System Issues; Attention - Glenn

Glenn, initially I request that you carefully read the following thread: Hanging photos in an empty room with a wonky door lock . The participants on this thread have mentioned a variety of issues concerning PN2.0.

(1) decreased number of views

(2) having to search for new work from favorite photographers

(3) difficulty in navigating site to find images suitable for critique; tedious navigation in general

(4) overly large thumbnails which decrease the numbers of views

(5) system too slow

(6) too much white space

(7) too much scrolling required

My primary issue, which others have raised in various forms before, is twofold: system problems taking overly long periods of time to address, and a distinct lack of timely status updates from Admin/Tech staff. Hopefully, by now you realize we are desperately hoping that we are not just flapping our gums. We have a serious concern about PN's future.

We look forward to a constructive, timely response.

(8) Inability to track both comments on the photographer's own images and comments made on other's. A simple sort to "newest on top" to the "Your Activity" pages would probably satisfy this need. But then, nothing seems to be simple.

Thanks for the addition, Mike. There seems to be one simple aspect to this new site. Admin seems to disappear into a black hole when members request assistance.

We just need to reconcile that certain things will remain as they are. The 'front end' of this site is a software package--just like the forum 'back end.' There is limited scope of what can be changed and not--heavy customization has problems all of its own. Stuff that was possible in PN 1.0 will not happen--because that platform was written just for those purposes. As to fixes, I am at a loss to explain why a "team" takes 5 months to iron out what should have happened within a week of launch--and most of the problems should have been debugged prior to launch. Anyway... :rolleyes:

I too am discouraged over the participation in both the Gallery/Portfolio side, and to a lesser extent--the forum side. My mediocre offerings in the gallery or portfolio see little to NO views. Images submitted for critique, and new uploads to "Trending" go un-commented and registering no views. This is in STARK opposition to what happened before under PN 1.0. Whereas under the old rating system I got a feel because of the scale whether others thought that an image was as spectacular or whatever as I did. I was able to reward those who posted great images with nice ratings. As it stands now the entire thing has been diluted and commodified to the level of 'liking' some crappy Facebook meme... :(

Another humongous NEGATIVE is how a portfolio displays by default images in the order that they were posted--and every stupid image I upload. This is the first thing that a visitor sees of my rubbish. It would be so much better if the portfolio view was able to be comprised of those "better" images that I want to represent my doings--and not every image that is in sub-galleries. I put some stuff on PN just because it is fun--not to be crowded out to the bottom by stuff that rightfully belongs in a gallery of such things. o_O

This all has stirred me to do a massive overhaul of my personal photo website. But that is just a small outpost on the borders of the innernutz--likely to be seen by few except those who are looking for it. I sure wish that PN was able to offer us what we had before--a versatile venue for photographers--by photographers. Now it seems just another stupid image uploading site... :confused:

We just need to reconcile that certain things will remain as they are. The 'front end' of this site is a software package--just like the forum 'back end.' There is limited scope of what can be changed and not--heavy customization has problems all of its own. Stuff that was possible in PN 1.0 will not happen--because that platform was written just for those purposes. As to fixes, I am at a loss to explain why a "team" takes 5 months to iron out what should have happened within a week of launch--and most of the problems should have been debugged prior to launch. Anyway... :rolleyes:

 

I too am discouraged over the participation in both the Gallery/Portfolio side, and to a lesser extent--the forum side. My mediocre offerings in the gallery or portfolio see little to NO views. Images submitted for critique, and new uploads to "Trending" go un-commented and registering no views. This is in STARK opposition to what happened before under PN 1.0. Whereas under the old rating system I got a feel because of the scale whether others thought that an image was as spectacular or whatever as I did. I was able to reward those who posted great images with nice ratings. As it stands now the entire thing has been diluted and commodified to the level of 'liking' some crappy Facebook meme... :(

 

Another humongous NEGATIVE is how a portfolio displays by default images in the order that they were posted--and every stupid image I upload. This is the first thing that a visitor sees of my rubbish. It would be so much better if the portfolio view was able to be comprised of those "better" images that I want to represent my doings--and not every image that is in sub-galleries. I put some stuff on PN just because it is fun--not to be crowded out to the bottom by stuff that rightfully belongs in a gallery of such things. o_O

 

This all has stirred me to do a massive overhaul of my personal photo website. But that is just a small outpost on the borders of the innernutz--likely to be seen by few except those who are looking for it. I sure wish that PN was able to offer us what we had before--a versatile venue for photographers--by photographers. Now it seems just another stupid image uploading site... :confused:

I keep vacillating between being uncomfortably numb and being so disgusted that I feel I have to be involved somehow in trying to move things along. As Charlie Brown said on many occasions, "Sigh."

PS Can you provide a link to your website?

being so disgusted that I feel I have to be involved somehow in trying to move things along

I promise, this is the last time I'll say this . . .

 

PS Can you provide a link to your website?

Mike,

It is still a bit sparse--I am having to "right size" all of my images prior to uploading. I need to have the site function on two levels--one as a showcase and the other as an ecommerce platform. Neither is an issue, as I am using the NextGen Pro plugin on top of a Wordpress platform. The theme is Photocrati Pro.

Home - Photography by Patrick Thrush

Hi Michael. I appreciate your thoughts, suggestions and concerns. I will take this one by one.

(1) decreased number of views - this is up for debate as in v1, unless you submitted for critique or ratings your photo was a needle in a haystack, there was no way for anyone to find your recent work unless they found a photo that you submitted for critique or ratings. I can't tell you how often I would get emails from new users of v1 saying, why aren't I getting any views or comments!? We have recently launched a modal which should dramatically improve navigation on the gallery side - and DOES count towards your views counts.

2.) Searching for work from favorite photographers should not be hard if you are logged in My Favorites | Photo.net - click on photographer - you will see most recent uploads from photographers you are following.

3.) Finding images suitable for critique should not be hard in v2 - Explore>Seeking Critique and Sort by category & timeframe.

4.) I tend to would agree that our new and improved thumbnails may in fact be negatively impacting photo views. Solution, make our thumbnails smaller? Alternatively - given photographers are seeking exposure (and feedback - by way of views, comments, etc, etc) of their work when they upload, we are introducing a new metric - called "impressions", which will count how often your thumbnail shows up in results and will be a count kept next to views.

5.) System is too slow: the entire site or a specific section? I need more details. We have been making improvements with speed, so if this is a general comment that spans time since launch, I would say we're improving. So in short, we know and we're working on it - as evidenced by improved speeds seen within the last 2-4 weeks.

6.) Too much white space - can you be more specific - where?

7.) Too much scrolling - where in galleries, forums? more information needed.

I'd still appreciate an answer to the spastic refresh problem that several of us have been reporting.

This stuff would not have happened when Phillip still owned/operated the site.

Hi Michael. I appreciate your thoughts, suggestions and concerns. I will take this one by one.

 

(1) decreased number of views - this is up for debate as in v1, unless you submitted for critique or ratings your photo was a needle in a haystack, there was no way for anyone to find your recent work unless they found a photo that you submitted for critique or ratings. I can't tell you how often I would get emails from new users of v1 saying, why aren't I getting any views or comments!? We have recently launched a modal which should dramatically improve navigation on the gallery side - and DOES count towards your views counts.

2.) Searching for work from favorite photographers should not be hard if you are logged in My Favorites | Photo.net - click on photographer - you will see most recent uploads from photographers you are following.

3.) Finding images suitable for critique should not be hard in v2 - Explore>Seeking Critique and Sort by category & timeframe.

4.) I tend to would agree that our new and improved thumbnails may in fact be negatively impacting photo views. Solution, make our thumbnails smaller? Alternatively - given photographers are seeking exposure (and feedback - by way of views, comments, etc, etc) of their work when they upload, we are introducing a new metric - called "impressions", which will count how often your thumbnail shows up in results and will be a count kept next to views.

5.) System is too slow: the entire site or a specific section? I need more details. We have been making improvements with speed, so if this is a general comment that spans time since launch, I would say we're improving. So in short, we know and we're working on it - as evidenced by improved speeds seen within the last 2-4 weeks.

6.) Too much white space - can you be more specific - where?

7.) Too much scrolling - where in galleries, forums? more information needed.

And please don't forget #8

(8) Inability to track both comments on the photographer's own images and comments made on other's. A simple sort to "newest on top" to the "Your Activity" pages would probably satisfy this need.

I'd still appreciate an answer to the spastic refresh problem that several of us have been reporting.

 

This stuff would not have happened when Phillip still owned/operated the site.

Maybe not, but he sold it in 2007 so we'll never know. Truth is - v1 was not attracting new users at a rate that if we didn't try something it would have ended up like PopPhoto, so at minimum you have people dedicated to keeping it going. So glass half full.

I'd still appreciate an answer to the spastic refresh problem that several of us have been reporting.

 

This stuff would not have happened when Phillip still owned/operated the site.

As for the refreshing issue - we have not been able to recreate. Can you provide us your OS and browser version so we can try to recreate? The few times we have investigated this issue - it was people running very old OS - Windows 7 with an outdated browser.

As for the refreshing issue - we have not been able to recreate. Can you provide us your OS and browser version so we can try to recreate? The few times we have investigated this issue - it was people running very old OS - Windows 7 with an outdated browser.

Mac OS X Sierra 10.12.4, Firefox 54.0. My OS may be a build number behind current, but AFAIK Firefox is within a week of the most current version.

The problem happens when I'm logged into the site for ~12 hours.

Mac OS X Sierra 10.12.4, Firefox 54.0. My OS may be a build number behind current, but AFAIK Firefox is within a week of the most current version.

 

The problem happens when I'm logged into the site for ~12 hours.

Same for me on the login time--also when visiting any post through a link on an email notification. BTW, Win10 Pro64, latest Firefox as default browser. This has been the case through the last 4 update iterations of FF--and it does it in Chrome also.

Hi Michael. I appreciate your thoughts, suggestions and concerns. I will take this one by one.

 

(1) decreased number of views - this is up for debate as in v1, unless you submitted for critique or ratings your photo was a needle in a haystack, there was no way for anyone to find your recent work unless they found a photo that you submitted for critique or ratings. I can't tell you how often I would get emails from new users of v1 saying, why aren't I getting any views or comments!? We have recently launched a modal which should dramatically improve navigation on the gallery side - and DOES count towards your views counts.

2.) Searching for work from favorite photographers should not be hard if you are logged in My Favorites | Photo.net - click on photographer - you will see most recent uploads from photographers you are following.

3.) Finding images suitable for critique should not be hard in v2 - Explore>Seeking Critique and Sort by category & timeframe.

4.) I tend to would agree that our new and improved thumbnails may in fact be negatively impacting photo views. Solution, make our thumbnails smaller? Alternatively - given photographers are seeking exposure (and feedback - by way of views, comments, etc, etc) of their work when they upload, we are introducing a new metric - called "impressions", which will count how often your thumbnail shows up in results and will be a count kept next to views.

5.) System is too slow: the entire site or a specific section? I need more details. We have been making improvements with speed, so if this is a general comment that spans time since launch, I would say we're improving. So in short, we know and we're working on it - as evidenced by improved speeds seen within the last 2-4 weeks.

6.) Too much white space - can you be more specific - where?

7.) Too much scrolling - where in galleries, forums? more information needed.

Glenn, I'd have to do some research to answer your questions 5 - 7. My list was a compendium of feedback from other members.

Maybe not, but he sold it in 2007 so we'll never know. Truth is - v1 was not attracting new users at a rate that if we didn't try something it would have ended up like PopPhoto, so at minimum you have people dedicated to keeping it going. So glass half full.

Glass half full . . . Really, Glenn?

[ATTACH=full]1193459[/ATTACH]

From the same site -

How fast does photo.net load?

http://pcache.alexa.com/pro/images/icon-section-help.261d6afd7eb2b5ccd592968615769fee.png

Very Slow (4.368 Seconds), 91% of sites are faster.

[ATTACH=full]1193459[/ATTACH]

That's nothing-with Greenspun at the help, I seem to recall Alexa rankings in the top 2500 worldwide. I've been on a hiatus from the site for several years now, but it's honestly discouraging to see how things have declined relative to what I remember in the 2006-2008. It was such a privilege to get to work alongside Phillip as a moderator back in those days.

I'm also sorry to see that a lot of the old active members of the moderator team I remember-folks like Bob Atkins and Lex Jenkins-seem to have faded into the background. When I look through the fora now, I see very few familiar names as moderators-Shun on the Nikon forum is one who stands out, as is James on some of the film fora.

I can't explain why the current trend is such that it is, but I'm just sorry that this once great giant seems to be sailing into the sunset. In all honesty, I don't know that the original software was driving away new members. What does seem certain, though, is that the bugs are driving away OLD members. Let's face it, in a web loaded with crap from every direction, the old Pnet was a relief with its minimalist but very effective interface.

BTW, I still don't understand why some of these problems can't be solved. This isn't the only site on the net running Xenforo, nor is it the only Xenforo site of which I'm a member. The issues I'm having here(and now the spastic refresh problem is my biggest one) just don't happen elsewhere.