Open Letter to Stewart Butterfield of Flickr.com

Mr. Stewart Butterfield,

If you have not yet been made aware of the events i have been caught up in on flickr, i request you do some investigation and some serious consideration about the ENTIRE situation instead of focusing on my singular and individual actions.

Why i am writing:

Flickr is an amazing community. But it is also, somewhat unfortunately for some, a commercial entity. Being a commercial entity means that individual attention to individual or small groups of members becomes difficult if not near impossible. Sometimes, however, it is important to take the time to personally handle some situations that are not "by-the-book."

In law, there are precedents where a law is changed due to special circumstances and as a result of imbalanced application of said law. People in the right positions can make that happen because they are given, have created for themselves, or have earned, the ability to make change for the betterment of the application of said laws, or in this case "terms of use. "

i request your involvement and i request your consideration for the way the flickr "Terms Of Use" have been applied, in an imbalanced manner, to handling a situation i was dragged into by a flickr member named Dave Sewell (known as angelfishsolo).

Straight out: i feel that i have been:

1. Harassed and intimidated by Sewell.
2. Pulled into Sewell's crusade against people he dislikes simply because they associate with me.
3. Censored by flickr staff (Michelle).
4. Not given consideration for human behavior and emotions in a situation of "response to fight or flight" impulses.
5. Harassed and intimidated by flickr staff (Michelle) in with a blanket and convenient choice of interpretation of flickr Terms Of Use in order to silence her or flickr's discomfort with my responses to the assaults from Sewell (including appeasing of Sewell's inappropriate complaints leveled against me when he baited, deleted and complained in order to "rile me up").
6. Stolen from, in the form of my recently renewed flickr pro subscription which should not end until about June 2008, as all of my account content, and the account itself, was deleted instead of dealing with the actual source of the conflict as stated by myself and at least three other members of flickr which Dave Sewell has harassed and intimidated (including using the method of attempting to impersonate another flickr member).

i have made many responses to the address given me by Michelle at flickr when she began to censor my photostream. i have made responses through THIS form.

i have been irate, i have been anxious and frustrated, and i have been less than cool-headed, calm and considered about my response to the instigated conflict.

i am attempting, now, to try once more to appeal to reason and seek proper consideration and peace with flickr and Michelle, if possible, or to request that i be given a refund for my unused flickr pro account time.

The history of this event can be found (mostly) on a backup i created on my blog at http://dysamoria.com/blog/2007/08/the_microcosm.html and in further posts on my blog at http://dysamoria.com/blog

i admit to being reactionary, frustrated (and frustrating) and zealous in my actions. i have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and insomnia from being abused by people just like Dave Sewell in my former career. i was triggered. i admit this and i appeal to your empathy as a fellow human being who deals with stress and snowballing events.

i do not regret my intentions: to seek public justice for the victims of Dave Sewell's abuse.

i DO regret the way i have unintentionally helped myself appear to be a problem user to flickr staff, including Michelle.

i do not regret my statements of fact to Michelle or my posting of her ineffective and insubstantial responses.

i DO regret that she may feel targeted by me because of my declarations of her management of the situation. It was not my intention to make a personal conflict with Michelle, only to demonstrate to the public flickr audience that i strongly felt the situation was not being handled properly by FLICKR STAFF in general. i do not know Michelle and never before interacted with her.

i wish to point out that my photostream had been somewhat recently reviewed and was passed as being "self maintained" or "self moderated" in a good way. i also wish to point out that i have several fellow flickr friends who have expressed agreement with my view on this situation and a generally positive standing with those i have interacted with on flickr, save the minority of users who have felt the need to project their issues upon me, such as Dave Sewell.

The people involved in this particular situation can be contacted by flickr staff to verify my actions and statements. At least two of them have reported complaints along side my own.

Last considerations:

1. Deleting me does not protect anyone on flickr. i was not harassing, intimidating or otherwise bothering any flickr members. i was RESPONDING to harassment from flickr member Dave Sewell.
2. Deleting me does not solve the actual core problem of harassment, intimidation and, yes, impersonation, being carried out by Sewell.
3. Deleting me encourages Sewell to continue to damage the wonderful community called flickr. He has accomplished his mission: he has hurt a fellow member by attacking me and having me deleted.
4. Deleting me does not encourage my thoughts of well being towards flickr and its staff. i feel victimized, harassed and abused by flickr staff and i feel that flickr staff and the TOU have been used as tools by the Sewell, the person who is the root of the problem and the person who initiated this entire conflict. Frankly, i'm hurt.
5. Not taking action against the true source of the conflict (Dave Sewell) means that he is still free to continue his anti-social misuse of flickr, causing widespread hurt and unease among the rest of the community. His actions fit the profile of a sociopath very clearly and his continued presence on flickr is likely to be the same as it has historically been: disrupting the community from within.
6. Last of all: CENSORSHIP. You once cited that the TOU has at times been misinterpreted in a way that uses the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the law (or, in this case, the guidelines flickr has set forth to try creating as harmonious a community as possible). i implore you to consider that this has once again occurred and to seek to rectify it as soon as possible. In my eyes, censorship has once again occurred and i know that flickr is fighting a double edged battle with the image of censorship and the application of "rules from on high" between the parent company and the users/subscribers. If the events that occurred around me are "Flickr Approved" then i am likely to feel that flickr is indeed more focused on censorship than freedom of speech (within its groundwork for making the community a safe and comfortable one for all members no matter their origin and political or functional interest in the community). This is not a veiled threat. As a person with Asperger's Syndrome, i speak my mind, directly, with verboseness and with little self censorship. i do not, as a rule of my neurological wiring, lie, seek to distort the truth or desire misrepresentation of ANYTHING (myself or others). i am honest by compulsion and this is part of the cause for my heated response to the situation. i am inclined to rationalize that censoring my particular individual "facets of diversity" was not the intention of Michelle or flickr, but i do emotionally feel put down and hammered into "my proper place" because this kind of miscommunication and overly aggressive use of application of openly interpretable rules and terms upon me is a constant in my life. (If you think dealing with me is difficult, you should see what it's like to be me in a society that is fundamentally different and sees me as a defect needing correction and censoring).

i hope that this message has reached you, and i hope that you can find the time and the motivation to investigate this situation in an objective manner and that we can come to a peaceful resolution (i would very much prefer to have my account reinstated as it was prior to Michelle's first "censorship" or some other negotiated state, than to have a refund - i really do love the community and the potentials of flickr to build connections between people around the world that surpass location, religion, race, nationality, neurological makeup and other such limitations often imposed by humans upon each other).

Thank you for your time in reading this and for your consideration. Please do not hesitate to contact me directly at the following accounts:
dysamoria@dysamoria.com (my flickr registered email)
...

-jace cavacini
[deleted] flickr subscriber