Revised Forum Guidelines - Please Read

<i>...why not try a no

pics policy for a while and see how it goes??...</i>

<p>

I'll tell you how it'll go... You can expect some of the best photographers here to quit the forum and go elsewhere.

i also would like to thank the moderators for their hard work.

 

to me the most important aspects of the leica forum are the wealth of information of the gear, and the photos.

 

the most important change i would like to see adherence to civility, and prompt deletion, not of "flamers" per se, but of crude/inappropriate responders. we should be able to have fun and be feisty without being asses to each other, and we shouldn't have to tolerate individuals who repeatedly violate this rule of behavior.

 

the only rule i disagree with is #11. not only is the "rangefinder" style difficult to define, whoever said leicas were only made for documentary style photography? i enjoy the street photography as much as anyone else, but some of the most prolific posters of street photography are using mostly digital anyway. so i think you moderators will go mad trying to enforce this rule.

 

again, one of the most significant things drawing me to this forum, and what i think really sets it apart from the other forums, is the passion for photographs shared by the forum members. as one of the frequent (digital) street shooters has said numerous times "its about the photograph..."

Tony and Josh,

 

Is another Patron Drive On topic or Off topic? We have some plans, so do you want us to start it in the Leica forum again or somewhere else?

 

PS : Ralph Barker uses a M6 TTL, I saw it with my own eyes...

I think that Patron Drives supercede all forum rules. It will be hard to have the forum if Phil G. decides that he's had enough of his money losing investment.

 

However, I do believe that threads regarding something like a push for new subscribers will be set to expire after some ammount of time. I doubt that anyone would be interested in reading them 2 years from now.

<P>Josh,

<P>Thanks for answering. However, you maybe surprised to find out that one of these posts are still being kept alive and updated five - six months later by Brian; <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=005DOg"> such as this one...</a>

<P>By the way, are you on Pacific time?

<P>Best regards,

<br>Sandy

i do not think #5 was needed at all....neither #6, but that is only my opinion....i

could be wrong.

I have always come clean about the fact that I do not posess Leica (I am a Contax/Zeiss/Ricoh GR1/Rolleicord user and I still aspire to Leica M ownership) but I have always recognised that this is the most intelligent, lively, humourous, friendly and thought provoking forum on Photo.net.

 

I enjoy the company and the characters (and even the cat fights!) A lot of the OT or NW stuff is very interesting and thought provoking.

 

However the rules (if strictly applied) would leave me nothing to do except read stuff on here. I cannot post a photo unless it was taken in the Leica rangefinder style because I will have used a TLR or Contax/zeiss or a GR1.

 

I am not going to lie on this forum (or in my equipment list) and pretend I have a Leica so I cannot post photos again until I buy an M.

 

I am going to be really interested to see all the NW postings now they have to be rangefinder "style" because I am not entirely clear what scope that will leave. (No landscapes? No halloween party snaps? No pics of peoples new-borns? etc etc)

 

Profanity is going to be so difficult to police. A thread recently had the word "bugger" in its title. Here in the UK it is a multi purpose word. Its strict meaning is "to sodomize" but it is usually used as a very mild expletive (even by Winston Churchill during WW2 with his famous phrase "keep buggering on") or EVEN a term of affection. If an Australian calls you "an old bugger" then he probably likes you!

 

Here in the UK if I were to say "can I bum a fag off you?" it means "can I borrow a cigarette from you?"

 

Yes, profanity is going to be difficult with contributors from all over the globe and their differing standards and uses of words. I remember Phil Kneen used to have some of the Americans frothing at the mouth with language that in the UK would be considered effete in any pub in Britain!

 

I can see these rules (if strictly applied) will take a lot of diversity and fun and humour and interest from the forum and homogenise its 'feel' with all the other (more anodyne and boring) photo.net forums. Maybe that is the intent?

No profanity?

 

 

Polite language -> polite pictures

 

Sanitized vocabulary -> sanitized imagery

 

 

Just put it where it all belongs: the landfill.

Bee! What a timely entrance. You are exactly the sort of person and your work is exactly the sort of work that I would never have encountered had it not been for the Leica forum. (I still have your website on my 'favourites' and visit often)

Trevor, hi! Weren't you out traveling to do socio-politically aware landscapes? I'm making collages now: <a href=http://beeflowers.com/Collage/index.htm> <b> Grand Illusions </b> </a>

"We have to use photo.net in the way photo.net is designed to be used. "

 

This is what I object to actually. I know that we are part of p-net, but to harmonize us with the rest of the site will damage us and will not improve the other bits. I think most of the rules are OK except for 1,2, 10, and 11 which I think are too arbitrary and will likely ruin the forum. Personally, I doubt these new rules will actually be enforced really. It will stay the same because both Josh and Tony know what the forum is about and will naturally keep it that way whatever the rules say.

Robin:

 

Please allow me to correct you. These are "Guidelines", not rules. ;>)

 

Mnay interesting comments about what makes this forum special to many people. The really interesting remarks are those that refer to the Leica forum commuinity collectively as "we" and "us". It really has become a community in a sense.

 

I love you guys. ;>)

 

Dennis

It seems that these guidelines are not really anything new. Rather they are a restatement of what I think was in effect even before the Leica forum became part of photo.net, with perhaps some extra attention to phenomena that have emerged more recently, such as No Words threads.

 

One of the things that is great about this forum, and one of the reasons that it has more than doubled in size since becoming part of photo.net, attracting many new participants, is that it has a strong sense of community. It is true that there is some creative tension between the "Leica" focus of the forum, and the "community" aspect. Some participants want the forum to be more a general photography forum with emphasis on the elusive "Leica" ethos, while others want it to be a more conventional equipment-oriented forum about Leica equipment. To be honest, I think it is important for this tension to be maintained, so that the forum neither becomes just another "boring" equipment forum nor another General Photography forum.

 

I think we can trust Tony and Josh to continue to interpret the guidelines flexibily so that what is valuable and distinctive about this forum is maintained and the forum continues to benefit from its situation as photo.net's premier forum.

If we're going to have new rules can we add a 'be nice to Harvey' rule?

 

God alone knows what that would leave for Dennis and Bob to post...

 

:-)

Harvey, I'll give ya a big hug - just don't take any Camels from Frank.

Harvey, you have become famous/infamous. They say that everyone gets five minutes of fame, this is yours. Anyway, we all love you to bits; lets go and have a smoke at the back of the Forum bogs . Regards Allen.

In case anyone has failed to notice--these New Guideline decrees tend to appear only after a series of nasty and pointless exchanges. For a while, the Iraq War and Bush-bashing brought them on. Now, we seem to have reverted back to a-political churlishness (see the recent Winogrand threads).

 

Obviously, no set of published rules, no matter how reasonable or judicious, is going to rein in a group of faceless Internet posters. But the basic problem of people popping off remains.

 

I contribute to a number of other boards on the Internet, some related to photography and some not. I have never seen a place like this Leica forum where the range of personae go from wonderfully insightful and humane to downright childishly bizarre. I have no theories or suggestions other than to say that if the hot-tempered and provocative folks would just ease up, the Leica forum would be a happier place. Everyone here--and I do mean everyone--has some interesting things to say, even if they do run counter ro prevailing opinion. But there are just too many wind-ups, personal attacks, smug sneering, name calling, holier-than-thou, thread-hijacking, time-wasting posts. Usually these begin in the most innocuous of threads.

 

Tony and Josh and the rest of the photo.net gurus will do whatever they feel they must to do to preserve the integrity of their product. I enjoy honest, even overheated discussion. But can't we respect our hosts and each other enough not to screw up this whole enterprise?

Harvey, I made your name a household word, and this is the thanks I get?!? Allen...show no mercy on this chap. ;>)

 

Dennis

He's better now, i gave him a Al roll up. We're going for a few beers later (did i say few?), i've entered Harvey in an arm wresling contest. Easily pay for the beers tonight....he always wins.

self-congratulatory anoraks, the bunch of you.

Some people seem to be freaking out over a possible literal, cement-headed "enforcement" of the rules[aka guidelines]. The specter of the demise of the forum is alluded to. "Krapp!", I say. I trust Tony implicitly, and Josh clearly knows where the magic in this forum is too. I think it was important to repost the guidelines because with its increased popularity, there was a danger of the scope of the LPF getting too wide ranged, a threat to our identity. As far as the style of pix in here, it's best described negatively. Just look at the last 2 P.O.W.s. There's a school of Digital Pictorialism out there [more as in digital manipulation than choice of camera] that would probably not be too well received here. Conversely the producers of those images would likely not be too attracted to this forum.(New Paragraph): Bee thanks for giving me a new page for my Favourites. You are an amazing artist.

anatole

 

to me an anorak is a hooded, usually pullover, jacket.

 

what is an anorak to you?

An "anorak" is a perjorative term used to descrbe an obsessive hobbyist with no life outside of his hobby. For example the train spotter 'type'. The typical train spotter wears an anorak, is middle aged, male, obsessive, has no social skills, still lives with parents, has spectacles repaired with sticking plaster, slip on brown shoes (THE worst fashion crime in my view) and is always seen wearing trousers which display many inches of sock (white of course) even when standing.

 

'Anoraks' come in many varieties and can be seen at car shows, camera fairs, die cast metal toy collectors meetings etc etc.

self-congratulatory anoraks, the bunch of you.

 

 

Who are are you...the fairy queen!

And you're my belgian gimp. Bend over, Allen, so that I can bugger you good and proper. You like it that way, don't ya?