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To those who want their account deleted: Hi there, I know that you are frustrated -- and we do hear you (we are frustrated too). We have new features to release soon and bugs to fix, as well. We are making progress on being able to delete your accounts, but our goals rest on making Zooomr fun and exciting for the people who actually use our site. We believe in helping the community, within the community; Help us make Zooomr stronger instead of wanting to delete your account! There are plenty of things to help on that we make available to our community and I would like to showcase just some of the users who are making Zooomr stronger each and every day: Celine: http://zooomr.com/celinec/Jeremy: http://zooomr.com/jeremybrooks/Fogview: http://zooomr.com/fogviewPing: http://zooomr.com/ping/chidorian: http://zooomr.com/chidorianbluemonki: http://zooomr.com/bluemonki/John: http://zooomr.com/johnshao/Shigekicks: http://zooomr.com/shigekicks/Yanz: http://zooomr.com/ontheroad/michelinux: http://zooomr.com/michelinux/Prolific Programmer (hdiwan): http://zooomr.com/hdiwan/And yet these are only a fraction of the people who have stepped up and make Zooomr better for everyone. Sure, I am still doing most of the work on this site and training others in our group on how to maintain it and build new features. We are asking for you to please understand where we are coming from. We certainly hear you loud-and-clear -- account deletion will be enabled when we are absolutely, positively sure that it does what it is intended to do. The message that we want to get across is that we can help you better if you can help us too. We do not run this site as if we are some big company and you guys are helpless sheep (like how they do on some other websites). Instead, we want to build a community where people can communicate, share and make friends -- and to do that, it takes a little bit of understanding and cooperation. Maybe some of you forget, but Zooomr is probably one of the only places on the Web where you have unlimited uploading and can say relatively whatever you want. You better believe that I and many loyal members (some of their names written above) have fought hard to keep this service alive for the entire world to use. We really want your help, because everyone is working hard for a better Zooomr. Hope this provides some insight. with love, kristopher |
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By the way! If you've helped with Zooomr, please leave a comment and I'll be sure to add you to the list!
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A post here was deleted on Sept. 21, 2008 |
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Not necessary to add me to the list -- I don't think bringing a pizza for you in the data centre counts as "help". I just wanted to let you, Kris, and the team know how much I appreciate the site. Keep up the good work!
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私がZooomrに登録した時もちろん使い方はちっともわかりませんでしたし、「全然わかんない」という旨をフォトークに書いても誰からもお返事は来ませんでした。日本語だったからです。
それはまるで、宇宙空間にメッセージを送ったような感じでした;)
その時の気持ちをよく覚えているので、日本語の質問をフォトークで見たら、出来る限り答えるようにしてます。自分で答えられないときは、そのフォトークが埋もれないよう「アゲ」をしますw
その他に、登録してくれた友だちにはどんなに時間がかかっても使い方の説明をし、質問に答え続けます。何人もいるので正直結構大変ですが、反面かなり楽しいです。
プログラミングとかできないので、これが私がZooomrにできるせいいっぱいです。
クリス、Zooomrをつくって運営してくれて、ありがとう！
リストに私の名前は載せないでいいよ。
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It's our honor, Kris. Thanks for your work.
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Well, I do have something to say. First of all to those who might not be happy with Zooomr I'd like to tell you that everything on Earth can improve of course, but abandoning the boat might not be the way to do it. Secondly, I'd like to say that Zooomr is not a place where to upload pictures but a real and effective way to share and moreover to learn from others. I have experienced it and I am really happy about all the thigs I have discovered through the work of all of those who believe on this great site. And last but not least, I'd like to thank Zooomr team because it is clear for me that they are just in the right way and I'm sure most of us who know this site believe the same thing. Thanks for your work.
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Well said, Kristopher. I'm proud to be on the list.
@Prolific Programmer: pizza is an essential part of life, so if you helped Kristopher and the team by bringing them pizza, then I'd say you were definitely helpful. :)
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Kristopher,
According to your response,
what it amounts to is this.....
"we"....you and your tech people and all of your loyal followers, are spending your time and energy working on goals to improve the site and features for all of the hard working, loyal followers. The ones that "actually use our site"....you know, the ones who think Zooomr is fabulous........and therefore... simply can not be bothered to find the time to work on something for those of us who are NOT loyal followers, and do NOT find our experience at Zooomr fabulous!
There are many reasons for my decision to opt out. The pompous attitude of your response is among them.
No matter how fabulous a loyal group of followers think this site may be, it is NOT fabulous for all.
For those of us who do not find it fabulous, for whatever reason, we would like to opt out, by deleting our accounts. But we can not. No, instead....according to you and others, we should reconsider....
and stay until we realize how fabulous it is?
And let me guess....you'll keep making it difficult until we do?
What we are asking for is not rocket science. It should not have to take months of pleas from so many people to accomplish....nor should it be addressed with constant excuses or by eager attempts to change our minds.
Maybe you should gather all those loyal, talented hard workers, who are so willing to help, and between the lot of you, maybe someone can figure this out.....and just do it....instead of trying to convince people to stay who do not want to.
Please...Stop trying to force feed us something we clearly do not want!
Insight? Hope this provides some for you......
Why would you even want someone as a member that did not want to be one?
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Rocket Science or not, it still takes time and effort by a small group of programmers.
No one is force-feeding as far as I can tell. There are no mass emails, no spam, no sales marketing.
Thanks team for the work you have put in.
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@sherricohen, thank-you for your response.
After taking everything into consideration, it is approprate that we focus on the people who actually take interest in the site and work with them to make our solution better.
No one is stopping you from altering your username and user data. We store an infinitesimally limited amount of info on our users. Surely that isn't rocket science, either.
kristopher
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you know what I heard, we will get a delete function, but it won't go into effect until its ready, which makes sense, you don't want to delete your account then have to check to see if it worked!
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Are there bugs in Zooomr? Of course. But there are bugs in other systems as well. I've looked at quite a few photo-sharing sites, and Zooomr is, IMO, the best out there. Where else can you get unlimited free uploads, and be able to upload high-res images? Nor is Zooomr part of a company that will impose censorship on pictures or words. I look forward to seeing what new features Kristopher and his team come up with, and I continue to use Zooomr as a place to showcase my work. Kris, feel free to add me to your list of people who want to make this place better.
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What is just unbearable on this site is Kristopher's arrogance in not understanding that:
- This site may not be suitable for everyone,
- Having the ability to delete your data is not a feature, it's a requirement when you host other's personnal stuff. Don't make me laugh with one-by-one deletion - when you have a couple of thousand pictures, how can you handle it that way?
- Some people are fed up with his endless promises to fix stuff and implement features (including the most requested one, account deletion - if he is so keen about pleasing the largest number, that's the one to go!)
- His style of replying is not different from what one would do to laugh at others. "Thank you for your flame. I'm so glad that we are part of such a great community, wheeeee!"
I'm following Zooomr since its beginnings - at first because I believed it would be nice, and then I saw the defamations against Flickr, the growing egos (ah, writing articles on Wikipedia about yourself and filming your life 24/7!), the miserable failures (anyone here who followed Mark III deployment?) and now the stagnation of a site that does not innovate in any way and spits on its users.
I guess we will all be satisfied and have our accounts deleted once they cease activity - but even that, they are slow at it. How people can still trust and follow this... uh company? will never cease to amaze me.
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So you can't get HIM to do anything, you WON'T do anything but complain! Where does that leave you? Take back your power and DO something or stop blah blah blahing!
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Eric, since you're so smart, can you please tell me what I can do (apart from complaining) to help getting my account deleted? Right, so please shut it up. I'd LOVE to be able to do something about it.
Those who want to participate to the community, participate. Those who don't want to be part of it should at least have the freedom not to have their data hosted here if they don't want to. The Great Christopher is always first when it comes to claim the supposed freedom Zooomr offers to its users (as opposed to the Great Satan Flickr), but you don't even have the freedom to leave it, and this has been running for years. Just as his lies and false promises. So yeah, I believe I have a legitimate right to complain about that. Your account information is your property, just like your photos - you MUST be able to alter and delete it as you wish.
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I think working on account deletion is not where Zooomr should focus it's attention. It would be nice if it can be implemented without too much effort but it's not a feature for users, it's a feature for people who no longer want to be users and are too lazy to delete their photos by hand.
Why should the zooomr team invest energy in creating features for people who no longer want to use the site at the expense of users who are happy with it but would like to see new interesting features. I'm sure there are not that many people who have "thousands of photos" on zooomr and yes, it's annoying if you have to delete them by hand but if you think it's that important...
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Agnostic, what you said is probably what the Zooomr guys are thinking, but I think you missed the point, which is that users must be able to have control over their personal data, pictures, personal information, and so on. This is even a right the law enforces. Thanks to some Greasemonkey script I have been able to remove my photos from the site, but even that way it was a pain considering the amount of them. Anyway. I have been one of the early Zooomr followers and have seen so many failures and bad attitude from them that I want to leave it. I think this is a legitimate right, whatever the reason. And technically, what is so hard about a couple of SQL delete statements? This is just the common bad faith from these guys. I feel for those who still have hope in this company when they will realize how they are making money with their work: By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.(in http://www.zooomr.com/about/tos/) Have a look at Japanese photos agencies' books, maybe you will have the honor to see your photos! But not the money, hey. :D |
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I don't always agree with Kristopher's way of adressing issues and handling things and can see why some people get annoyed with his way of communicating sometimes, but come on, he's a young guy involved in a huge project, cut him some slack.
Regarding your points of criticism:
You HAVE control over your personal data. The fact that you find the way that control is implemented inconvenient does not detract from that. An acount deletion option would be nice to have but it is a matter of convenience and nothing else.
Your reading of the user agreement is wrong. Zooomr reserves the limited right to use works "on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof."
As for your style of communicating:
The suggestion that your being held hostage is merely silly but your unfounded accusations that Zooomr is selling pictures for profit to Japanese photo agencies are ludicrous, in poor taste and probably legally slanderous.
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ZooomrHostage, you forgot to copy the entire snippet which also states that we do not own the rights to the works of our users -- but instead it protects us from lawsuits that might claim that we are displaying user photos (when infact that is the purpose of Zooomr):
Zooomr does not assert any ownership over your User Content; rather, as between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms, you retain full ownership of all of your User Content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your User Content.
So, in short -- you will not see your works in any other photo agency or in any place that isn't governed by the TOS of Zooomr's site -- it's done to protect you and us simultaneously.
Don't even think for a moment that we would subvert ourselves and our users by selling your photos to any outside agency. That's simply absurd.
Secondly, our system is not built on any sort of SQL system -- so, please don't be so cheeky about account deletion being just "a couple of SQL delete statements".
In scaling big websites, you can't rely on technologies like SQL. Google certainly doesn't (they use BigTable) and Amazon uses BerkeleyDB/SimpleDB. We have our own technology called KumotoriDB.
We want to make sure that when we delete someone that we're taking care of all the right information -- properly cleaning-up all content, etc.
That said, it is still on our list and it is certainly important for us to primarily focus on making a profit; to do that we need to make Zooomr even better -- and that's what we're setting out to do.
Hope that clears some things up.
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That did clear things up - I admit my wrong with my interpretation of the TOS. I wish you always had such a direct and clear way to address questions instead of that patriarchal tone you've used us to (of which the initial message of this thread is a good example). That you place user's right of leaving the service so low (realistically, it may be on your list but if you are waiting to make a profit to implement it we all know what this means) is still not acceptable to me though. And I don't think it's just a "matter of conveniance". More like "a matter of respect", the same respect that was missing during the catastrophic launch of Mark III.
Anyway, I'm done with my photos here so that's one less angry user , but I feel for the others who will have to go through the same boring task as I did (manual deletion). After the past failures and lack of civility towards concurrent services, I cannot reasonably expect this site to turn into something good. Good luck, still.
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