Flickr's launched "The Commons" community tagging project
Posted on: January 19, 2008Remember when I recently asked, "How much would you pay someone to tag your Flickr stream?", going beyond the monetary implications to express how I felt community tagging could increase the findability of archived photos?
I'd say "great minds think alike", but there's no need for me to invoke the principle of the obvious here: Flickr's announced, "The Commons: Your opportunity to contribute to describing the world's public photo collections."
AFAIK, this is the first large-scale project of its kind, and it'll likely be more publicized as days roll on. I like how they state this:
The key goals of this pilot project are to firstly give you a taste of the hidden treasures in the huge Library of Congress collection, and secondly to show how your input of a tag or two can make the collection even richer.
Exposure to possibly interesting historical photography and making them more accessible? That's something I can live by!
On the Second Life front, I gotta give a special shoutout to Dedric Mauriac, who continues to churn through my vault and has tagged well over A HUNDRED (!) of my photos by now. This is also the part where I apologize for not being able to reciprocate better, and thank Dedric for his ample, and at times humorous help!
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January 19th, 2008 at 7:30 AM PST
That is so Millionth Circle! I know Jung is all out of fashion these days, but sometimes it really does seem like there's a collective unconscious. It makes me feel better about humankind in general– sometimes Good Thoughts really do penetrate the aether and become real.
January 19th, 2008 at 9:41 AM PST
Hi,
We have a project similar to the LoC pilot project, called “PhotosNormandie”, which is alive since one year about:
http://www.flickr.com/people/photosnormandie/
For now, descriptions are in French language and we are trying to improve them. So, we invite comments to get better localisations, better identifications, check and verify information, etc.
A main difference between the two projects is the following: we are using IPTC metadata that are embedded in our hi-res photos, but LoC does not use IPTC and their descriptions and tags are attached to Flickr platform.
With best regards
–
Patrick Peccatte
January 20th, 2008 at 3:33 PM PST
@pia qi: First time I've heard of the "Millionth Circle", thanks for the intro. It reminds me of the saying, "You are what you think", and if someone's mind is predominated by happy thoughts, it makes sense that they'd become increasingly happy. Particularly as happiness compounds and becomes part of a "positive feedback loop".
@Patrick: Ohhh! Intriguing. I appreciate you letting me know about this. What's notable about what you're doing is breadth of language. And BTW, that's one of the most elaborate and well-explained Flickr profiles I've ever seen.
January 20th, 2008 at 4:13 PM PST
Oh cool. I was just doing them while I browsed through some of your old pics. Just a few each day. I was a little shocked to find one of me dancing with you and a few others. I didn't remember that moment at all.
January 27th, 2008 at 5:00 AM PST
@Dedric: One of the best reasons I take pictures… to save those moments! I often find memories get triggered.
February 3rd, 2008 at 7:00 PM PST
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