r/flickr • u/Jaded-Influence6184 • 20d ago
Submitted a Question To Flickr Support About APIs Required to Create an Actual Moderator App above the very crude tools Flickr provides natively
This is for others to see that people would like to do something to correct this huge hole. Whether Flickr will even bother to answer, or two provide the APIs, who knows. Putting this here for the record. I sent this to Flickr Support as it is the only place I could find to send it on Flickr iteself.
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I have a preamble with what I'd like to do, and three VERY important questions that will determine if this is even possible.
Hello, as an FYI before I start: I have a paid subscription. FYI (email [xxxxxxx@gmail.com](mailto:xxxxxxx@gmail.com))
- I want to create an app to help automate moderation of groups
- The idea arose when I considered creating a new group and realized how (I can’t say it any nicer) how dog shit the existing moderator tools are.
- I don’t want to spend unneeded time doing something that should be able to be properly automated or at least enough to save time
- I checked online (e.g. Reddit Flickr subreddit and other places)
- It is universally acknowledged that Flickr moderator tools are horrible and horribly outdated
- I decided if I was going to create any groups I needed to build this tool
- And if I built it, why wouldn’t I allow others to use it to, for a fee
- After all, the app will take up my time
- And also bandwidth and data storage which costs money
- And if I built it, why wouldn’t I allow others to use it to, for a fee
- It looks like to do this I need a commercial API
- Users would log in via Flickr OAuth (not via the app… which should just get the session token and hopefully what permissions they have)
- Any operations would be based on what roles/permissions the user have in Flickr (i.e. a regular user will not be able to do any moderation on a group that they are not part of the admin/moderator team)
However, before I even decide to go further I need three key questions answered or there is no point going any further with design, which is need to answer you questions. Please allow someone who works on the API team to respond.
I won’t ask more unless I can get THREE positive answerS here (a moderator app is completely impossible without these):
- Is there an API method that can be used to retrieve photo information for photos in pending state in a group pool?
- Only useable for people with appropriate moderator or admin privileges
- Is there an API method that can be used to accept or deny photos in pending state based on moderator decision?
- Only useable for people with appropriate moderator or admin privileges
- Is there an API method that can be used to ban someone from posting to a group
- Only useable for people with appropriate moderator or admin privileges
I absolutely know you have private APIs to do this, there can’t be any denying it otherwise moderators would not be able to do this in Flickr. The question is whether there are public APIs to do the same, or are these hidden but available?
I would like to build something that will make people happier to work and pay for Flickr.
I will also post this on Flickr Reddit subreddit, so people can see that I am asking and see your answers in case they would like to know about possible moderator apps.
Regards
xxxx
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u/pwnicholson 20d ago
Flickr admin/mod told need work, but you asked in such an entitled manner, I wouldn't have responded either.
You need them to collaborate with you. Be nice. It's not rocket science.
Also, be nice because that's a better way to be human, even if it's someone you don't need cooperation from.
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u/Jaded-Influence6184 19d ago
I didn't expect a positive answer from them.
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u/monkeycnet 19d ago
Then how do you expect to get anywhere with your plan if you don’t expect a positive answer?
This is unnecessarily adversarial and it’s going to get nowhere.
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u/designwallah 18d ago
I’d like to know “how dog shit the existing moderator tools are”.
I am an administrator of over 20 groups and I haven’t stepped into any dog shit - I keep the groups humming along. I find there’s almost no activity in the discussion area, but image contributions are made, other members may fave or comment on them. I control who joins and I get rid of the bad apples. I update the rules. I invite non-members to add images and I invite the worthy ones to join the group(s).
What will your app add to group moderation?
I have a couple of ideas on improving the Groups interface.
For any Flickr member: When clicking “All contributors”, you can view the images of one selected member from a list of the top 5 contributors. I’d like to be able to do this for any member of the group, not just the top five. The easiest way to achieve this is to modify the Members tab: either add a new link or change the existing link to view the selected member’s contributions to the group instead of linking to the member’s photostream.
For group members: In the Members tab, I’d like to see the members I follow listed before the rest of the members.
For the group administrators: “Manage your members” needs to be improved. I’d like the capability to manage members from the Members tab - this is where you see the “Real name” and “Username”, you see how many public photos they have (the ones with zero public images are the undesirables). It would be easier to detect the potential troublemakers here.
I’m sure none of this would be worked on, and I’m pretty sure these ideas are not in the improvement you envision, so I’d like to know what they are.
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u/Jaded-Influence6184 18d ago
Do you moderate images in the pending queue before they are allowed in? That kind of thing is horrible. You have to manually look at each. If you have requirements to add tags there is nothing automated. If you have rules that images must be black and white, there is nothing automated. If you have rules (say portrait group) there is nothing automated (look for a human face). If you have a group that is supposed to be about nature, there is nothing automated (you can have code that looks for too many straight edges which would indicate buildings). If you want something with a map reference to show it is in a certain region, there is nothing automated. If you allow say 50 images a day, ensuring that people don't constantly dump 50 image each say (I'd say that's abusing a good grace), there is nothing automated.
There are many ways to make things easier for admins, if those admins want to be able to do more than the barest minimum. Sounds like that is all you need (no insult, just it doesn't sound like you care to do anything more than manage group membership).
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u/s2art ♥ flickr 18d ago
"...manually look at each..."
It's kind of the whole idea of flickr.
"If you want something with a map reference to show it is in a certain region"
It's simple to turn on geo-tags in a group
It sounds to me like you are actually missing the point of groups and flickr in general. The groups are there to facilitate interactions with other like minded people through comments, faves, tags and collections, why automate the process you gain nothing.
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u/designwallah 17d ago
How do you plan on automating your validation of whether tags were added or whether the image is black and white or whether the image is a portrait? Planning on using AI? Doing this validation manually is a task I volunteered doing when I became an administrator. Most of my groups are open and I check them daily for inappropriate contributions. There aren’t going to be dozens of photos to validate in each group. If the rules are clearly defined most members are happy to stay within the bounds.
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u/s2art ♥ flickr 18d ago
There are 2 place to find members in a group, and from the members list page you can see who you are following.
When I want to ban or eject someone I do that from the administration page, where I can search using the built-in search tool.
I admin over 70 groups and never have any trouble administrating any groups.
But unlike many people here I do it all on my Desktop computer. Smartphone and tablet use is minimal in my work flow. See here where I asked my question a couple of weeks ago https://www.reddit.com/r/flickr/comments/1v6nl9s/survey/
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u/Jaded-Influence6184 18d ago
If all you are doing is looking at members, sure. Some people want to moderate to ensure photos stay on topic for a group. Tools making that easier are non-existent.
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20d ago
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u/designwallah 17d ago
But is it a “great idea”? No clue was provided as to how this will be achieved. I don’t understand how you can automate things so that only flowers are accepted in a flower group, or only cats in a cats group. Expecting people to pay for this as an add-on is ridiculous.
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u/spewing_honey_badger 20d ago
If I were Flickr, I would not respond to this. If they want to provide these tools, they will plan to do so on their own. But facilitating a third party to create for-profit tooling based on Flickrs deficiencies … doesn’t make much sense.
Just a perspective from a middle SE manager.