Comments on: Flickr “Not Currently Working” on Account Restore Feature After Users Suffer Losses of Thousands of Photos

By: vicky

vicky — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 12:46:23 +0000

This is my main concern about Flickr, losing an account through a mistake or from something that could be addressed.
I really hope that it’s a concern that they start addressing soon because for many of us it’s our personal photo album as well as a social network.

By: elinesca

elinesca — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:42:15 +0000

By the way, Flickr DOES need to back up every account. We’re paying for a service that need to be restored should something happen.

In any case, Zooomr acts the opposite – they don’t have the functionality to allow you to delete your account. Almost like living forever…. Maybe that’s why Zoomr staff can’t delete accounts…

(not getting political, just couldn’t resist…:)

By: elinesca

elinesca — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:38:42 +0000

Have you posted a screenshot of what you see in your stream? I just don’t get this – what do you see when you log out? The staff page is publicly available, so they’ve achieved nothing at all by this. Maybe it’s a cashed version you’re seeing?

By: Adam Harrison

Adam Harrison — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:25:06 +0000

They don’t even need to back-up deleted accounts.

In there database, then need to set an “invisible” variable. Then when the server comes across their pictures, posts, and comments, they will not be shown if the invisible variable is set.

If they delete by mistake, they can unset the variable and everything is back to normal.

If something is set to invisible for a month or so, THEN delete it.

I can’t imagine this would be that hard to code.

Oh wait, Yahoo/Flickr laid off their coders on April and hired more censors. Oops.

By: Thomas Hawk

Thomas Hawk — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:18:22 +0000

Jason, they don’t need to back up everyone’s accounts. They just need to back up the accounts of those whose their Censorship Division decides to delete. It would be very simple for them to simply change the account to private, inform the user of the pending deletion, and in a week actually delete the account.

This would give them an opportunity to allow the user to object or appeal the deletion as well as reverse any “mistakes” on their part. it would also give a user and opportunity to retrieve any unbacked up photos that might exist in their stream prior to Flickr permanently and irrevocably erasing it when they nuke it.

Doing this would involve no additional storage and no additional engineering resources. It’s not that Flickr cannot do this. It is that they will not do this.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:08:18 +0000

I have a hard time believing that the reasons why Flickr will not offer this sort of safety net have anything to do with engineering resources.

I don’t think the problem is engineering resources, but storage resources to keep account backups. A couple months ago when Flickr started doing real-time stats for pro users, they had to delete everyone’s all-time referral information from the servers. They admitted that they just didn’t have the processing and storage capacity for both features — and in fact it was a bit of a debacle because they didn’t realize that they were so limited on storage until they turned on the real-time code. I think that Yahoo has drastically limited the machine resources available to Flickr.

By: Thomas Hawk

Thomas Hawk — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:11:40 +0000

.if i spewed insults at you via mail on Zoom, can you honestly say you wouldn’t nail that delete button?

Yes, Omsel, I can say that if you spewed insults at me via mail on Zooomr that I honestly would not delete your account. But again, this conversation really isn’t about Zooomr, it’s about Flickr.

Personally I’m a big proponent of freedom of speech.

By: Omsel

Omsel — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:54:25 +0000

Thomas i was just checking of course and your site is more counter culture so we can’t expect the same issues. Flickr was also very liberal in its begginings and remains so within limits today. Having been in and out since its start i really have never seen someone deleted unfairly. Many claim this is so but case in hand….if i spewed insults at you via mail on Zoom, can you honestly say you wouldn’t nail that delete button?

By: Thomas Hawk

Thomas Hawk — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:10:10 +0000

Omsel. I believe that Zooomr does have the ability to restore deleted accounts. Then again Zooomr doesn’t have a Censorship Division that is in the business of deleting user accounts willy nilly, so as Celine mentioned, I’m not really sure at least that part is an issue. I’m personally not aware of a single person who has ever had their account terminated by Zooomr staff.

This isn’t really about Zooomr though, it’s about Flickr.

By: Omsel

Omsel — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:36:27 +0000

Can you imagine a server failing on Flickr and losing a zillion pics?…it would be a death blow to Flickr…of course they are backed up and can be restored. Now any logic would determine their incapability is nothing more than a political crock of shit.

Yes i would expect Zoom to be more liberal as people who live in glass houses… … yet Flick is gigantic in comparrison and must please Mr & Ms Peabody so they can’t afford that they are lessthan perfect and made such a blunder.

Nothing is perfect, yet back on subject, why should these people endure such an insulting tirate from a famous bad photog on a site they truely love and work for? If i ran Flick i would be on the next flight to Van and kick his butt for real,real good…..