Links to photo-sharing sites allowed?

College Confidential Community
1

I’ve been informed that despite the rules stating no links to images, links to Flickr are allowed. Are links to other photo-sharing sites also allowed? Which ones? If not, why Flickr and not others? Moderation on CC generally hews pretty closely to the rules, which means it’s pretty important to have the rules clearly enumerated.

Thanks!

2

@marvin100, the reason that links to Flickr are allowed is that it’s a MODERATED site. They state, <<all content="" on="" flickr,="" public="" and="" private,="" has="" to="" be="" appropriately="" moderated="" as="" “safe”,="" “moderate”,="" or="" “restricted”="" using="" our="" safety="" filters.="" if="" your="" judgment="" proves="" poor,="" we’ll="" moderate="" account="" match="" appropriate="" categorization="" for="" safe="" search="" type="" send="" you="" a="" warning.="">>

We don’t allow links to UNMODERATED sites to avoid inappropriate content.

3

The rules do not specifically ban links to images. We don’t allow embedded images within posts.

No

Flickr is allowed in the same way that YouTube is allowed, in that inappropriate links within those domains will still be deleted by this moderating team. YouTube, as you may recall, at one time was not allowed to be linked here. However, since both sites now have fairly stringent moderation policies to delete content which violates their ToS.

4

Thanks for explaining, mods. I’m still a little surprised since Flickr allows explicit images–am I right that it is the fact that its images have content settings/categories that makes the moderation level acceptable?

5

As I said, it is not a blanket statement that all Flickr (or YouTube) links are allowed - they are not. And those links which violate our ToS will be dealt with accordingly.

The decision to allow Flickr links was based, in part, on its use of content settings. That decision, though, was made when Flickr was under the Yahoo! umbrella. Whether it warrants a revisit based on the fact that it’s now run by SmugMug is a different question.

That decision though is above my paygrade, but it is a valid question to ask the admins, which I have just done.

6

Thanks, that’s helpful.

7

@marvin100 As a followup, TPTB have concurred that links to Flickr will no longer be allowed, in line with our prohibition of linking to other photo-sharing sites.