The Flickr Social Interaction Element
I hate it. Yes, it's only because I'm old, cynical, and have that "I've seen this crap way too many times to give a rat's ass" mentality. I guess that's why I'm not a social anthropologist.
Update: I tried to explain what I was talking about in a comment, but it probably didn't make any sense. In any community, online ones seem particularly vulnerable there is a cycle of growth, death, and sometimes re-birth. Newsgroups, mailing lists, that old dial-up bbs you used to login to...they all were small and nice at one point. Then they got big. Then an annoying person came in. They didn't know they were annoying, or maybe they did and just didn't give a damn. Either way, everyone else knew and it turned something you liked to something that bugged you.
It's really hard to explain this without sounding like a jaded, cynical bastard.
Comments
I'm not up on the squared-circle phenomena. Can you explain what is going on here? What is wrong with rollenran's circles?
Posted by: dirvish | April 18, 2005 9:45 AM
What I don't get is the popularity of the Squared Circle group. Why is that concept so popular? Why do so many people go create these pictures and upload them there? That's the thing I don't understand.
Dirvish: the problem is that the edges of his circles don't touch the edges of the squares. That's one of the cardinal rules, as far as I can tell.
Posted by: Tommy Williams | April 18, 2005 1:07 PM
Rules are rules, and that's fine. It's just the whole social trying to be understanding and touchy feely while having everyone follow a strict set of rules in a system that doesn't automatically enforce rules. Just think back to that first "off topic!" USENET thread you got involved with...pre-Deja News USENET too...
Posted by: Pat Berry | April 18, 2005 10:51 PM