February 24, 2026
Clean links, dirty fight
Unsung heroes: Flickr's URLs scheme
Fans cheer clean links while commenters feud over slugs, speed, and what a “good” URL looks like
TLDR: Flickr’s old-school, clean links sparked fresh love—and a fierce debate—over dropping “/photos,” adding wordy slugs, and whether query strings are actually clearer. The thread shows URL design still matters for speed, reliability, and ease of sharing, turning a nostalgia trip into a practical web design showdown.
Flickr’s clean, human-readable links are getting a standing ovation… and a comment-section bar brawl. The piece praises old-school Flickr URLs for being short, guessable, and easy to share—no messy symbols, no confusing extras. Many readers swooned, with one calling concise URLs underappreciated and a sign that someone actually cares. But then the nitpicking knives came out.
Team Minimalist wanted even cleaner links (drop “/photos” and add a wordy slug), while the Ops and Backend Brigade yelled, “Not so fast.” One engineer warned that removing “/photos” could slow everything down and make error pages harder, because the site would have to check if every first word is a username. Another shot down the “cute slug” idea: change the title, break the link—ouch. Their compromise? Add a slug but ignore it in practice… which sounds like a vibe-only address.
Then a curveball: a commenter claimed old-fashioned “?set=2546&pic=8597” is clearer than “/2546/8597,” igniting a nerdy identity crisis. Meanwhile, veterans reminded everyone that this wasn’t just Flickr—clean links swept the web around 1999–2000 thanks to server tricks, and Flickr just made it feel classy. The mood: nostalgia, nitpicks, and a surprisingly spicy fight about slashes.
Key Points
- •Flickr’s late-2000s URL scheme used clean, readable paths without “www,” “.php,” or query parameters.
- •The design enabled efficient navigation via typing and address bar autocompletion, and easy hierarchical editing.
- •Short, predictable URLs fit well in emails and Markdown and avoid truncation in modern tools.
- •The article proposes potential refinements: removing the /photos segment and adding human-readable slugs; considers name-only identifiers.
- •Flickr’s approach contrasted with typical parameter-laden formats like Photos.aspx?photo_id=..., and attribution is speculated (unconfirmed) to Cal Henderson.