Friday 25 June 2010

Flickr should adopt Due Process for user community

Many of you who use Flickr may know that people are deleted without any warning or justification given, and can not appeal. I support the following principles:

1. Flickr should implement a policy of warning before deletion for all accounts not in violation of civil or criminal law.

2. Flickr should implement a policy of review after deletion providing the opportunity for a site to confirm to ToS in order to restore site and content as was.

3. Flickr should provide the means for users not in violation of civil or criminal law to download the metadata, tags, discussions and other content that was produced by them on Flickr before deletion.

4. Flickr should make an effort to have a more consistent and open Due Process of enforcement of ToS.

5 Flickr should provide specific ToS violations for deletions upon each deletion.

It is not only the case that these principles will satisfy the demands of many Flickr users, but would also build a greater degree of trust between Flickr's content producing community and the company.

These concepts are in fact in the best interest of all involved. The existence of Due Process regarding enforcement and deletion of accounts not in violation of criminal or civil law will build a greater degree of trust by users.

Content producers will have more trust that Flickr is a service that can be trust. This could help slow the flow of users to other services that has so harmed Flickr in past years.

Also opening Due Process would improve overall enforcement of standards. Presently Flickr is dependent upon a small hand full of administrators with limited time and resources. Administrator decisions are entirely secret. By opening process of review of the community Flickr can establish a greater form of Open and more democratic governance without having to expand total cost of operations.

Open Due Process will also improve the security and safety of all users.

Join the debate http://www.flickr.com/groups/dueprocess/

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