It is easy to become a member of a group, once a member of the Flickr community; you can become a member to different groups with common interests. The groups are brought together by many different things, some groups are large, with 976 members in “The Cat’s Meow” or “Crazy Cats”; some groups are smaller, like the group named “Niagara Falls”, with only 269 members. Any member of Flickr can join or start a new group. When you start your own group, you can establish settings that allow you to decide who will be allowed to be a member of your group. You do have the option to set it that only your friends or people you have set as your “contacts” can be members of your group.
There are community guidelines set by Flickr administrators for proper code of conduct in their online communities. Lovingly signed, “The Flickreenos” ask their members to be respectful and play nice, there is a mention of copyright laws, and a warning for posting illegal or illicit pictures. “The Flickreenos” often write in a more relaxed tone when addressing their members, giving a more relaxed feeling to your experience when using Flickr. The relaxed tone that is used is similar to the way you may address your friends; this is fitting because, in a sense they are encouraging you to make friends through their site. By addressing members like friends, the minds behind Flickr are tempting you to browse some groups, and become interested in their other online communication to make friends.
When you are browsing through the many, many groups on flickr, one thing is obvious; the possibilities are endless. There are very large groups to extremely small groups. There is a group named “B&W” dedicated to all black and white photos, that currently (10/26/06) has 29,047 members, and 521 discussions inside of this group. (Visit Black and White Site ).
In this virtual community, people come together and make posts, to form a discussion between other members of the group. Let’s look at some of the reasons that members in the “B&W” group communicate with each other. One member started a discussion with a question, claiming she is new to photography and basically asks a question about use of filters to the community. This question yielded 28 responses. So, here this member addressed her community for educational purposes, asking a question with her ignorance to masters of the photography hobby. The question here rises… Are these responses she received from her discussion thread credible? Who is to say that these people are credible photographers, or that the information they are providing is correct? (Discussion)
In the Flickr community specifically, credibility is mostly based on your photos. In this group, photography is the topic of conversation; so the members can establish themselves as credible by having well taken, professional pictures in their photo pool or as their member icon.
In online communities it can be difficult to establish yourself as credible. It is comparable to how you gain trust in the real world: It varies with everyone. Some people are too trustworthy, and some people are very reluctant to tag you as trustworthy. It is the same in the online world, some members are very trustworthy, and after chatting with someone a few times they may consider them a friend, and take what you say as credible. Then some members may never trust you, no matter how you have tried to prove yourself credible.