Flickr, or Not To Flickr

Each year for the past four or five, I've examined my purposes and other aspects of Self when it comes time to renew my “Pro” account on Flickr. Pro is their term; all it really means is unlimited uploads and storage, plus some other detail sorts of things, but for my purposes unlimited storage is the primary.

Over time, I've watched the “Stats” functions and my viewership (for lack of another word) grew over that time. Still not stupendous perhaps, and that could well be related to how much activity I put up there. Things are somewhat slow over the past year with only 13 uploads. Of those, a good handful qualify as “sketchbook” (images with minimal post-processing) or as “joke” (images contributing to some other type of humour, elsewhere), and very few as my more or less final pieces. Also, the 'custom URL' to link to Flickr is … less than straight-forward from the Artist point of view, since Flickr chooses to promote themselves over the name of the Artist. We Artists do like our names to show first, eh!

In short, my whole use of Flickr changed over time. And while it may be good to provide a scrapbook for viewing, I'm not sure said scrapbook is truly worth a cost of $24.95 US. And some is related to another Flickr related issue which is annoying me a wee bit.

Some years back, I do not remember when, I attempted to set up a second 'free' Flickr account. Attempted is not totally correct, as apparently I succeeded. However, I don't recall the exact user name (couldn't use what I wanted because that name linked to my current Flickr as the screen name, even though the login name is different). I did set it up using the (relatively) newest e-mail address I use. The original Flickr is tied to an older e-mail address which I rarely use and in fact am considering eliminating totally, as another economical thing. However, I can't get at this other, second account because I don't remember the login name exactly, nor the password, nor the answer to security questions, nor a lot of other things.

The account management help process is where some of this frustration comes in. They want me to prove I truly 'own' this account. That's related to knowing login names, proving e-mail account ownership, and answering security questions per above. Mixed blessing; it is proving difficult to do this which means it is quite difficult for someone who doesn't own an account to cause the actual owner grief by deleting it. It's also proving annoying since I really should like to change up on some e-mail addresses, and the easiest means to do this will be to eliminate that second free account, except I can't.

All in all, then, I'm asking myself one more time:
How much am I using Flickr these days, and for what purposes?

How annoying is it to not be able to eliminate an old e-mail address from that account, so I can eliminate the e-mail address itself?

Does all of this combine sufficiently to cause me to trim down what I keep on Flickr and allow that account to 'relapse' to Free, and leave it at that?

Here are some indicators:

Flickr:
1,625 items (Free, only 200 most recent show; will need to trim way way back, eh!)
Sets (Number of Photos In):
154 in OR Holiday Party
134 in Various Digital Point & Shoot
350 in Pic-O-Day
133 in Elizabeth & Gary 10-18-08 (nearly all these could go away...)
302 in Vegas D70s, 133 in Bellagio Fountain Show alone
105 in South Island New Zealand
152 in Collected Otterz Mob
These are only the ones with >= 100 plus photographs. There are a lot more sets.

Removing these or any others from Flickr that are linked to blog posts means the link will die. There are a lot of links; I'm not at all sure I plan on going back through things to edit those links. For one thing, storage elsewhere would first need to be arranged, and my on-line presence for my artwork is perhaps becoming a bit stricter these days. As in, this is my art work. It is serious. Even when it is a visual joke, it's serious.

I suppose I could do some sort of fund-raiser thing, Help Keep Mad Shutterbugs Flickr Alive.

So, now the Forum is open. Discussion follows.

Flickr, or Not To Flickr

Each year for the past four or five, I've examined my purposes and other aspects of Self when it comes time to renew my “Pro” account on Flickr. Pro is their term; all it really means is unlimited uploads and storage, plus some other detail sorts of things, but for my purposes unlimited storage is the primary.

Over time, I've watched the “Stats” functions and my viewership (for lack of another word) grew over that time. Still not stupendous perhaps, and that could well be related to how much activity I put up there. Things are somewhat slow over the past year with only 13 uploads. Of those, a good handful qualify as “sketchbook” (images with minimal post-processing) or as “joke” (images contributing to some other type of humour, elsewhere), and very few as my more or less final pieces. Also, the 'custom URL' to link to Flickr is … less than straight-forward from the Artist point of view, since Flickr chooses to promote themselves over the name of the Artist. We Artists do like our names to show first, eh!

In short, my whole use of Flickr changed over time. And while it may be good to provide a scrapbook for viewing, I'm not sure said scrapbook is truly worth a cost of $24.95 US. And some is related to another Flickr related issue which is annoying me a wee bit.

Some years back, I do not remember when, I attempted to set up a second 'free' Flickr account. Attempted is not totally correct, as apparently I succeeded. However, I don't recall the exact user name (couldn't use what I wanted because that name linked to my current Flickr as the screen name, even though the login name is different). I did set it up using the (relatively) newest e-mail address I use. The original Flickr is tied to an older e-mail address which I rarely use and in fact am considering eliminating totally, as another economical thing. However, I can't get at this other, second account because I don't remember the login name exactly, nor the password, nor the answer to security questions, nor a lot of other things.

The account management help process is where some of this frustration comes in. They want me to prove I truly 'own' this account. That's related to knowing login names, proving e-mail account ownership, and answering security questions per above. Mixed blessing; it is proving difficult to do this which means it is quite difficult for someone who doesn't own an account to cause the actual owner grief by deleting it. It's also proving annoying since I really should like to change up on some e-mail addresses, and the easiest means to do this will be to eliminate that second free account, except I can't.

All in all, then, I'm asking myself one more time:
How much am I using Flickr these days, and for what purposes?

How annoying is it to not be able to eliminate an old e-mail address from that account, so I can eliminate the e-mail address itself?

Does all of this combine sufficiently to cause me to trim down what I keep on Flickr and allow that account to 'relapse' to Free, and leave it at that?

Here are some indicators:

Flickr:
1,625 items (Free, only 200 most recent show; will need to trim way way back, eh!)
Sets (Number of Photos In):
154 in OR Holiday Party
134 in Various Digital Point & Shoot
350 in Pic-O-Day
133 in Elizabeth & Gary 10-18-08 (nearly all these could go away...)
302 in Vegas D70s, 133 in Bellagio Fountain Show alone
105 in South Island New Zealand
152 in Collected Otterz Mob
These are only the ones with >= 100 plus photographs. There are a lot more sets.

Removing these or any others from Flickr that are linked to blog posts means the link will die. There are a lot of links; I'm not at all sure I plan on going back through things to edit those links. For one thing, storage elsewhere would first need to be arranged, and my on-line presence for my artwork is perhaps becoming a bit stricter these days. As in, this is my art work. It is serious. Even when it is a visual joke, it's serious.

I suppose I could do some sort of fund-raiser thing, Help Keep Mad Shutterbugs Flickr Alive.

So, now the Forum is open. Discussion follows.

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