Flickr Freak

I have absolutely no clue how interestingness works. For all I know, someone at the Flickr HQ does exactly the same like me, browsing the millions of photographs available and tagging them as favourites.

Flickr Hits, however, has an interesting post out today, asking if Flickr is deliberately blacklisting certain groups from interestingness. I haven’t the foggiest about this claim either, but seriously? What would be the point?

Well, let us see what would be the point.

The discussion first got sparked at the 4 Aces group. 4 Aces is one of those massive membership groups (although 3,289 is still within reason) with a multitude of photographs that is mind-boggling (29,812) – although even that is relative of course.

One of its members posted about how he was under the impression that the group is being barred from showing up on the Explore pages. He comes to this conclusion based on four assumptions:

1. images of his, with quite a few favs and comments, didn’t show up on Explore;
2. images belonging to the group have disappeared from Explore;
3. one image, that made it to number 120, disappeared after being added to the group;
4. a random screening of four Explore pages on a given day didn’t yield one image from the group.

Now, with what little I remember from science class and how to conduct credible research, I think I can safely say this testing technique is far removed from the principles of the scientific method, i.e. being duplicable, predictive, controlled and falsifiable.

But, wait, I’m not here to bash the gentleman in question. I also hold other values near and dear to my heart, such as being critical, inquisitive and not afraid to speak your mind. So, in a way I’m happy with his thoughts.

The question is, however, not whether Flickr is banning groups for no good reason (I’m convinced they don’t), but how does Flickr calculate its interestingness and – more importantly – does it have the right to alter these devious and hidden mechanisms so that the results better reflect what is truly the bees’ knees on any given Flickr day?

I think yes – definitely.

Flickr isn’t about scoring, about making headlines or becoming popular. Personally, I don’t even much like these groups, that exist solely on the basis of adding more and more images with nothing else to bind its members than nonsensical rules like ‘you have to comment on the picture third from the left on the second page’.

The images may be beautiful, it may be great to get a lot of comments, but what does it really say about you and your photographic skills? Not much, I fear.

For a minute, imagine if blogs worked like that. ‘I’ll comment on your previous post if you’ll comment on mine tomorrow’? It’s madness.

And it is exactly the reason, if I may assume that much, why Flickr keeps tweaking its interestingness formula, so that the numbers and the herd don’t overrule the quality of the content. That isn’t blacklisting, it’s creating a reliable quality product.

In that same vein, I was surprised to read The Tech Den’s criticism of Flickr apparently patenting interestingness. Apart from the question if words can be patented, I don’t think Flickr is patenting just a page rank system (like Google’s) or a front page system (like Digg’s).

I think Flickr is just trying to keep Flickr interesting.

I know I would spend a lot more time on YouTube, for instance, if they had anything even remotely similar, and if they wouldn’t just feature the junk of the day that finds its way to the top via MySpace clicks.

So, join Flickr, join as many groups as you like, but remember what it’s about – the sharing of our collective photographic memory or just letting your friends know what you’ve been up to, but not about who and how many you can convince to like you.

Via Digg and Digg