Where we go from here

I think that as you define this site you have to recognize the talent you have here to bring to it and what audience you want to attract … We, the participants, need to tell you what we are looking for in this site and how we will participate, if allowed (the forums could go away!??)

What I've been looking for is an “active” photography site where we can discuss together the art, the technique and how to use the technology to produce our pictures!!! and maybe share some of our results and sit about a virtual table with our virtual coffee and discuss these ...… DPR was/is principally a gear site interested in the technology and the buying and selling the latest examples of that technology and a few threads such as C&C and 4/3 Weekly, and probably a few I never found, actually did approach what I was looking for …. I might like a Senior thread where we can discuss how our photography will evolve and adapt as we experience more limitations in out abilities to take those photographs … So there is my thought on what I would like to find …

Editorials are interesting but there are many sites wanting to provide information to us about what is going on and instructing us … I can usually find that in print elsewhere … Also threads that aspire to be instructive but wander off into Quantum Mechanics or other esoterics which are erudite and, I suspect, have a very limited audience, perhaps necessary (maybe like watching a cage fight … often ).. A recent instructive thread here on RAW Histograms that I briefly participated in took pages before I realized that my problem was understanding how it might apply to anything I was doing was based on a misunderstanding of how far the Raw conversion process was taken by the hardware and that the threads were actually about ETTR, which is interesting but not something that I practice regularly .. but I don't want to reopen that discussion HERE just noting my idiosyncrasies in participating here ….

Not yet sure about my continued participation here or over on DPR .. currently a reduced but continued participation on both …

WhyNot

I would like to applaud Bob and the others that stepped up in rapid fashion to insure that there was some soft landing for us when Amazon threatened to pull the plug on DPR. I have watched this site seek it's own identity and mission over the past few months and I think you have characterized it properly as a platform for those interested in discussing the intricacies of the technical issues of photography. However, as a layman, I do not see how I could contribute much to this site, moving forward.
I will continue to visit from time to time......good luck to all.

If it is your plan to keep feeding the pedants, this forum will be in the toilet.

Having no knowledge of how the new owners intend to run DPR in the future I am intending to continue my learning process as in the long distant past by reading the knowledge shared by Bob etc, if things change I may follow the original DPR but I spent less time there just before the closure announcement as it became nothing but equipment reviews, my interest is photography and I will remain with my existing equipment despite the popular mentality of chopping and changing brands because of a few changes/improvements ?

Hi,

I'm not worried. There is the Dumpster, after all. And, that's a difference I really like. The garbage doesn't suddenly disappear leaving me wondering 'wasn't there a thread about -insert topic here- ?? Or, am Iosing my mind?

I joined DPR so long ago because I was an engineer in electronics R+D who had a pretty good understanding of what happens inside a digital camera. I met this guy shooting at a race track, and he had this new review and discussion site, and we were both using Nikon D1 cameras.

I spend my time first in the Kodak SLR forum, but that's pretty much put to bed. Then the Nikon full frame SLR and Lens forums and the new Z one. Sometimes in the Printing forum. And, as I mentioned, in the Medium Format forum. But I don't pay attention much anywhere else on DPR.

Here, there is a big difference. Thanks to the lower traffic volume, I am always eyeballing Threads. So many things catch my eye here which I'd never see over there. That alone makes Here a valuable resource compared to There.

In time, the UI will change. I'm one for a threaded mode so when I detect a rabbit hole (topic change) which I don't wish to follow, I can just Read On around it. It's quite often that a conversation drifts as one thing brings another to mind. But I am in no hurry when it comes to this, like some others seem to be.

Stan

[deleted]

The bottom line for me is whether there can ever be a productive and thriving astrophotography and astrovideography section in this forum. So far that has been a huge no as there doesn't seem to be much interest around here for such. It is a very dead forum herein.

Yes DPReview is a hard act to follow, but those who say it is likely to suffer under a commercial-based corporate system need to remember that the original owner was Amazon dot com, and you don't get much bigger in the corporate world than that. Yet DPReview thrived, warts and all, at least in the astrophotography forums.

I don't like anal-retentive moderation. A freedom to express informed views is necessary within a learning and sharing community. But since "online" tends to mean "anonymous" these days, there are often a lot of rowdy posters in any lightly moderated forum that can make it not worth the effort to participate therein. So some moderation is necessary...

W5JCK de W2CK

Hi,

Maybe in time. Is there a core group doing that? Maybe some others you know elsewhere? Maybe get them to make Here home base for such.

Or we can just chat about amateur radio. 😁 I wonder how many of us are here. Now, this is a topic that wouldn't last any time at all elsewhere. Seemingly no connection to photography. I can come up with a slew of such photos, though. Probably be boring to most, though.

73

Stan

We would need to have a better idea of what you mean or intend in the line of enhanced gallery and display facilities Bob to be able to offer any meaningful opinion on that matter. As to changing forum structure, again I am uncertain what you mean. The structure as is works fine for me. That said, it may not work fine for everyone. Two members left here because they did not read the Welcome message Alan posted for me at the beginning of the 'The Weekly m4/3 Talk' subforum. They wanted to exclude participating members from posting images from non m4/3 cameras. If they had read the Welcome possibly they would not have posted what they did and I and others would then not have reacted to their contrary comments to the purpose of that subforum. They went to DPR Forums because we had abused them or their egos for expressing a differing opinion. My fault I guess, lack of sleep etc. Would a different forum structure help this? Perhaps. On the other hand I think the way the latest post in each forum grouping is shown to the right does generate some traffic that would not otherwise occur. That is a plus for me.

Long ago, DPR had a gallery widget that showed a matrix of the latest post to users galleries on DPR. I don't know how many were in that matrix but it was successful in driving visits to the galleries of members that did post images to galleries they maintained at DPR. I know that after the widget was removed the visits to images in my galleries dropped like a stone! I spoke to the then owner (or manager) of DPR at the time and was told that they were working on a new replacement for the widget. It never came to pass. Likewise another member of the DPR team approached a number of us about a new feature, Discover, a gallery view of images with not much else to it (no idea what the intent was as that was never made clear), but that also did not come to pass. DPR's closing may have been the driving force behind the latter.

Anyway, I am rambling so I will end here.

Andrew

Besides a lot of things this

is one thing I could wish for here. One click and I am where I want to be.

Here I use the threaded and it's fine for recent. Takes a little to get to a desired forum 😀

Also the chicken/egg... I like pictures. The scientific discussions are lower on my list but appreciated 😀

This definitely has appeal to me as a complement to DPReview. There's been a widespread trend of reactionary hostility towards experts, so hosting high quality content from folks who are well informed is a great niche to fill. I've already learned more from friendly folks in the UV/IR threads than I have from years at DPReview forums, and the creativity shared in the Adapted Lenses section is inspirational. That said, as others have expressed, I personally find a lot of the dynamics in Beginners Talk/Open Talk threads toxic and try to stay out of them. It's a pity, as I have come across some interesting and new to me information but the signal-to-noise ratio means I don't always want to open up the threads there.

Found the problem! 😁

More seriously, though, the issue is that so many people want an answer "in a sentence or two" and for it to build upon what they already "know". For example, let's say someone asks, "Why are my photos so noisy?" They want to hear, "The ISO you're using is too high" not "The photo is made with too little light. To get more light, you either have to increase the exposure time, which increases the risk/severity of motion blur, use a wider aperture (lower f-number), which will result in a more shallow DOF, and/or add in your own light (e.g. use flash)." Then, to make matters worse, you have trolls swoop in to muck up any chance, whatsoever, that the person might actually learn what's really going on.

It's not unlike the situation that plagues the US right now: to have a tolerant society, you cannot tolerate intolerance. But how, exactly, do you do this without it giving the appearance of censorship? Do you immediately move their replies to the dumpster? Do you flag them with labels such as "trolling", "misinformation", etc.? Because the person asking the question will like their responses much better than the correct responses -- they're so much easier to "understand".

The purpose of a forum is for people to share ideas and opinions. But it doesn't take many bad actors to ruin that, where by "bad actors", I mean outright trolling and willful ignorance. However, the question is how to deal with these, as they "slide in" to the threads in an insidious manner. For example, Porky's favorite technique is always to introduce "the exposure triangle" as a pretext to derail honest discussion.