Flickr have finally released their photo classification and categorisation system, along with some improvements into how it communicates the status of help calls. Given the wide range of photos available on the site, there have long been issues with differences of opinions about what was considered ‘decent’ or art, about what could be shared with the world and what should be kept between friends. The new changes allow users to categorise their photos and then to select what type of images they wish to see. Open to all, no problem it’s as easy as only seeing the safe ones.
* Uploading: The new system enables you to categorize everything you upload by Safety Level (safe, moderate, restricted) and Content Type (photo, art/illustration/cgi, screenshot). So as an example, you can set a default preference to tell Flickr you generally upload safe screenshots.
* Searching and Viewing: The reason you need to place your content into the categories above is so that content filters can be applied later on, both in search and in your general browsing around. There is a new search preference available to you, where you can choose what content you’d normally like to have show up in searches (e.g. photos and screenshots), and a safety level you’re comfortable with.
* Your Account: You can now set up default categories for your uploads and set your SafeSearch preference. As a bonus, you can also hide your photostream from public searches on Flickr (and from any 3rd party sites that access Flickr via our open API)
* “Flag This Photo”: The “This may be offensive” link has expanded to a widget where you can change the categories associated with individual images, and we’ve updated the Organizr so you can edit stuff there too (both individual photos and in batches)
* We’ve heard your feedback: The status of your account is now noted on Your Account page.
Great news to help you manage your experience on the site.
