Flickr: Open Up Tagging Your Photos to the Community, Please [en]

Tagging one’s photos precisely on Flickr can be a bit of a drag, especially when you upload [over 200 conference photographs](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/tags/reboot9) full of people you don’t necessarily know. Personally, I go through my photos once before uploading them, and the last thing I want to do when I’ve uploaded them is go through them *again* to add tags.

However, I find myself looking at other people’s photos with interest, and it doesn’t take much effort to quickly add a tag or a name while I’m doing that.

Unfortunately, many Flickr users open up tagging only to their contacts (the default, IIRC). My account was like that for a long time. When I [met Derek Powazek in Lausanne](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72157600211444307/), he told me he had opened up tagging to everybody on Flickr, and that people really participated. I decided to try, and it works. **And** you do retain control in case somebody does something stupid (happened to me… maybe once?)

(I could show you pages and pages and pages like that for [my Reboot photos](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72157600294706591/).)

So, please, do us a favour (and do me a favour, if you’re taking photographs of me and not [tagging them stephaniebooth](http://flickr.com/photos/tags/stephaniebooth/ “Most of them by me, see?”)).

Go to your [Photo Privacy Preferences page](http://flickr.com/account/prefs/photoprivacy/?from=privacy) (this link will take you there if you’re already logged in to Flickr) and make sure it looks something like this:

Then, add tags like [needstags](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/tags/needstags) or [needsnames](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/tags/needsnames) to encourage people to help out. And pass the word around to your friends…

Thanks!

**Update, Friday 21st**

I just realised this is not retroactive. So it only applies to the new photos you upload. If you want to change those permissions on your previously uploaded photos (which I recommend!), you need to [go through the organiser](http://flickr.com/photos/organize/). I’m not sure there is a way to do them all in one go.

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