Re: Flickr Shield of Excellence
August 24th, 2007I don’t know if this is some sort of scam or scheme, but when browsing comments on flickr you see more and more of those Congratulations, please add your photo to our group kind of postings. I have no idea what the purpose of this is, are the group owners getting any benefits out of this or is it really just because someone likes the picture? Anyway, it feels a little like spam or other dodgy scheme. Unless that group is full of picture researchers, curators and other important people who can make you f-a-m-o-u-s.
But then, I am probably just bitter because none of my pics have ever been invited to anywhere. Well, not really.
August 24th, 2007 at 23:50
oh, there you go again being petty, just because you haven’t gotten one of these “badges”
i’m not sure they’re a scam (i tend to doubt it) but they ARE ridiculously cheesy (those last two examples above are howlers).
I have an idea for a group/badge:
“Congratulations! Your pic becomes nominee [sic] of the ‘This is What Stephen Was Talking About Group.’ Your pic is worth ‘a 1,000 pieces of shit’ and exemplifies with utter clarity the ‘all conventions, all cliches’ that Mr. Shore found when he went to Flickr. Please add your pic to our group. Make sure it is tagged ‘TIWSWTA.’”
September 7th, 2007 at 23:11
I think the idea is that in return for having strangers go to the group, you will get the existing members to look at and favourably critique your own work - a sort of mutual back-slapping, although there are similarities to pyramid schemes also.
September 9th, 2007 at 13:19
I absolutely hate those little “awards” or “badges” with a passion. It brings down the entire experience of being on Flickr. It just feels that those posters are trying to take advantage of the popularity of my photograph in order to bring more Internet traffic to their groups.
October 29th, 2007 at 12:42
Hi, I am the group Admin for Shield of Excellence, and yes the badges and all the other awards that go along with flickr, are there to make the photo more popular. The way thesystem works is the moment your photo is uploaded, it is watched on how many views and comments the photo gets within the time the photo is uploaded. This is just a little insight on how flickr works. These awards and badges are included in Flickr’s most popular photos.
-Audubon