[Nicole]

I am feeling concerned and would love some reassurance.

While I was looking at all the beautiful new o+s outfits, last night, I read a comment that I found a little creepy.I reported it to Flickr and I see this morning it has been deleted. This has upset me more than I realized,and I am not sure that I feel safe popping my children photos on any more.

Is anyone able to help, I am quite naive in the ‘ways of the web’, Thankyou.

[Anonymous]

I didn’t see the comment, so I’m not sure exactly what was said, but I know creeps look around on the internet for pictures of children all the time. There is an option to make your photos only visible to “friends” but I think it would be impractical to try and make everyone who comes to the flickr pool a “friend”. Even then, I’m pretty sure that any time you add a photo to a group pool, your privacy settings are overridden by the pool’s settings which specify to make all photos public.

I know that many people simply don’t post pictures of their children because they don’t want weirdos looking at them. I’ve thought about that and for me personally, I’ve decided that creeps will be creeps and they might see an anonymous picture of my children but they aren’t going to hurt them or me with their thoughts about them. I’m sure creeps see my kids as we are out and about in our town but I don’t keep them home because of that. I’ve decided to just post the pics and ignore the weirdos. I know not everyone feels that way, though.

I hope you’ll keep posting their pics – I so enjoy them.

[Nicole]

Thanks so much Sahm, thats just what I was looking for.

Everything you say makes such good sense, I just panicked, and needed some affirmation that it is okay to put my children in the group photo pool.

You have lifted a huge weight from my shoulders.

Thankyou!

[Anonymous]

🙂

[claireabel]

Sounds horrible, hope you are not too freaked out Nicole.

I try not to put my kids’ faces on public sites like Flickr. I can’t say exactly why, just don’t like doing it. There’s the privacy issue too for me. Any photos with them in it are usually cropped at the neck unfortunately!

But as Sahm said, the weirdos are everywhere, not just on the internet. Someone stupid enough to leave an awful comment on Flickr is probably just attention-seeking and trying to stir up a response.

[April Henry]

This is a good topic. Another thing to be mindful of… when someone marks a photo as a “fave” be sure to see what other photos they’ve marked as “faves”, too. I had a flickr mom e-mail me once to alert me of someone who had some questionable photos mixed in with little boy photos in his fave section. She notified me that my son was one of several boys in the line-up. I immediately marked it as Private and ‘blocked’ the person from viewing my photographs.

That said, I’m with sahmcolorado on the rationale of photos versus weirdos, but I took a stand for that particular situation and am mindful of ‘fave’ marking now.

On a similar note, if you mark your photos ‘private’ then they remain private, group or otherwise. If you want them to show in the group for all members to see, they have to be marked for public access, otherwise, only the group owner can see them if they are privately marked.

[Sarvi]

While I think that the news tends to sensationalize and over-emphasize ‘stranger danger’, I also sometimes buy into it and feel a little panicked. You can’t help it; as a parent you feel so protective, but sahmcolorado makes an excellent point — you have to go ahead and live your life. April’s method of checking to see who’s marking your child’s photo as a fave is smart and can help you pick out the creeps. You can also check the number of views your photos get — I’m guessing you’d see a large number of views shortly after you first post to the group, whereas a sudden spike later might be worth looking into.

Go ahead and do what you need to do to feel comfortable, because I know we all like sharing our sewing!

[claireabel]

April that’s a good tip, can you tell us how to check which photos have been marked as faves by others?

Hope this doesn’t stop people posting their sewing, I love the Flickr group!

[Toyota888]

Great discussion. I have taken the sahmcolorado approach too – although I find it creepy the main thing for me is not to give away real names or information that could link to my real child. So while I show faces I never use names. Now that you say that tho I have a photo of my middle son in sandbox pants with no shirt that I think I’ll go an make private!!!

[lattemama]

This is an excellent topic. I have a very “erratic” approach to it and I have to say I’m not always consistent.

I usually mark all pictures showing my children as Private but visible to friends and family.

If I want to make one of these photos available to the O+S group I can and all members of the O+S group will be able to see it and comment on it, not just the owner (Liesl I guess), but it will still be unreachable by anyone else I haven’t connected with.

I feel this is an ok approach for me. If I still get weird comments that will be because someone has joined the O+S group who is not there for the clothes and I know I have several people to back me up against that individual.

[Nicole]

I would like to thank everyone for their comments and support, I really appreciate the time people took. There has been some excellent protocols suggested to put into action.

I will keep posting photo’s as I do enjoy the comradeship , I may just be a little more aware.

[sayiamyou]

I wonder about posting pictures myself. I didn’t know you could block a specific user though. That’s good info to know! Thanks April!

[KarenK]

I use Flickr often and mark all photos with my children’s faces as “private”. If I want to post it on a photo sharing group like O+S I crop the picture (using the program in Flickr)so that my child’s face doesn’t show. I do have a few older pictures up that show faces but anything in the last few months has been cropped.

[Sarvi]

On a lighter note, since I would like to share my non-public photos with other folks here, I have added a few people I recognize as friends on flickr. I know there can be some weird social pressures around adding people as a ‘friend’ and it may feel strange for somebody you’ve never met to mark you as such, but please know that it’s just a mechanism for sharing photos, and there’s no need to reciprocate.

[April Henry]

I just received three e-mails from a person (I’m assuming from Russia based on their e-mail search engine) which had SEVERAL photos of my children attached that they had downloaded from Flickr. They inquired about advertising children’s clothes. I’m now feeling a bit nervous and vulnerable considering my previous post on this thread…… I’m hoping this is legitimate. Has anyone else had this inquiry?