I’ve just been updating BBC Vision’s guide to using Flickr.  It’s never had a “closing a group” section before, which seems like an ommission, and so (in the spirit of sharing) here they are in a nutshell: 

1. For a Flickr group we don’t want to simply delete the group as this removes all traces that it existed.  Instead we can put the group into statis so that people can still see it, but so that nobody can contribute to it:

-          On your “discussion page” leave a message of thanks and goodbye in the group, saying that it is going to be closed (this should be done at least a week in advance wherever appropriate and possible).

-          In the “administration” section go into “name/description/url” and change your description (adding thanks and goodbye) so that it’s clear the group is now closed.

-          In the “administration” section go into the “privacy” settings and make the group “invitation only” so that no new members can join.  To let people who may try and join the group know that it’s closed, also create a rule which says that it’s no longer active, do this in the “administration” then “group rules” section.

-          In the “administration” section go into “moderation settings” and change to “disable posting altogether” so that existing members can’t post more items to the group pool.  In this section you should also “lock all discussions”.

2. To administrate the group you will have created a profile on Flickr too.  If this profile is also going to be unused

-          Go into “your profile” and change the “description” to make it clear that you won’t be posting anything from now on.

3. It’s also important to make sure that if the Flickr group images were being pulled into a page elsewhere that this module is removed.

Group image: thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/achituv/.