Flickr’s “award groups” are just like candy
One of the most interesting sides of flickr has to be the social and community features: anyone can create a group and build a small, or not so small, community around a given theme,feature,camera,etc. (just like I did for Nikon FM2 owners). Nowadays there are lots of groups available and eventually the rules for some have become more and more complicated, like: must comment/tag/favorite (any combination of those three actions) X photos for each Y photos added to the group’s pool.
The latest trend in flickr is “award groups”, where you “award” (add a corny, colorful, flashy and sometimes large image) an existing photo in the group’s pool or, much worse, invite a photo to the group’s pool. These “award groups” are a bit like candy: it may taste good but in the end candy will give you teeth cavities, become tired of all that sweetness (check the figure below) and get absolutely no nutritional value. In other words: these groups “pollute” the comments area, have almost no meaningful information and are useful only to feed someone’s ego.
PS- For a kick-ass, but not for the faint-hearted, group head to Delete Me Uncensored.
Justin said:
I feel your pain, and actually made a greasemonkey script to combat it. Search for “flickr no awards” on userscripts and you’ll find it.
20 days after the fact.