lf forum content

while i don't really care one way or another that this forum is now sporting

advertisments on every page, i thought it wasn't kosher to have blatent advertising

for commercial purposes in the content of this forum (michael smith &al. catch hell

for it).

 

i don't mean to be a wet blanket, but why is it okay for companies to advertise on the

top and sides of each and every page of this forum, but when participants make

announcements they get hit with a slap in the face?

 

just wondering

 

john

I can't wait to hear the rationalization that comes from the moderator on this one!

Yeah I know this is a commercial site and those ads are from sponsors but given the

way the forum is now junked up I see no reason at all the refrain from commercial

posts of any kind.

Because the people placing sponsored ads are contributing to the costs of the site by paying for advertising. Advertising and subscriptions are the only things that pay for web sites like this. It isn't the system I would set up for funding publications, if I were king. Unfortunately (for me, fortunately for you), I am not king, and publications including web sites, depend on advertising.

 

One of the things that we are planning is that subscribers will be able to have their classifieds appear as banners and skyscrapers on the site.

Try the free web browser mozilla (www.mozilla.org). Using this browser I see no ads at the top or right side of my screen. You can easily customize it so that popup ads do not appear and so that domains such as tribalfusion.com and doubleclick cannot set cookies. I retain all the important functions of browsing the web...just no annoying popups or advertisements all over the page distracting me.

 

give it a shot.

Ted, the reason for not making commercial posts in the forums is that they will be deleted, except in the Leica forum. If you would like to purchase advertising space from photo.net, you are very welcome to do so. Please contact us about rates. Alternatively, you can make arrangements with the advertising network to which we belong, Tribal Fusion, to place ads on this site. Another option is to contact Google AdSense. I don't think you can target a particular site, but if your commercial announcment is related to photography, there is a high probability that Google will place your ad on this site.

 

There is also a classifieds section of this site, where photo.net members may post ads for free. Finally, if your ad concerns Leica equipment, you can post it in the Leica Forum, which is the one exception to our policy concerning commercial posts. But, with these exceptions, if you want to advertise on photo.net, you will need to pay for it.

<p>Brian Mottershead seems to think he can have his cake and eat it, too. It seems a bit duplicitous to insist that those buying ads (and lining the pockets of photo.net (and thus, Brian) are 'paying for the service'.<br>

<br>

This smacks loudly of ignoring the fact that without the right to reproduce the large number of posts that people have contributed to this site, THERE WOULD BE NO CONTENT ON THIS SITE, and thus there would be no viewers, and thus there would be no one willing to buy ads from Brian. 

To claim that paying advertisers are 'supporting the site' but the contributors

are not tells you something fundamental about the attitude of the people running

photo.net.  Bottom line: they don't give a rip about 'community', they just

care about the bottom line.<br>

<br>

Forget posting here.  Go over to the forum at Tuan's large format page at <a href="http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/">http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/</a>. 

No ads, just community.</p>

<i> without the right to reproduce the large number of posts that people have

contributed to this site, THERE WOULD BE NO CONTENT ON THIS SITE ... Forget

posting here. </i><p>

 

Thaks for adding to the site content, Paul. ;-> <p>

 

Have fun going to a site where no one has to pay (literally or figuratively) for usage of

webspace or traffic ... and where I imagine that both, are, by contrast, substantially

reduced anyway. This site needs funding to survive and prosper, period. If you don't

want to visit any sites that have ads in them, that's your right, but you'll miss out on

the best sites. Ads are a fact of life. Learn to live with them (or ignore them), or

segregate yourself from the resources that the ads pay for.

As far as I can tell, the goal of photo.net since it was taken over has been to make it a viable commercial site - part of that comes from the existing content (provided free by the users) part comes from the traffic that can be promised to advertisers.

 

Personally I think it might be coming close to the time to require that any of my personal posts which were added to photo.net without my permission from the old greenspun archive be removed... just a thought.

 

AZ - don't know what you are blathering about - the best LF forum and site is elsewhere - free, no ads. Best resources on LF in the internet. (you'll see how this list is almost dead now it is back up and running on it's own home).

<p><i>Have fun going to a site where no one has to pay (literally or

figuratively) for usage of webspace or traffic ... and where I imagine that

both, are, by contrast, substantially reduced anyway.</i>

<p>You can imagine whatever you like about reduced webspace or traffic, but it's

easier just to point your browser over at  <a href="http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/">http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/</a>

and see for yourself.  Why speculate when the answer is just a click

away?  At that forum, there seems to be plenty of space, a person dedicated

to building large format community, the best resources on large format

photography, and [wait for it] no ads.  The software for the forum was

written by dedicated volunteers.  </p>

<p><i>This site needs funding to survive and prosper, period. </i></p>

<p>All sites need funding to survive and prosper.  Ask yourself this - how

is it that Tuan's site is surviving and prospering?  Funding seems to not

be a big issue.  The software and support came from volunteers.  Tuan

provides bandwidth and some support.  No one is paid.</p>

<p><i>If you don't want to visit any sites that have ads in them, that's your

right, but you'll miss out on the best sites. </i></p>

<p>In some cases, I'll put up with ads.  I get ads when I watch TV, or when

I listen to the radio, and I accept them as the freight that brings me what I

want.  I'm not opposed to ads, but I don't see why in the world someone

would put up with the situation here (ads, topped off with someone taking your

posts, making money off them, and then telling you that you're not a

'contributor') in a situation where a superior service is available for free,

without ads, and without someone enriching himself by appropriating your posts.</p>

<p><i>Ads are a fact of life. Learn to live with them (or ignore them), or

segregate yourself from the resources that the ads pay for.</i></p>

<p>Taxes are a fact of life, too.  That doesn't mean that I need to pay

taxes I can legally avoid, and it's certainly not immoral, illegal, or stupid to

avoid paying taxes when I can arrange my affairs to do it.</p>

<p>If you like the ads, or simply don't care about them - it's your

choice.  I can't (and wouldn't want) to coerce anyone into quitting here

and taking up at <a href="http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/">http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/</a>. 

But I would encourage people to take a look and make an informed choice.</p>

<i>the best LF forum and site is elsewhere - free, no ads. </i><p>

 

Like I said Tim, have fun going to a site where no one has to pay (literally or

figuratively) for usage of webspace or traffic ... and where both, are, by

contrast, substantially reduced anyway. Ads are a fact of life on the web, and most

places. To run a site as large and complex and well-visited as this one, one that

offers so many features (eg photo storage, email, photo ratings, discussions, archives

-- even for non-menbers), funds have to be earned. (That in comparison to the site

you recommend which is diuscussion only.) If you think you know of a magical money

tree that can sustain photo.net (forget even making a profit) then I'm sure that Brian

would love to hear it.<p>

 

But it's certainly easier to gripe than deal with the real-world issues of running one of

the most visited photo sites around.

<i>Why speculate when the answer is just a click away? </i>

 

Come on, Paul, you can toss in a few more ads while you're at it, can't you? <grin>

<p>

 

Yes, it's quite easy by comparison to put together a message-board for very little

money. But that's not all that photo.net is. Tha'ts only a fraction of what photo.net is,

and it's why funds are needed to keep it going, and one source of funding is ads. I

realize that you don't want to deal with that. Understood. <p>

 

At least now that you've expressed your dislike of ads you'll stop advertising for your

fave site in message-threads here.

Yes, it's quite easy by comparison to put together a message-board for very

little

money. But that's not all that photo.net is. Tha'ts only a fraction of what

photo.net is,

and it's why funds are needed to keep it going, and one source of funding is

ads."

 

Ha haa - it doesn't need the funds to keep it going - there are hundreds of extremely good, extensive sites on the web with lots of bells and whistles run for free by volunteers. Photo.net needs the funds to help it turn into a very profitable business - in part based on the free donations of it's contributors. That has always been the plan.

Dream on, Kevin. You simply cannot find a free site that deals with the traffic volume

that this one does.

The largeformatphotography site is paid for by Tuan out of his pocket, apparently. It is small enough that he can afford it. At one time, photo.net was also small, and Philip Greenspun paid the bills, with his friends, students, and employees at Ars Digita running it as volunteers or as a side-project, with computers and bandwidth paid by MIT or Ars Digita.

 

That ended in 1999. By that point, it was already too big to be run as somebody's side project on computers in the corner of somebody's lab. Since then, it has only continued growing, the traffic and amount of content having increased by an order of magnitude, so that photo.net is now the largest general photography site on the Web.

 

Only DP Review, which is dedicated to all things digital in photography, is a larger photography site. photo.net now costs about $40,000 per year just for the ISP bills, and it needs full-time salaried people just to keep the servers running. Once you go from a site that can be run by a few volunteers in a few hours each per week to one that requires full-time people, things become much more complex because you have to meet a payroll. That isn't a function of being "commercial" or "non-commercial"; it is a function of being big.

 

I don't see any real need for competition between photo.net and Tuan's forum. I see that many people visit both forums, even after you subtract the people who come by here mainly to exhort others to leave. LF people come to photo.net because they are interested in other photography subjects as well as LF, perhaps, or because they want the other things that photo.net has to offer.

 

This forum is far from dying. In the last week, Tuan's site has had about 50 new threads started, but this forum has had about 40. So it would seem that the LF forum on photo.net continues to fill a need.

 

What is clear is that the methods for paying for a site with a million visitors per year have to be different than a site avidly followed by a few dozen regulars, and a few hundred visitors. Absent wealthy benefactors willing to pay the substantial costs, it is necessary to raise money for a large site through subscriptions and advertising. (Or, you can call it underwriting if you are public television station.) Perhaps tt seems contradictory to aim advertisements at and take subscription checks from the same people who are writing the content of the community site, but apparently people are willing to contribute both content and financial support to large community sites like photo.net. If they weren't, large community sites wouldn't be viable, unless they run by the government with tax money.

Brain I would like to say that for all the s**t slung at you, you always seem to

take it in stride and patiently explain to the best of your abilities the facts. Nice

job.

 

I have given support to Photonet and will continue to do so. The chance to

post free ads is well worth it compared to the cost of a newspaper, magazine

or the auction site. I have bought things from the classifieds at good prices

and met alot of very nice people and had some nice offline discussions. As far

as I am concerned the price of nothing to join is cheap for what I have learned

and gained in association.

 

Just as is the case with TV advertising, you can simply ignore what you wish,

so there's no reason to complain. The fact is, is that as Brian has stated, cost

is outstripping income, and I'd rather have a few ads helping pay the

overhead, (some that I may even be interested in), than see such a valuable

resource disappear.

 

Let me also say that I have never read of any complaints in the Leica Forum

(with many yearly supporters) like I have read here by many of this

membership who seem to support less and complain more. Maybe it would

be better if you put your money on the table before you offer your complaints.

As the old saying goes, don't look a gift horse iin the mouth.

that this thread conveniently disappears within 3 days?

I don't understand why some people seem to be compelled to post attacks here against this forum. If you don't like this forum, then do your best to make the other one better. Competition will determine which the web browsing LF photographer prefers. Likely both will have sufficient audiences to continue (recently I have contributed answers to both). Making inaccurate criticisms of this forum (e.g., that it is "almost dead") doesn't do anything but make the critics look petty and irrational.

 

As to the original question, previous threads on the no advertising in the forum policy have explained that the reason is to restrict ads to the intended locations. Anyone can post a few free ads at http://www.photo.net/gc/place-ad?domain_id=2. If you wish, you can have them displayed in an LF section: http://www.photo.net/gc/view-category.tcl?domain_id=2&primary_category=Large%20Format.

Anthony

 

There is no need for this thread to disappear. Threads are removed from here if they breach the forum guidelines. These are linked from the forum but for speed are here:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/policy?topic_id=1547&topic=Large%20format%20photography

 

Threads comparing Tuan's forum and this one are bound to appear sporadically - everyone is free to use whichever suits them best, or both.

 

There is an argument to say that this forum is redundant now that Tuan's has reopened, there is another to say that an LF forum on Photo.net is valuable for people familiar with other areas of the site who wish to find out about large format photography. Brian has decided it stays, so it stays.

 

As for the advertisments, well I would guess that if more people made donations to photo.net, less ads would be needed.

 

Rob (moderator)

hi again

 

i didn't make this post to compare the 2 forums, or to attack this one ..

i was just wondeing why all the ads just seemed to appear, and why the forum

guideleines allow ads are to be "bannered" but announcements of a workshop or an

invitation to buy a soon to be "disappeared" product &c, is not tolerated.

 

while i mentioned earlier that i don't really care about the ads one way or another,

it is just the guidelines and "ad - policy" that don't make much sense to me,

 

 

thanks!

 

-john

John,

 

The ads appeared because Photo.Net has been gradually implementing changes as they (probably Brian Mottershead) write the software needed. Photo.Net needs more revenue -- their two sources (mentioned above by Brian) are paid advertising and subscriptions. If they let anyone submit an add to a forum for free, why would an advertiser pay for an ad?

 

As I stated in my previous response, forum participants can place frees ads in the photo.net classifieds. Photo.net has mentioned plans to limit the number of classified per year to a reasonable number, beyond which there would be a fee.

 

Besides for the violation of the forum rules when he posts info about items he has for sale, Michael Smith also "catches it" because he irritates some forum participants. That is part of the nature of a public internet forum -- if you somehow rile even a few people, you will catch it. More active moderation could help -- instead of a few people posting criticisms of a commercial post, a moderator could promptly delete the post and suggest to the poster that they use the classifieds.

Isn�t it swell? Now the ads flicker too. Welcome to Disney Land :-))

Those of us who don't like the turns this site is taking, should abandon ship and seek refuge at lfphoto.info

I do not think that my postings are ever truly commercial, in the

sense that they are primarily informational and only secondarily

commercial. How can I discuss the availability of Azo without it

being commercial since I am the only one in the world outside of

Kodak employees who at any one time really knows the status of

Azo and at the same time I am (now with Grade 3) the only one

who has it for sale. Any posting I make about Azo cannot help but

be commercial, but only if the word "commercial" is interpreted

very broadly.

 

Same with Kodak Master View lens boards. I looked for them for

years. Paula and I received calls and emails regularly wondering

if we knew where the callers could get them. Finally we had them

made and have them available. That's informational. Purely. The

fact that since we had them made and are not a charity and

cannot afford to give them away we also sell them is

commercial, but I do not see how the informational part of that

posting can be separated from the commercial part.

 

Workshops: I do not recall posting information about our

workshops here, except for one in Southern California last

January and that was a posting by Per Volquartz. But at least

weekely Paula and I receive questions about our workshops. It

seems that announcing one is as much informational as it is

commercial. Yes, we make money from our workshop, but far

less than we do from selling prints. We feel we do them more as

a service than as a money-making enterprise.

 

In exchange for my purely informational postings in answer to

questions it seems fair to me that my original postings, those

rare times I make them, be permitted. That to me is a fair

exchange. Just as Brian cannot run his site without ads (I can

ignore them if I choose), I cannot spend my time providing my

expertise in the areas I have it without something in return

(People can ignore my postings if they choose.) It is interesting

to me to read the postings of some of the people who have

criticized me for my postings and to learn that they are working

with techniques that I have made popular through my articles.

Without those articles only a handful of people would be using

Azo today and just about no one would be developing film by

inspection.

 

So, while this posting is to everyone, this question is specifically

addressed to Brian and to whoever else runs this site. Will my

postings, if I make any the nature of which are primarily

informational, but secondarily commercial, be permitted to stay

on the site? Please answer with a simple yes or no. Please do

not tell me I can make these postings on another area of

Photo.net. My postings are always specifically for the LF

community and this forum is where they will be seen by the

greatest number of people. I have never been to any other part of

photo.net. In fact, until recently, I did not really know other parts

existed. Now I know they exist, but I will I never go to any other

part, for any reason. I came here for the first time when Tuan's

site shifted and do not have time to "surf the web" or even surf

photo.net.

<p>I think Michael Smith asks a good question that should be answered. Currently we have about the worst situation, where postings that appear to violate the photo.net guidelines remain on the forum receiving critical responses, some of which are intemperate and rude. It would be better for photo.net either to state that the posting is acceptable, or if not, to delete it.</p>

 

<p>It seems to me that the majority of participants in this LF forum would like to see annoucements of workshops, even non-free ones. Michael Smith is correct that an actual forum posting is the best way to reach people interested in unique LF products. Probably many participants want to see such postings. The difficulty is where to set the boundary so that individuals can provide information and mention themselves as sources for unique or very difficult to find items, while excluding manufacturers, distributers and retailers from using the forum to advertise instead of paying for ads.</p>

 

<p>photo.net is faced with tough choices. They need revenue, but the ads irritate some of their audience. Addtionally, if they ban postings that the LF audience wants to see, they may loose some of the audience to the competition. Perhaps photo.net could allow subscribers to make a limited number of secondarily commercial postings?</p>

 

<p>Michael: this issue posted here may not be seen by the people who run photo.net. They are too busy to read every posting or even look at every thread. The forum where they will notice it is the <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/forum?topic_id=1562">Site Feedback Forum</a>. Or you can try emailing them from the <a href="http://www.photo.net/contact-us">Contacting photo.net</a> webpage.</p>

Perhaps in future those who wish to entice my browsing away from this site to another can actually pay to advertise.

 

I for one am bored by their moaning in scant pretence of bannering an alternative forum.