As an experiment, André Rabelo posted this classic Henri Cartier-Bresson image to the occasionally vicious and always unpredictable Delete Me critical review group on Flickr a while back to see what they would make of it.
The Delete Me group pride themselves on being "nasty, mean, selfish and arrogant" critics of each others photographs. They claim to "only accept incredible pictures that are amazing, astonishing, perfect" and they challenge each other to post photos "to see how we appreciate them and how quick we will remove it from the group".
They dumped this particular Cartier-Bresson shot in the bin in a matter of a few minutes on the grounds of various perceived imperfections ranging from fuzziness and blurring to a poor framing of the subject -- much to the mirth of the Cartier-Bresson fans who came along afterwards and the 40,000 or so people who have viewed the shot since!
Like the Digg community and many other collectives, the Delete Me group appear to have a very narrow definition of what is good (in this case, technical perfection above all else) and they enforce this vision with zeal. Because of this, they, like many self-selecting groups, fall at the first hurdle of James Surowiecki's criteria for a wise crowd -- they do not have a diverse enough set of opinions.
Perhaps the Delete Me gang could learn from Marchel Duchamp who once said "I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste."
If you're interested the pictures that make it through the Delete Me filter, they are kept here in the Safe.
