flickr msh

Flickr Monthly Scavenger Hunt (MSH) is a fun group. Every month, we put together 20 clues, and you get the opportunity to take pictures that represent anywhere from one to all twenty clues. You can play on just one clue, or all twenty. The photos you submit show up in our voting booth, where other members rate your pictures on a scale of one to ten. Your photos can be whatever you want them to be. Show a sense of humor. Showcase your photographic skills… or use your camera phone to take a quick snap shot. Part of what’s fun about MSH is that the experience is what you want it to be.

There are a few things that you have to do to play the monthly scavenger hunt. Just like tech support, when they ask you if your computer is actually plugged in, we’ll go from the basics to the technical stuff.

1. Join the group. You cannot play if you’re not part of the group!
2. After checking out the list of the current month’s clues, add your photos to the group pool.
3. We’re a family friendly group, so your photos should be considered “safe” by Flickr standards. Use your best judgment and you’ll probably be okay.
4. Tag your photos! The list will give you the monthly tag, as well as the tag for the specific clue. For example, January 2011′s monthly tag is msh0111, and the first clue is msh0111-1. By adding these two tags, the MSH voting booth will know which month and which clue the photo is intended to represent. Remember, each tag should be exactly those digits; nothing more, nothing less.

That’s all there is to submitting photos to the MSH. In order for your photos to show up in our voting booth, submit them to the group pool and correctly tag them. It sounds easy, but sometimes things don’t go exactly right. So what can you do to make sure your photos appear in the voting booth?

1. Remember that the administrators of MSH have to go get your photos every now and then, so your photos will not show up the moment you submit them. Generally speaking, we gather the latest submissions once a day. If an image hasn’t shown up after 48 hours, that’s when to do some extra checking.
2. Put your photos in a set, and compare them to what shows up in the voting booth under “My information and history.” If the photos show up in both places, you’re good to go.
3. Use ukslim’s photo checker to see if the image has been submitted properly. The photo checker tells you what might be wrong if an image is not showing up in the booth.

If you still cannot determine why an image is not showing up in the booth, please reach out to any of the group’s administrator’s for help.

We have some rules, which you can find here, but they basically say: only submit your photos, no videos, play from 12:01 a.m. on the first until 11:59 p.m. on the last day of the month (your time zone), have fun, don’t submit more than one photo per clue (but more than one clue per photo is just fine), it’s okay to replace your photos if you change your mind (don’t forget to remove the tags on the photos you replace), and did we say “have fun” yet? If you need help with any of this, please don’t hesitate to ask for help, but it’s up to you to make sure your photos are properly submitted.

Come to think of it… that’s why this Web page exists.

Last – most people enjoy the voting more than anything else. Go to the voting booth and see how other members interpret the clues. See if you don’t end up laughing a little, and maybe even looking at the world a little differently. But most of all – have fun!