Yes, yes, I know. I disappeared for, like, a year. It's a long, somewhat horrible story. For those of you newbies who don't know me, um... well... hi!
I'm a Kossack community-building attention whore from way back. I like all the aspects of this community that are all about building the human bonds between us: the snark, the personal stories, the pop culture threads, and yes, even the pooties.
In that spirit, I've started a Flickr group called Daily Kossacks.
Details below.
So, hyperbolic pants explosion, what's this all about?
Well, it's about two things, really. It's about having a central place for us to share all the photos and videos (yes, Flickr does video now) they'd like to share with their fellow Kossacks. If you have some awesome photos you want to share, but don't feel like posting a diary, just upload them to the Flickr group.
Second, it's about reminding ourselves of the real humans on the other side of the User ID. Election season (as we've seen already) gets a little squirrelly around here. That's not going to stop just because the primaries are over. The hope is that, if you've seen your fellow Kossacks snapshots and videos, you might be less likely to get into an intractable flame war with them. We're all basically on the same side here, right?
Um, what's Flickr?
Flickr is a photo sharing site, with a pretty good social networking aspect. You can upload your photos and videos, and people can then view them, comment on them, and even annotate them with mouseover notes.
As an added benefit, Flickr gives you a place to host all the images you want to post over here in diaries and comments!
Is Flickr free?
Yes! A basic Flickr account is free! The free accounts have monthly upload limits, and a few other minor restrictions. For most people, the free accounts offer plenty of photo fun, but if you'd like unlimited uploads, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited storage, you can opt for the "Pro" account. It's only $24.95/year (less if you buy multiple years at a time), and is well worth it, IMO. See the Flickr FAQ for more details.
So, what are you waiting for? Go sign up!
What are we allowed to post to the Flickr Daily Kossacks group?
Pretty much anything you want, as long as it's not pornographic. You don't have to post just political things, either. If you want to post a self-portrait, or a snapshot of your family, or a pootie pic, be our guest! It's also a great place to post pics and video of rallies, protests, events, as well as all your funny photoshopped goodies!
There are only three rules:
- You can post up to 20 photos/videos to the group per day. This limit should be enough to capture the highlights of events like rallies, but still prevent anyone from flooding the group. If you really need to post more than 20 photos of an event, please post them in blocks of 20 over several days.
- No nudity or other explicit sexual content. That's not my rule; that's Flickr's rule. In order to keep this group public instead of restricted, that's the deal.
- Please consider adding your Daily Kos User ID to the "Tell us your Daily Kos User ID" thread in the group's discussion forum. You do not have to do this, but it would be nice for your fellow group members to be able to connect your work on Flickr with your work here.
Sounds cool. Can you sweeten the deal?
No, but I can show off this cool movie-inspired self-portrait I just uploaded to Flickr today! See how much fun Flickr can be?
Mojo for the first person to ID the movie!
Now, it's your turn!