posting pictures and that people should instead go to my website. I only ever made comments on other peoples pictures when I thought they were relevant and as such I suffered the ultimate fate of having good pictures with no comments while I’d see countless rubbish pictures elsewhere with “awesome shot” etc. It made me wonder why I’d bothered to upload stuff.
I observed the following:
- People don’t take kindly to *any* critique or criticism of their shots. You pretty much waste your time making any comments beyond “awesome shot” and you hardly ever get anyone else critiquing your own. As far as Flickr being educational from the comments, it fails completely.
- Comments *are* a currency. People seem to have become addicts.
- It has quickly degenerated into mutual backslapping. I would say all of the “best photograph” groups serve no purpose other than to allow people to brown-nose each other. The pictures that get “awards” rarely ever earn them on actual photographic merits.
Amen to that, cbn! But this sort of thing plagues photo sharing sites everywhere, although Flickr is most prone to it since it’s the biggest. What I detest most of all are the damned ugly graphics (some animated) that people post in the comments to get you to join their (backslapping and brown-nosing) groups. *Blech*
Hmm…well i never get comments even though i have lot’s of contacts…and i comment on lot’s of peoples photo’s and don’t get any back…and i only leave comments when i genuinely really like the photo…and honestly i didn’t think my photo’s are too bad!