You’re right, I had misattributed the start of the thread to you. I’ve corrected the story above, please accept my apologies.

That said, you did quickly join the conversation, saying “I’m glad I’m not the only one that feels this is an important issue.” And, in my opinion, the discussion wouldn’t have been as rich or instructive without your contributions.

Those who read the four pages of the thread will eventually get to the discussion about personal settings and more complex filtering. The story above leans heavily on the early stages of that discussion, which still centered on the existing “may offend” button and the difficulty of deciding what is offensive in a community as globally diverse as Flickr’s. What you seem to ignore in your response here, however, is the legitimate criticism that a larger censorship mechanism such as you suggested could be “gamed” to illegitimately censor any type of content.

It’s worth noting that one of the reasons this story had been sitting as a draft for the past year and a half is that I don’t have any good answers about how to both preserve free speech and keep Flickr from becoming a porn-dump. And while we disagree about what is or isn’t offensive, I very much value the community of Flickr users.

What I do know, and it’s the point I was trying to make, is that more often than not, the majority of Americans have upheld our First Amendment right to free speech, rather than countenance censorship. And in the long run, it’s discussions like this that shape and enrich our communities.

There’s not much I can say to this – it was a long time ago, and there were many heated arguments thrown around on all sides. However some of those that I argued with most vehemently waaaaayyyy back then have become good friends of mine (as far as flickr friendships go).

The biggest point I tried to make in that entire thread – that kept being pulled off-topic by people trying to get into arguments about morality (always attacking mine) and what-not, was that we should have a personalized way of filtering out content rather than just a “may offend” button. And I am hardly the first or last to bring up that subject, nor am I the only one who subscribes to my view of what constitutes pornography. The definition of “art” and “porn” may be subjective to some, but that doesn’t detract from the ulitmate point that people should have more choice on flickr in what to block from their view.

I just can’t believe that after all this time I’m finding this being brought up. What a wonderful thing the internet is…