Docs

In this documentation section, you can find:

• Information about what Data Lifeboat is (this page)
• Specifications for the machine-readable metadata files inside a Data Lifeboat (see data)
• The policies that the Data Lifeboat’s creator agreed to (see policies)

A Data Lifeboat is a self-contained archival sliver of Flickr.com. It contains photos and social metadata – the original image, any metadata added by the member who uploaded it to Flickr, and social context like comments and tags.

Data Lifeboats are created by the Flickr Foundation.

Eventually this page will have a more detailed description of what a Data Lifeboat is.

What’s in a Data Lifeboat?

When you open a Data Lifeboat folder, you’ll find the following files and folders:

• README.html – this is the entry point to the Data Lifeboat viewer. It opens a tiny app that lets you browse the photos and metadata in this Data Lifeboat.
• media/ – this has the media files, i.e. the photos and videos that are in this Data Lifeboat. It includes both small low-resolution thumbnails and high-resolution originals (if available).
• metadata/ – machine-readable metadata that describes all the photos in this Data Lifeboat. You can read the Data docs to understand the structure of these files.
• viewer/ – this has the code for the viewer that lets you browse the contents of the Data Lifeboat in your browser.