Laurel contest update – please read!

Hey folks, just a quick technical note on the contest, which is ending tomorrow.

It has come to our attention that Flickr puts a few restrictions on brand new accounts.

What does this mean for you? Essentially, if you are new to Flickr, your photos may not be showing up when we click a tag, even though they show up in the group.

The reason is simply that Flickr does not want people signing up for new accounts and using tags and groups to spam people. So Flickr wants to verify that you are a real user and not a spammer.

If you have a new account, here is what you need to do:

Upload at least 5 public photos to your account.

When you have uploaded 5 photos, this is a signal to Flickr to verify your account.

From this point, it can take a few days for Flickr to verify that you’re a real person. Since many of us weren’t aware of this (myself included), we’re going to make sure that everyone is included by waiting one week before beginning judging. So the contest still closes April 30 at midnight (that’s tomorrow night), but the judges won’t begin making choices until everyone has had a chance to get verified.

So if you have a new Flickr account, go ahead and make sure you’ve uploaded 5 photos. They don’t have to be of Laurel, and they don’t have to be posted to the group… you can upload pictures of your pets or whatever. The important thing is that you have 5 or more public photos.

Sorry for the snag, this isn’t something we were aware of. BUT we are going to 100% make sure everyone is included before judging!