Current State of Affairs on Photo.net

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

 

What is Ownership’s address?

 

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!

 

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!

 

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.

 

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.

 

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?