Current State of Affairs on Photo.net

A variety of fine features have vanished, other things are "broken" with no explanation or apparent plan for repair. All of these factors have diminished the value and interest in membership. There has been no viable route to communicate with the site owners. I suggest the following as a course of action toward the goal of achieving communication and rehabilitating Photo.net.

All members who are dissatisfied with current conditions should consider posting a brief message, directed to Ownership describing broken, missing, or dysfunctional features important to them that reduce the value of their subscription. They might consider doing the same regularly on whatever schedule makes sense to them until improvement is seen. At the same time, reducing participation could be another tool to gain attention, and hopefully return to full functionality.

 

Should this initiative turn out to result in my removal, all the best moving forward to friends and foes alike.

 

Sandy Vongries

Should this initiative turn out to result in my removal

That would be too ironic and irony is dead. I don’t think it will and hope it does not happen.

Name Media has a physical address but no phone number or email.

Might turn out the address is one of the flooded basements in Queens!

Name Media has a physical address but no phone number or email.

I could be wrong but I don't believe that Namemedia is the owner any longer. I think it was picked-up by Creative Live. Here is an excerpt from Greenspun's blog:

photo.net History: Speaker Notes

Scroll down to the bottom Fall 2016.

I sent an email to Creative Live, got and got an answer back right away from Joe C. in support. He replied "I've confirmed it's not working on my profile either, so I've sent this to our engineers to look into". I won't hold my breath but these is a glimmer of hope.

Who did you send the email to?

support@creativelive.com, contact was Joe C. I don't know if he is the one who eventually fixed it but I hanging on to that email address.

Thanks to the ones who did the lifting. Good on 'ya.

Thanks @Sandy Vongries and all the rest of the people that have worked to keep this site alive. It is a sad story of decline, unfortunately. There was a time when Photo.Net was one of two or three sites I visited multiple times each day, and when it was an active, sometimes tumultuous but always entertaining place to be. And, I learned a lot about photography from the many contributors here. Perhaps the time for these types of collaborative websites is past, but if so that's a sad statement.

My main regret was that they discontinued the @photo.net forwarding email address. My hopes were that PN would have its own email server. Having @photo.net on one's business card would be very useful, and by itself would be worth the cost of membership.

 

Also, admins tend to be overzealous, confusing flamboyance with outrageousness, and we lost some of our best members thanks to the 'cleansing'. Yes, there were some blowhards, but so what? Ignore them and move on. The Leica forum was *the* place to be.

 

I discovered PN in the late '90s (the best time to be alive!) and I was a member for most of that period. Back then, PN had a personality leading it, that being Phillip Greenspun. He was a real personality and I always enjoyed reading his posts and his blog, 'Travels With Samantha'. His inbox was, no doubt, packed to the brim at all times, but such is the price of fame!

My main regret was that they discontinued the @photo.net forwarding email address. My hopes were that PN would have its own email server. Having @photo.net on one's business card would be very useful, and by itself would be worth the cost of membership.

 

Also, admins tend to be overzealous, confusing flamboyance with outrageousness, and we lost some of our best members thanks to the 'cleansing'. Yes, there were some blowhards, but so what? Ignore them and move on. The Leica forum was *the* place to be.

 

I discovered PN in the late '90s (the best time to be alive!) and I was a member for most of that period. Back then, PN had a personality leading it, that being Phillip Greenspun. He was a real personality and I always enjoyed reading his posts and his blog, 'Travels With Samantha'. His inbox was, no doubt, packed to the brim at all times, but such is the price of fame!

Please provide some examples of "overzealous administrators" in action - have a good memory of considerable forbearance.

Please provide some examples of "overzealous administrators" in action - have a good memory of considerable forbearance.

John K., Gordon B., and Phil S. each contributed more to this site than their sometimes questionable behavior detracted. Their bannings were a disservice and made the site a poorer, if more “agreeable”, place. The price paid for censorship and pleasantry is often measured in less diversity, less passion, and less exposure to eccentric but significant ideas.

 

I do agree that there are also instances of significant forebearance, present company included. :)

Edited September 11, 2021 by samstevens

John K., Gordon B., and Phil S. each contributed more to this site than their sometimes questionable behavior detracted. Their bannings were a disservice and made the site a poorer, if more “agreeable”, place. The price paid for censorship and pleasantry is often measured in less diversity, less passion, and less exposure to eccentric but significant ideas.

Well, how about a time frame? I believe those weren't exactly recent. Don't think my fingerprints are on any of them, in any case, I was addressing Karim.

Well, how about a time frame? I believe those weren't exactly recent. Don't think my fingerprints are on any of them, in any case, I was addressing Karim.

You addressed Karim in a public forum, so should anticipate that others may offer commentary. Karim didn’t specify a time frame and didn’t single you out as an overzealous moderator, and neither did I.

You are correct, the time frame is still relevant. "Is it is, or was?"

"Is it is, or was?"

It’s someone’s perception. That perception shouldn’t cause you to become defensive, especially if you have no reason to be which, currently, I don’t think you do. We’ve all changed since the past.

I agree, Phil was a very prolific member here. He mentioned lots of ideas and references to works that most others would not touch on. Too bad, his posts towards the end had become agenda driven and attention seeking (a bizarre but noticeable transformation of his personality), but when he would talk about photography and art, there were great ideas in them. I got to learn about several photographers and their works, thanks to Phil and discussion by others including Sam and Julie as well. These discussions definitely affected my own photography for the good. Sadly, when he was banned, all of his posts were also completely wiped out, which is certainly a loss for PN.

 

I wasn’t aware that Gordon was banned too, but I haven’t been a whole lot active online in a while.

I recall the Gus Lazzari incident in 2018 - A great resource with great contributions that provided unmeasurable value to the community.

He was not banned but some of his posts were thoughtlessly deleted - he naturally refrained from offering his advice after that.

He paid a visit not too long ago to offer his condolences when Erwin Putts died, so I still hope he will be back one day - but I don't think photo.net management offered him a deserved apology so the chances are likely slim.

The owner of photo.net cannot afford to loose that kind of resource.

 

This is not to point fingers at the amazing moderators who are working hard for free and apparently with no voiced appreciation from, or contact with the photo.net owners - that in itself is totally crazy.

 

My point is, that if the photo.net owners doesn't take an active interest in the wellbeing of this (still wonderful) community it probably won't continue to be wonderful for that much longer.

And as Sandy points out - with so many things broken and apparent indifference from the owners side, who would even want to sign up for a subscription?

The traffic through the exits has been steady for years. Why argue the "site owners" are responsible? Content matters and it's steadily thinned.

Well, the content is being thinned partly due to the disingenuous site redesign of the galleries section that the site owners instigated. Many photographers who frequently posted their photos in the galleries simply left because they could not live with the constant glitches.

 

Phil Greenspun was a passionate photographer and his passion was reflected in the website he designed. That’s what attracted other passionate members that made this site into the golden era that is often referred to. The current site owners don’t seem to have the same philosophy or passion of Philip.

Phil Greenspun was a passionate photographer and his passion was reflected in the website he designed. That’s what attracted other passionate members that made this site into the golden era that is often referred to. The current site owners don’t seem to have the same philosophy or passion of Philip.

There was also much less to look at online 20+ years ago during that "golden age." Never posted to or commented on gallery content. The forums were once content-rich. Less so now.

There was also much less to look at online 20+ years ago during that "golden age."

Likely so, but I’m not sure what the ramifications of that are to this discussion. 20 years ago, even if fewer photos were posted to the Internet than today, enough were posted so no one could encounter them all. We’ve always looked at what we’ve looked at.

 

I think the demise of PN, or partial demise, can be and is due to a variety of factors. Some are cultural in that Facebook and Flickr type sites provide more of the kind of shallow and non-committal social media entertainment most people want than what was the PN model, which took photography more seriously. Some factors are commercial, in terms of bad administration and design of the site, getting worse as time goes on.

Show me a better gallery site for the price of p/n. For what it does it serves my purpose.

Show me a better gallery site for the price of p/n. For what it does it serves my purpose.

No one said there was one. The complaint I have is not that there’s something better than PN. (If there were, I’d be there.) It’s how bad PN has become compared to its former self. I’m comfortable both making that claim and doing what I can as a member to improve things while also understanding it’s the only game in town and still being thankful for its existence, as diminished as it is.

By the way, I feel non-member participants contribute financially by supplying photos and content. As a matter of fact, management provides NO content. It’s our content that keeps the site afloat and the traffic we help create and sustain that brings advertising dollars to management. I dropped my paid membership as a viable form of protest against what I see as both a callously disregarding and generally inept management.