And honestly, do you really believe that Yahoo!/Flickr would make it a corporate mission to edit the Wikipedia page of Zoomr? It wouldn’t even make sense.

Over time, however, I’ve noticed something about Thomas’s interactions with others. He tends to assume the worst about other people and will (over)react in a rather confrontational way based on these assumptions. When others react to his confrontational style, it seems to reinforce the whole behavior pattern.

Why is Thomas constantly having confrontations with security guards, with Jill Greenberg, and with other Flickr members? I’m not saying Thomas is always wrong in these disputes. But the frequency and intensity of these issues says a lot about the way Thomas approaches other people.

That’s all dude.

i used to scroll through all of the Zooomr/Flickr entries here as they didn’t really interest me. now those posts are a little more interesting as they always seem to be trying to pick a fight with Flickr over petty things. (publicity?) i do visit THDC less now than i used to since it became somewhat of a marketing blog.

A simple post of “a Yahoo! employee edited Zooomr’s entry on Wikipedia and I think that sucks” probably would have elicited more agreement than a diatribe on Flickr vs. Zooomr or Yahoo! vs. Google (where did THAT come from?) or comments on stifling innovation.

BTW, let me add the disclaimer that I work for Yahoo!, but in no way even remotely related to Flickr or Y! Photos. I just happen to be a huge fan of Thomas’ photography and am an avid reader of his blog (as well as being a pro user of both Flickr and Zooomr, but mostly because I got both for free).

Zooomer is a cheap copy

In my article I indeed reference the fact that it could have been anyone from Yahoo and that I have no idea who it is. I clearly make reference to the fact that it could have been anyone. It could have been Yahoo Corporate it could have been someone else. Hence the question. I would, however, classify the individual who made the comment as likley a competitor and as likely an employee of your company Yahoo! (as you yourself admit)

I’m not sure how Yahoo’s network IP structure works, if IP addresses are assigned to units etc., but this same address had previously edited both Flickr enteries and Caterina Fake’s personal biography.

Let me ask you another question. Are you saying that the IP address in question could have come from any single computer at Yahoo? Or does Yahoo assign IP addresses to units/teams/areas? Because it seems odd to me that this same IP address also has been used to previously edit both other Flickr entries and Caterina Fake’s personal biography on wikipedia.

I’m glad that we agree that it’s not good that someone at Yahoo would be entering derogatory comments into the wikipedia on Zooomr.

As to the “warpath” allegation. I did nothing which you allege in this post. I did not submit this to any forums. I did not solicit diggs for the story. And this is the only blog that I published it to.

As to Kris’ edits, lets talk about those. Most of these are him either offering up screen shots of the service, correcting spelling type errors, etc. I can only imagine the single entry that you might object to being that where he submits a link to the most popular story about Flickr on the internet written by Michael Arrington over at Tech Crunch. I’m not sure that I find these things particularly offensive and would certainly not equate them with negatively vandalizing a competitor’s entry.

I think you’d have a similar problem as I mentioned above if a Zooomr IP address was to negatively and incorrectly characterize the Flickr wikipedia entry.

Is your problem with Kris editing mostly non controversial entries on Zooomr the fact that he doesn’t do it anonymously?

Because if you have a problem with a company editing their own data I’m surprised as this same IP address from Yahoo has put pro Yahoo entries in all over the place. So let’s see what else this IP address has edited. Well they added a Yahoo link to the Gay Pride entry. They changed an entry which alleged a security breach at Flickr was why Flickr Live was dropped. They cite the fact that Caterina Fake worked on the set of Seinfeld. They cite the fact that you personally are not just Caterina Fake’s husband but also the co-founder of Flickr. They edited an entry which was critical of Yahoo 360 accusing it of “jumping the trend wagon”. They change an entry saying that the first tag cloud appeared on Flickr instead of elsewhere. They alter the Google Wikipedia entry to say that someone else pioneered the selling of key word advertising.

There are many other entries by the same Yahoo IP address and they have edited other competitor sites as well. CNET, Microsoft, Google.

This has been going on for years which is why I’d ask the question if Yahoo has a policy about editing their competitor’s wikipedia entries. It certainly is atleast tollerated there it would seem.

Tinou, and as to wikipedia sorting thing out, you are right. Very quickly after the edit was made, someone on wikipedia pointed out that the edit was made from a Yahoo corporate IP address. This is what alerted me to the fact.

If editor@yahoo-corp.com edited those entries then Thomas might be more justified in his outrage…but an IP address means NOTHING.

As pointed out, Yahoo is a huge corporation. Could be a bored intern who likes Flickr. Could be Stewart. Who knows, and really, who cares.

1. address whether the edits are correct or incorrect

2. let Wikipedia sort it out – Zooomr/Flickr is not so special that Wikipedia breaks down

Thomas did not use his employers’ facilities to enable his comments about Jill Greenberg. The Yahoo employee obviously did do this, hence the association is easily made. (If Thomas signed his posts with thomas@hisemployer.com then Stewart might have a point).

On the other hand, Kris creating or editing his own Wikipedia entries is simply hilarious. Every geek with half a brain knows that this is a huge no-no.