That should be very easily doable and would be much better than the current situation because the original BS and the BS that sometimes continues in the Dumpster is still too easily viewable as just another thread on the Threads List page.
Just create a sub-domain for dprevived and put the Dumpster there with a link to it in the thread posts came from on the main dprevived domain.
Thanks for the thought.
The MF Forum over at DPR is currently doing just fine, and as long as that’s the case, I no longer see any need to replicate it here.
This site should have its own identity.
Jim
I posted the following in another part of the site, then I noticed this discussion. It seems more relevant here although I don't discuss Alan's document specifically. I'll get to Alan's doc in due course but after a quick look, I think we are on similar paths.
@bobn2 has written:
@Rich42 has written:
So let me ask again. What is that difference.? What is your Vision for the site?
Read the OP.
Yes, that's what we need to discuss.
However, my vision for the site and some practical considerations are not quite the same.
A site has to be able to survive, whether or not it achieves the vision. So first some considerations on what I think is needed to survive.
1. A site has to be able to make $ for long term survival. The work behind the scenes is huge. We ask a lot of these people if they are getting no return. Enthusiasm is much appreciated but eventually that has to run down. Conclusion 1. This site needs to have a long term plan that generates at least some $ for the managers. Advertising? Subscription? Sponsorship?
2. Photography sites are doing it tough. I think the hero days of photography are behind us. Cameras are universally getting too good and too automatic. Cameraphones ditto. We are drowning in images and it is now easy to access the work of the greats. Photobooks and quality photo prints are a declining market.
"Gear" remains a major interest. DPR had this sewn up. It wasn't just the current forums, the search facility gave the ability to go back years when you wanted info. It was a great place to discuss how to do things, or work around or other operational questions relating to particular gear. Their database of cameras and their reviews stretched back a long long way. This covered hardware, software, processing, auxiliary equipment, news. It has been an invaluable resource. It still is. I can't see any way it can be competed with so let's not try. Gear reviews require deep pockets and they have to be up to date with the latest. It is noticeable that DPR is already falling off the pace here. If they can't do better they are doomed. PetaPixel is picking this up. PetaPixel also has a comprehensive collection of tutorials. They are organized to be accessible for beginners to advanced. It's a resource that is valuable for photographers at many levels. PetPixel doesn't run forums.
DPRevived has been wonderful but I can't see it being able to compete in these areas either. It relies on participants notifying about news they have spotted and I don't think this is comprehensive enough for the need.
There remain a couple of areas where the door is wide open.
The image itself. It always looks nuts to me that so many people want to talk about the gear but have so little interest in the images themselves. That is, beyond the "Wow, that's sharp" and "Fantastic colors" level. If you are going to spend all that money and time and things that make images, it would seem to make sense to spend time on developing your critical skills. Critiquing is complex. There are many different ways to look at images and many different ways to create them. There are several benefits from a regular habit of critiquing. You improve your own photography from the feedback you receive. You sharpen up your own photography by really thinking about what others are doing. Best of all, you increase the pleasure you get from images.
It's hard work, you need to really look and it takes time. You will regularly find you need to reassess your thinking.
For these reasons I find the Weekly C&C thread on DPRevived to be invaluable. There is nothing I know of like it elsewhere. I also appreciate that the admin has put critiquing prominently on the home page so that more users of this site are likely to find and explore it. The flat forum view makes discussions difficult but I know the admin are working on threading. Fingers crossed.
The other doors that look to me to be open are genres. Street photography is huge with twenty somethings. Landscape. Travel, portrait, abstract. concert. The list goes on and on. News of exhibitions and books in the different genres. Unlike gear reviews, this doesn't have to be up to date. A reference section can be incorporated and added to by participants. I've been building up a list of references re critiquing that may eventually be attached to the C&C forum.
My conclusion. Carve out a niche that is based on images. This in itself wont be enough. Some kind of coverage of new developments will still be needed and I am unsure as to how this might best be managed. I have some thoughts on it but it is too early to discuss them.
Mike,
Good thoughts and, in broad terms, they do match what we want to do.
Alan
One thing I've been missing for many years,
after I lost my tutors.
-The Idea in the Back- [IitB]
-- > What was your idea /your expected results when you raised the camera and started shooting
Posts of images ... with a written account about:
why you shot them,
how you wanted the result to be
what did you do trying to obtain it
if you reached that result or not
or
what brought you to unexpected results, like low image/beautiful image.
like my tutors when they were showing me their fantastic films pics or their horrible errors )
Too many astounding e-pictures get boring very soon
( and you never know what the author did, if it was shooting or editing )
PS: I want to see more unedited pictures
Unsurprisingly, I see this differently. 'Reasonable' is a tricky word. My problem was particularly with people who insisted that they impose their own preferred moderation policies, and when they received pushback decided to leave in a performative manner. Whether you think that's 'reasonable' or not is up to you. We have never operated without moderation, and the basis for it was published and agreed early on in the ToS and guidelines. I think that your characterisation of their being 'no moderation' is misleading. The 'sense that DPReview' does makes it clearer, but we had that discussion at length also. We aren't going there.
That's complex. It opens the "previsualization" discussion that has also been running in different places. How far do you subscribe to the Ansel Adams Zone system philosophy?
By and large, I do. When I take shots I'm generally thinking about what I'm going to do with processing and especially cropping. I can change my mind on these as I see them on a large screen and think about them more. The image I presently have on the latest Critiques forum's Weekly C&C thread for this week is an example. I always intended cropping the shot. When I looked at it on a screen, I decided to make it a considerably tighter crop to make the reflection more prominent. Saturation was increased to bring out the golden colour of the horn. None of that would have surprised me when I took the image however.
ie., I regard the editing as part of the process to the final shot and I'll shoot with this in mind.
I think this is core to the difference between an image sharing site and a photographers' site. In a site that's just about image sharing. a photographer is just about spreading their work and having people say 'wow, that's a great photo', or not - as the case may be. On a photographers' site, the image is being shared, but the community is one of creators, who won't just think 'that's a great photo' but also 'how do I achieve something like that'. That's one reason that photographers' sites will tend to include exif information. Not that it tells you everything about how the shot was achieved, but it does tell you something.
It will always be a discussion, simply because there is more than one way of skinning a cat. A photographer who takes a great shot might be able to say how they did it, but that doesn't mean that it's the only way of doing it, nor does it mean that other people following their path will always get similar results. But, I would think that the expectation would be that on a photographers' site there might be discussion about technique that you wouldn't find on an image sharing site.
It is a tricky word. I perceived them as 'reasonable' when they were posting their images, commenting etc. before and I'll gladly admit that some of that went out of the window at certain points in the discussion about moderation.
But I also think that almost everyone has a theme or sore point, where they can't handle being challenged. I certainly have those areas and I assume you might have as well. For the users mentioned (and many people in general from my perception) this seems to be the case for their moral belief system. Of course you have a right to challenge them on that as well and if they decide to leave because of it, I see it as their choice and not your fault.
I seem to recall though that you tried to caution others not to assume the worst when someone writes incoherently or doesn't spell things right, because it might be caused by some medical condition or a language barrier. So I'm asking myself why you can't show that restraint when someone voices their support for a stricter moderation policy (they wouldn't have any way of imposing it anyway) and just leave it at: "We won't do that! We already explained why." and maybe a link to a post where you and others of the team have explained your reasons in more detail. You probably assume that those people might have left in protest anyway, but I think it was at least in part their perception of being attacked by one of the owners of the site that drove them away, and not just their frustration about the lack of strict moderation. At least that's how I perceived those instances. I can't claim to know that's any closer to the truth than your perception.
As you can see by my quote above, I'm absolutely willing to give your approach and ideas a fair chance. But I'd really appreciate it, if you could also show some leniency towards people who never had a problem with the moderation style at dpreview and therefore assume it might work well elsewhere.
It wasn't my intention of characterising it as such... I'm sorry if I made it look that way! I actually don't see the current state here as 'no moderation', hence the quotes around it. But it was and seemingly still is perceived in that way by a number of people, many of which you already had a discussion with. Because of the fact that it was discussed several times already, I suggested - in a reply to @EdShapiro who brought up the topic of moderation here - that this probably wasn't the place for it.
I want a place where human beings, humble enough,
will be able to post "normal" shots that were difficult to conceive.
I don't want great shots,
there are too many of these around posted "for the show" >look I'm a grrreat photographer<
I don't need wizards of editing showing their deeds on a PC with fabulous results.
Or*** you can compose a picture or you cannot,
Or maybe you're not good enough with a camera and you need a PC support.
-> Legit questions arise, very often, in my brain <
A space for ...
Just human beings with eyes and a brain, and in in their hands
a camera films, DSLR any sensor dimension, ML, or a phone camera
( that's art - the rest is electronic painting )
That’s broad minded of you. In the film era, did you refuse to dodge, burn, intensify, tone, or spot?
Yes.
once and only once to make happy a friend
Some of my shots were burned green
( and won a price under another photographer's name )
PS: nothing against PRO and ART Photographers
A lot against people unable to bend to a normal level.
( they may be Plumbers or Doctors... I don't care )
What does that even mean? Bend to a 'NORMAL' level?
I used to really enjoy darkroom work, and now I enjoy processing and post-processing images. Personally, I have little time for the 'straight out of the camera' approach, but I have zero objection to people doing their photography however they want. I somewhat unreasonably think that maybe they could reciprocate by having zero objection to me doing my photography as I want.
I have zero objections myself about how others act.
Some objection when whatever is shown has no story but only feathers' level
If you do a house, you may use meters or decimeters. Centimeters will do in some cases.
but millimeters and nanometers are there just there for show.
you can build a beautiful home not even once using nanometers.
That's the difference between a SHOT and a PICTURE
WE are going OT - I stop here.
My meaning and proposal
or at least what I intended ... to have a place where to discuss how a specific shot is done.
- >the other side of techs<
I will give you a sample ... a post I just discovered today:
the story of a shot where the shot is at the center of a story
www.nikoncafe.com/threads/when-life-slaps-hard.346367/unread
Just a case of where you put the decimal point. There is no difference between a metre and 1 000 000 000 nanometres, and if you're trying to design a camera sensor, then you'll find a lot of leading zeros if you do it in metres.
i totally get where your coming from. there's nothing worst than a highly edited portrait posted and then the photographer raves on how good the lighting equipment is. they cant really shoot an out of camera shot to save there life. and most keyboard photographers are the same. its why very few actually post any images to prove there critique worth on others images. but who really cares everyone enjoys a different level of enjoyment from the hobby.
