heather Champ is awesome. And this profile of the community and Champ does a nice job providing some background on how Flickr manages its community, the heart of the site. A couple weeks ago i found myself in a meeting rattling on about "the soul of a site". The folks in the room politely smiled, but i’m sure i didn’t make much sense. This article gets at it much better than i could have, by focusing on the "spirit of Flickr".

The essence of Champ’s job, she says, boils down to defending this
imprecise but holy "spirit of Flickr." Indeed, imprecision is an art
here. The list of community guidelines
is an assortment of lawyer-vexing instructions like "Don’t be creepy.
You know the guy. Don’t be that guy," and "Don’t forget the children."
If you’ve spent any time online, you instantly recognize these to be
meaningful and clear edicts. Champ is only half joking when she says
her is responsibility is to keep things from "encroaching on Flickr’s
serenity."

"The job always comes down to finding the fulcrum in the
teeter-totter, the balance that benefits both the individual and the
community," she explains."