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Welcome to Techsurvivors => Tech => Topic started by: Highmac on February 05, 2011, 03:08:58 AM

Title: Your Flickr pix - do you have a backup?
Post by: Highmac on February 05, 2011, 03:08:58 AM
You should have, since apparently Flickr does not! eek2.gif
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/02/technology...in&hpt=Sbin
Title: Your Flickr pix - do you have a backup?
Post by: Paddy on February 05, 2011, 12:15:23 PM
Actually, he got his account restored. From his blog on Feb. 2:

http://bindermichi.posterous.com/flicker-a...-round-up-day-2

More comments on the original blog posting:

QUOTE
But since the issue has been resolved, I can finally relax now. The account has been restored, including all the links and comments. the only thing missing seems to be on the other ends. My contacts don't list me as their contact anymore and have to reconnect again.

QUOTE
I got back everything I lost, despite the information that it wasn't possible biggrin.gif

Although I would have like to get this kind of attention for something more pleasant.

Especially with a the trolls calling me irresponsible, arrogant, and worse. I'm just a normal guy working in the IT business with a dedication to prevent things like this to happen to my customers. For me it is ofter very frustrating to see how little attention these things actually get in the corporate world until something like this disaster actually happens.

Looking at the total fallout of media coverage bashing on Flickr and especially Yahoo! this event will cost some people their jobs, and they will not be the ones responsible for the core issues leading to this situation. That's what I am really sorry for, and I actually hope that Yahoo! will learn something from this week... I really do

QUOTE
For the moment they restored all the "lost" data and gave me a 25 years free subscription. I would also have settled for control and ownership of Delicious, since Yahoo! is shutting them down anyway (and I really like that service)... but, if everything is back to where it was on Sunday I'm OK, personally.

Everything else might also depend on how much the press will continue to kick this story through the channels. For me this put Yahoo! in a position that foced them to solve my problem. For others this might not work this easy or fast.

And to be honest. None of what happend in the last days adressed the core issues, Yahoo! has with it's internal processes and financial situation.

In the end we can only sit back and wait for something to happen.


These are his responses to comments on his first blog post. (What I find really wacky are the nutjobs who attack him on that blog for complaining about the people who stole his photos, and then the other people who attack him for figuring out what it would cost to restore all photos and work IF his time was billed out at the rate his employer charged! There are some seriously hateful people out there...)

Of course, anyone who puts their pictures online at any photo site without keeping them backed up on their own drives would be a complete fool. (I'm sure there are some out there!) However, that wasn't the issue in this case - he had the photos. With the Flickr account deleted, he lost all the annotations and links both within the site and to external sites. Many, many man-hours of work would have been lost.

Yahoo/Flickr's mistake was to delete the account outright from their database. They could have simply deactivated it. It would appear that they did in fact have a backup from which to restore. I couldn't imagine an operation like that functioning without redundant backups. As we all know, drives fail, and databases can get corrupted.

What's really remarkable about this story is the amount of press it garnered. It's clear that this was NOT the only instance of Flickr doing this to a user - and Wilhelm comments on this in today's blog post:

http://bindermichi.posterous.com/flickr-fallout-5-days-later
Title: Your Flickr pix - do you have a backup?
Post by: gunug on February 05, 2011, 04:04:49 PM
Mostly I keep pictures in Flickr to post here or send links to friends or relatives.  I will have the original on my home drives or it's not that important.  I don't count on Flickr to do this although I suppose that if I were paying for it I would.  This actually isn't quite correct; I was told, back when I began to have Yahoo as a provider of email that Flickr was provided because they owned Flickr and SWBell and hence AT&T were paying them something out of my account.  I also had, at that point, a free account with SWBell which ended in ".yahoo" and it was rolled into my paid one (that is an email sent to one can be counted on to be found when you log into the other.  Not sure what this means with Flickr accounts but I'm sure that they'd like even more money!  rolleyes.gif
Title: Your Flickr pix - do you have a backup?
Post by: Xairbusdriver on February 05, 2011, 04:38:54 PM
I thought Flickr was a free service. dntknw.gif If so, why would I expect them to provide me with anything of value? dntknw.gif They are not  a group of people offering to help others. Or, did he have a "Flickr Pro" account? They are a company trying to make money from their users, either directly or from click-throughs. Period. If you are lucky, you get what you pay for. But, don't value what you get more than what you pay. dntknw.gif
Title: Your Flickr pix - do you have a backup?
Post by: Paddy on February 05, 2011, 07:11:14 PM
He has a pro account, Jim, and has had for 5 years.