why so few members?

Actually, Jay, I consider that it is obligatory to subscribe -- unless one falls into one of the groups to whom we offer complimentary access. photo.net is not a free site -- any more than shareware is "free".

 

As I have stated before, the groups to which we grant complimentary access include: (a) infrequent users and people who are still familiarizing themselves with the site; (b) people of limited means, such as students, unemployed, or retired persons, who cannot afford $25 per year (despite photography equipment, film, processing, and internet access being fairly expensive items); and © some non-US users, who because of the limitations with PayPal, do not have a reasonable method to pay us.

 

For all other people who are frequently using the site, it really is obligatory to subscribe, whether people like to hear this or not. The difficulty is that we leave it to the honor system for each person to decide whether he falls into one of the complimentary access groups, since we have no way of determining whether somebody can "afford" the subscription.

 

The honor system, in turn, leads to four problems: (1) there is no clear standard for when you become a "frequent" user who is obliged to subscribe, and people are not informed when they cross this threshold; (2) a lot of people aren't very honorable and (as with many other ethical questions) can always find plenty of rationalizations for not subscribing; (3) a lot of people are procrastinators; and (4) people think the site is "free", because we don't demand payment up front, and our protests that it isn't fall on deaf ears. If we provide free access to anyone then some people feel that they should be entitled to free access too, even though they don't fall into any of the groups for whom we provide free access.

 

By the time you eliminate the people who don't subscribe because of these reasons (plus the people in the complimentary access categories), we are left with a relatively small number of subscribers.

It would probably help if we had "nag" screens when a user crossed a certain threshold of activity.

 

The "nag" screen would point out exactly what Brian said in his posting above, i.e. that photo.net is really a "shareware" website and that subscription is expected for frequent users (with a few exceptions).

 

Since we have cookies which are read on each visit it would not be difficult to develop an algorithm which presented the "nag" screen to "frequent" users of the site. Defining "frequent" is obviously tricky, but it doesn't need to be exact. Total number of visits is a very simple and pretty reasonable way to do it.

 

For example, looking throughthe most freqent users of this site there are many examples of users with over 20,000 visits who are not subscribers. In fact there are users with over 100,000 visits who are not subscribers (and a certain Mark who I'm absolutely certain is reading this might want to think about that).

 

I think once you reach the 100,000 visit "mark", you should be seeing a "nag" screen as every other page on the site - or maybe you should be seeing nothing BUT a nag screen. Basically if you've made 100,000 visits here I'm not at all certain you should get to make any more until you pony up the $25. In fact maybe "nags" should start at 1000 visits (say one "nag" screen per visist) and increase in frequency you you go above that.

 

We have one user with over 250,000 visits who isn't a subscriber (Luke, we know who you are...).

 

I think maybe we're being a little too soft on some people.

 

While I think it's pretty reasonable to allow free access to someone who just comes to the site occasionally for information, or to casually browse around the gallery one or twice a week, there are clearly some people who are (ab)using the site every single day for many hours a day for weeks or months on end who aren't subscribing, and they need a reminder that they are expected to subscribe if they are consuming photo.net resources at that level, and if they choose not to, their use of photo.net resources should be limited by the software.

theres no point in saying anything here, u are definitely not going to be heard. i see that u get lots of sponsors now like adorama etc, are u telling me that u got them to come to u bcos of just the subscribers who paid 25$?? why didnt u try that at the beginning u thinkl these guys would have touched u with a barge pole? no they wnat mumbers u know that, they know that and all of us do, u want the numbers initially but then when u know u are in demand and have the numbers u start giving these guys threats that its obligatory and stuff. right from the beginning i am not denying the fact that yes it helps the site if there are subscribers who can pay up. Bob u are an awesome photgrapher and write wonderful articles but i dont think you are very compassionate, same goes to lot of other people too here.

 

what u should do is to get more sponsors, i am sure there are more willing people out there and also make the subscription for third world countries cheaper and easier to subscribe to by having some local setup or something. think on those lines than to harass the members who i think in their own way help this site, every posting is knowledge thats being shared, that could fetch money too that way. right? i know these things are going to fall on deaf ears who dont wnat to listen, but anyway i have said what i wanted to say. happy shooting! cheers!

I read all the answers till now and thanks for the info. Now I really know what other thinks of this site.For me, this site just

something to get info and met some people and get how the other

parts of the globe thinks and felt. Well,probably some people does

not want to be a "Sponsor" for some reason/reasons. It's their choice and we should respect that. Now, why are we saying all these

mean words that can boil into a "war" or really hurt someone out their,especially to those who have tender feelings,not like some of us who have "tough skin". Excuse me if I'm out of context here...

Are we really that mean people? Can we not accept we are different

from eachother? And some of us can afford that much. Do you know

how much $25.00 in other countries? This might not be relevant to the

question but for me it is... So I suggest let us have some peace and

we should carry our brothers and sisters burden. Share to them your

wealth because in doing so it help them intelectually. Thanks for reading and I welcome whatever comments for what I said...

Sally, why do you think Bob and I are not compassionate?

 

I just finished writing that if somebody is (1) just getting acquainted with the site, or is using it infrequently or occasionally (for example, less than once per week on the average); (2) cannot afford US$25 per year because he is a student, retired, unemployed, low-income, etc; (3) resides in a country where photo.net doesn't offer any good payment option -- then we offer free access to the site with our compliments, and that person is not under any obligation to subscribe. We do this because people need to be able to use the site for a while before deciding whether to subscribe, and we hope that people who are currently infrequent users, or happen to be low-income persons at the moment, will become subscribers eventually.

 

Furthermore, we leave it to everyone to decide for himself whether he is in one of the three groups to whom we provide free access. But for everybody else, photo.net is not a "free site" and in my opinion, a non-subscriber who is accessing the site frequently over the course of a several months and is not in one of the "free access" groups is taking unfair advantage of the site and, yes, is a free-loader (or perhaps a procrastinator, although after a certain point this becomes the same thing as a free-loader).

 

That may be stating things fairly plainly, but I don't see how one can say that it is unfair or lacking in compassion for people who are unable to pay.

 

Pradeep, "I don't have to pay because they have advertising and I contribute my eyeballs" is one of the rationalizations I mentioned. There are two things wrong with this rationalization. First, you don't get to establish the terms for access to the site. Those terms are that if you use the site frequently, then the price is $25 per year, waived if you are a low-income person (in U.S. terms). If you don't like these terms, you don't get to make up your own terms; you should just stop using the site frequently. Second, advertising only pays for about two-thirds of the cost of the site. If everybody decided that the presence of advertising on the site meant that they didn't have to subscribe, then the site would collapse.

I always like Bob's Penalty box idea; One gets caught by the ref's; you go in the box; and feel shame; like the guys in the hockey movie "Slap Shot"! :)

What a lively discussion! I REALLY LIKE Bob's penalty box idea! This would work well for the really bad raters too :-)<BR><BR>PN Rocks. It breaks from time to time but so does Dell's website.

<<... your wealth because in doing so it help them intelectually. Thanks for reading and I welcome whatever comments for what I said...>>

 

Yes.

I don't think there's any lack of compassion here. We specifically state that if you can't afford $25, it's OK to use the site for free.

 

But by "can't afford", we really mean "can't afford". Obviously if someone lives in a country where $250 is a month's salary, then $25 is a lot and we wouldn't expect them to subscribe - even if they could since it's unlikely they'd have a credit card and even if they did PayPal probably wouldn't take it.

 

However, most photo.net users are US based, and it's pretty hard to believe that anyone living in the US, with a computer, internet access and money to buy cameras and film "can't afford" $25. In the unlikely case they can't, I think photo.net is sympathetic to their plight.

 

Let's say 20% of regular users subscribe. Let's say 20% can't afford $25. I think both those numbers are probably too high, but let's use them. That leaves 60%. Not wanting to subscribe is natural I guess. I don't want to pay $650 for PhotoShop CS - but in that case I don't get to use PhotoShop CS after the 30 day trial preiod is over.

 

As I said above. Many users with over 20,000 vsisits to the site have chosen not to subscribe. One user with 250,000 visits has chosen not to subscribe. It's really not fair on those who do subscribe to have such people consuming photo.net resources without paying for them. You can claim they support the site via advertising (and perhaps that is true to some extent), but the site doesn't generate enough advertising revenue to fully support itself. Photo.net doesn't use agressive advertising. There are no pop-ups, no flashing banner ads, no ads for viagra or gambling and dating services, all of which statistically generate more revenue than quiet ads for photographic products and services.

 

I think if non-subscribers with over 100 vsists were reminded of the number of visits that they had made to the site on each new visit, and the requirement that non-casual users who could afford $25 were required to subscribe, we might see more subscriptions. Maybe the number of visits and the subscriber status should be shown on everyone's community page. That would be trival to add. A couple of lines of code would do it.

BobAtkins.com,

<br><br>

I don't think nagging people is a good idea. It's only likely to drive away people that weren't going to subscribe in the first place, which might be "better" in that they won't use bandwidth/resources anymore, but it's not an ideal solution.

<br><br>

photo.net simply needs to decide whether or not it's a subscription-based or donation-based site.

<br><br>

Here's a few things I've found out over the year or so I've used photo.net, and they are the reasons I never bought a paid-membership. I guess you can think of them as "feedback"... if you're trying to get people to buy memberships, you can at least see why one person (me) isn't.

<br><br>

1) No matter how many critiques I get, I don't think I'm ever going to get much better than I am now. What this means is a site like photo.net is less useful for me than it is for someone else -- not necessarily photo.net's fault.

<br><br>

2) There are far too many "unaccounted" or "useless" ratings on photo.net. I would request photo critiques on my pictures and I'd get 10 ratings really fast, but usually <strong>zero</strong> comments. That might be because my pictures suck and aren't good enough to talk about, but it makes that aspect of the site worthless for me. One good comment means more to me than a hundred ratings.

<br><br>

3) I really dislike the fact that photo.net recompressed my images after I uploaded them. As I understand it, they are still recompressed when you have a paid membership. <strong>Unacceptable</strong>.

<br><br>

4) I find photo.net's interface to be rather clunky, virtually every portion. For instance, I tried to find people that shared similar interests as me, but this is virtually impossible with the search functions. I don't want to go into detail about this 'cause there's been many threads about this already.

<br><br>

Going back to point one, I don't think photo.net is a site for me, since the ratings/critique aspect didn't really appeal to me. But it was free, so I used it. You've made it quite clear that non-paying members that have a lot of photos (or use photo.net often) (I had about 90) aren't welcome here. As you can probably guess by my post, I've removed my images.

<br><br>

It was real and it was fun, it just wasn't real fun.

Bob L.<p> I wonder if you missed this recent post from Brian M. [paragraph spacing edited by me]:<p>

<b>Brian Mottershead , mar 14, 2004; 08:45 p.m.</b><br><p>

On restricting non-subscribers: We don't plan ever to restrict the site to subscribers only, at least not for read access. There are too many people who can't afford it, and this is a learning site, still. As for write access, non-subscribers contribute a lot to the site, and we don't plan to curtail write-access to the forums right now, but we might nag people more to subscribe after they have written a few posts in the forums. We do plan on restricting non-subscribers more in what they can upload to the Gallery. Non-subscribers will be able to upload photos for critique and rating, and non-subscriber photos submitted for critique but not selected as "Top Photos" through some super-secret procedure will be deleted by the software after three months. Only subscribers will be able to upload "non-critique" photos; that is, photos not submitted for Critique Requests.<p>Of course, subscriber photos won't be deleted. We plan on increasing the space and bandwidth available to subscribers to 100MB. This would be enough for about a 1000 photos. We are going to provide a new user interface that will enable people to upload a lot of photos much more easily, so that subscribers will be able to upload an entire portfolio fast. Only photos that are submitted for critique will be ratable, although all photos will be eligible for comments. A person will be able to disable comments on non-critique photos also. For non-critique photos, people will be able to choose between a "Guest Book" or a "Critiques" style of comments, for each photo/folder.<p>If "Guest Book" is chosen, the photographer will be able to delete comments that are not appropriate, in his/her opinion. For "Critique" comments, the photographer will only be able to delete the comments of a newcomer to the site. The idea behind the "Guest Book" is that the comments should be "nice". "Critiques" can be more critical. People who opt for "Guest Books" or who delete a lot of comments might not get so many comments. Prospective commenters will be told how many comments a photographer has deleted. Every subscriber will be able to have his own photography-related forum, of which s/he will be the moderator, deciding, among other things, who will be the members of that forum and what the photographic aims of that forum will be.<br>People will be able to use this for their Camera Club, for example, or for a Critique Circle. Picture This might want to convert their array of presentations to this, Picture This being a subscriber. These "subscriber forums" will allow for image uploads but only from members who are subscribers.<p>

All this will be done when the site stabilizes, although not all at once.<p>We actually have plenty of capacity now and most of the problems that people have been seeing since Feb 1 are teething problems with the new hardware and database installation.<p>There are currently 3000 subscribers. In the Gallery, there are 53000 people who have uploaded photos, of whom slightly less than half have participated in the "Photo Critique Forum" (that is, have submitted at least one Critique Request). In any given month, about 6000 people upload photos and about 4000 of them request critiques, but only about 900 of these people are subscribers. We are hoping that the extra benefits for subscribers will result in about 500 new subscribers per month, instead of the 150 of so that we get now. <p><b>end quote</b><p>If I were you, Bob, I would stick around...

Bob Linscombe, if all those things make you an infrequent user of photo.net, then nobody is expecting you to subscribe. If, despite all those things, you ARE a frequent user, then those things obviously are not are an impediment to your being a frequent user, and if you are not a low-income person, you should subscribe.

 

As for photo.net "deciding" whether it is a subscription site or a donation site, it is decided. You just don't like the decision: photo.net is a subscription site, with the subscription waived for certain groups of people. If you aren't in one of those groups, it is time to subscribe or reduce your usage of the site (if you haven't already because of your various issues.)

I am a member of the Leica forum. Its the only forum I belong to and I do not use the galleries or any other facilities, in fact I think this may be the first time I have posted outside the forum. I didnt wish to join Photonet but the forum was transferred from Greenspun and as such was obliged to join Photonet to stay with my forum. I joined the forum to try be helpful mainly to those fellow members who own Minolta CLE cameras in finding parts and helpful tips that I had to battle through on my own. I generally answer at least 20 questions to any post I actually make asking about something or in just posting some general info that may be of interest to members on the Leica forum. Efectively because I qualify as a regular poster I am asked to pay for the privelidge of helping CLE users. Sorry but I am not prepared to do that, certainly in a currency I dont use not being in the USA. If my help is of no value, and you consider me a freeloader, I am more than happy to stop continued help for some members in getting parts and advice for them. Certainly from what I have read here it seems that 25 US dollars in more important to people than the real help that the forums are meant to provide.

Brian,

<br><br>

First off, let me say that I am fine with the decision. I know someone "removing his images" is generally one's way rebelling against some aspect of the site he doesn't like, but that's not the case here. I removed them because it is clear now to me that the site is a subscription site and I am not willing to pay for it. Photography is not my life, so me removing my images is not a big deal. I have my own personal website that I can put them on if I need to share them.

<br><br>

I decided to offer some of the reasons why I'm not paying, since the title of the discussion is "why so few members." I can't speak for anyone else, but I can speak for myself. Two of the reasons I gave are flaws I find in photo.net, flaws I was able to overlook since I thought the site was a free site. However, since it has been pointed out that it's a subscription site, I can no longer overlook them.

<br><br>

As I said earlier, it wasn't clear to me (I thought it was a donations site) and I still think that the <a href="http://www.photo.net/photonet-subscriptions">Photo.net Subscriptions</a> page doesn't fully clarify it.

Joel, think of it as like a club. Clubs are enjoyable because of the contributions of the members, which come in many forms, and without which the club wouldn't be any fun, or of much value.

 

But the clubhouse, the facilities, and the staff have to be paid, and so clubs have dues. Dues are not donations and aren't optional. Clubs do have guests who may not have to pay the dues for a period of time, but anybody who regularly uses the club facilities as a "guest" will eventually be told by somebody that it is time to join and pay the dues.

 

A club member who protested that he shouldn't have to pay the dues because of how funny his jokes were or how much help he was giving other members to improve their golf swings (or whatever) wouldn't get very far with that line of argument, I dare say.

I'm not particularly involved in this argument, but the wholier-than-thou

attitude adopted by several people in an attempt to rationalize their refusal to

pay $25 to support the site amazes/nauseates me. If the site is so bad/

worthless/unacceptable why have you spent a year using it?

 

I say this as someone who just paid after realizing how frequently I use and

value the resources on this website. Seems like a bargain, no matter where

in the world you're based or what currency you use.

Club members vote the rules and administrators.

Brian, perhaps the Member Subscription page should be updated to reflect management posture on this issue. I must confess to my own misunderstanding having recall a long-ago thread discussing how some members contribute through content, which was perceived to be the equivalent to others through dollars. I'm almost certain my confusion is shared by many. <br><br>My perception of many repeatedly brought up issues is due to a lack of general clarity, or perhaps clarity hidden in obscure places where it remains unknown to the average site member.

The request for updated pages of various descriptions has been made and ignored many times (with the exception of ratings guidelines long ago). I recall Bob asking for ideas for FAQ additions, but I don't think there was ever an upgrade.

Stu, not in this club. Don't join it if you don't like how it is run, but don't expect to use the facilities a lot if you don't pay.

Michael, a lot of members are contributing through content, and in other ways. There wouldn't be a site if there weren't member-contributed content, but the contributions of content don't replace the value a subscription.

 

For somebody's writing or photos to generate $25.00 per year in support for the site, they basically have to generate 62,500 page impressions for advertising per year that would not have been there without their contribution. Mike Johnston's column might generate that many impressions over the course of a year, but I think there are very few people like that on the site. And most of them are subscribers.

<i>My perception of many repeatedly brought up issues is due to a lack of general clarity, or perhaps clarity hidden in obscure places where it remains unknown to the average site member.</i><p>Michael is right about some of this. <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/2272649"> Just another example of a PN newbie?</a>

Matthew Katz,

 

I'm going to assume your reply was aimed at me since you used a few of the words/phrases I did in my comment. I said why I used it for a year (I thought it was a free site). I never said the site itself was bad/worthless/unacceptable.

 

I am not refusing to pay, because I won't be using anything that needs paying for. If it had been made clear that I had to pay, I never would have uploaded a single photo. Again, the question was "why so few members." This is an answer.

<em>I recall Bob asking for ideas for FAQ additions, but I don't think there was ever an upgrade.</em>

 

<p>

The FAQ is slowly added to. For example I recently added a link to the page that has some guidelines on how to rate images in the gallery

(currently item #11).

I think everyone who has read this thread understands now that Photo.net is not free. However, that is NOT apparent to someone who may register for the first time.

 

The newcomer might even be inclined to take advantage of the free storage space for their photos. If the intention on allowing photos to be posted is for review/critique/technique purposes, why allow a newly registered (nonpaying) person to upload so many photos.

 

The word ?subscribe? is not even mentioned in the context of paying on the FAQ. What?s up with this?

 

Even the more internet savy person is going to the FAQ first to answer any questions and here is what they?ll find:

 

How can I support photo.net?

You can support photo.net by shopping in ezShop or by shopping through our partners (see Support photo.net on http://www.photo.net). When you shop, while on photo.net, our partners pay a referal (sic) fee for each purchase you make which helps keep the site in operation. You can also become a Patron and receive added benefits such as more space to store your images and notification of comments on your gallery images.

Sounds free here, and you can support it through shopping or even becoming a Patron. Nowhere does it say for trial use only, or anything about weak currencies or being retired or money orders, deaf ears, foreign bank fees, or tea in China.

 

 

Brian Mottershead?s comments:

 

??a lot of people aren't very honorable and (as with many other ethical questions) can always find plenty of rationalizations for not subscribing.?

 

??people think the site is "free", because we don't demand payment up front, and our protests that it isn't fall on deaf ears.?

 

If Mr. Mottershead is going to judge whether a person is ?honorable? by their ?rationalizations for not subscribing,? I would suggest that the FAQ be edited ASAP to more accurately describe the terms of subscription mentioned in this thread.

People think the site is free, because it appears to be free all through the registration process and in the FAQ.

 

Clearly state your site?s policies concerning subscriptions and maybe the freeloaders will be less numerous and less taxing on your servers. If you?re into being deceptive and don?t want to run the risk of running off potential ?Patrons? then leave discussion of subscription fees, freeloaders and honor judgments buried in the threads.

 

In any event stop acting like non-subscribing users are all aware of the site?s disingenuously vague policies on trial use and expectation of payment (if able) for continued use.