Or a lack-of-help forum. Still no response to a question posed 20 days ago concerning the pro user agreement.

and that response makes me simply want to take you off my networks. You know I can't do a fucking thing about that, but I DO understand why

the prevailing attitude is that it's better to NOT say anything than to have every letter and punctuation mark be dissected.

guess I'll take a plurk holiday, too. Cheers.

your willingness to "say something" in that latest thread, counter to the prevailing attitude, is much much appreciated!

(at least from me)

and i'm sorry I didn't get a chance to say as much there.

(add: I'm kinda scared to post that as a Flickr Ideas. I shouldn't be. Perhaps the "say nothing" mantra is contageous?)

I'm sorry if you found my response so irritating.

What I was getting at is that *in my opinion* flickr staff have brought this situation upon themselves by retracting into silence.

The less users hear from staff, the more incentive to overanalyze the little information available. It's a vicious cycle.

I'm not talking to you as staff here. I'm thinking aloud about the topic you raised. Again, sorry if this is disagreeable.

sorry, just pissed, when I do give more info than most, I get reamed by users just as if I'd given no info. no win.

pissed in general , ok? I'll feel better once I get home!

the reason you feel this way is because you're being hung out to dry by how flickr works tbh.

if the API optout was a full, legitimate optout, like everyone wants it to be, copyfighters and copyright maximalists alike ..

then you would have to explain things over and over and over and over again, like you're going to have to for the next X years.

other issues, like the one gustavo has, you're hung out to dry by TOS inconsistencies, corporate deals, whatnot.

flckr will never have a complete API opt out due to how the DB's structured. would be better to just warn people upfront what "public" means

i really feel for you, because you and the rest of the help forum staff do an incredible job dealing with a dysfunctional situation.

flickr can't even stick a "optout" flag on photos that outside developers could either respect or not depending on presentation context?

the DB structure can't be THAT inflexible.

and again, this is something everyone would agree with and would eliminate a good third of the griping in that forum.

and criz could spend more time shooting nerf arrows at other staff, and in the end isn't that what EVERYONE wants?

had little idea this was about the API, but can say one thing: not everyone thinks the optout should be absolute.

would even go further and support the total abolition of the API opt-out.

would equate API permissions to the permissions through the web interface. Opted out of searches? No searches.

Don't want strangers getting info about your stuff? Make it private.

put an optout flag on images from people who are opted out, so that poor alex at flickrriver doesn't have to deal with endless complaints.

"Don't want strangers getting info about your stuff?" misrepresents the problem. people aren't concerned about "strangers" or "privacy"

they're concerned about 3rd party re-publication. privacy settings were not designed to address those particular concerns.

The more the API is crippled relative to the web interface... the more page scraping there will be. Not a good idea.

it all makes my head hurt.

Hard to get into it effectively on plurk, but feel it is all about the system trying to satisy too many "sharing models/ideologies"..,

Without properly compartmentalizing those target audiences.

That is vague and broad... Alas.