Flickr users are a bunch of qq’ing babies [I Heart Internets]

Flickr recently rolled out its much anticipated video feature.  And everyone rejoiced and danced in the street, right?  Oh fuck no.  This is the internet, which means if people feel the slightest bit antagonistic against anything– anything at all– they like to blow the whole thing up into the greatest revolt since humankind started wearing pants.  Change a font color on your favorite website? Oh fuck no, let’s start a petition to get them to change it back from blue to green.  ZOMG someone added a feature to the site, destroying “the way it was”! WE’RE STARTING A NEW SITE GOD DAMMIT.

The scoop according to Wired:

One group, We Say No to Videos on Flickr, has amassed more than 22,000 members since Tuesday’s announcement about the photo site’s feature creep. A like-minded group, calling itself No Video on Flickr, has attracted more than 9,000 Flickr users.

“The big issue is the way it was implemented,” said Jason Bouwmeester, a systems analyst in Canada and one of the group administrators for No Video on Flickr. “There was no public beta…. They just reset everyone’s settings.” Users have complained about the video features causing the whole site to slow down, a possible influx of YouTube junk and the deviation from Flickr’s original purpose — photography.

The anti-video crusaders on Flickr are tagging their photos “novideo” and using graphics to express their disapproval of the new service. Additionally, a petition in multiple languages objecting to the videos has already been signed by 5,000 Flickr users calling for the removal of the feature.

Flickr purists have an affinity for protesting any changes related to the site. In 2005, some Flickr users threatened a “mass suicide” in response to Yahoo’s purchase of the photo site. And this February, Flickr users staged online protests amidst swirling reports of a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo.