dougityb Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 Even those who do log in sometimes just want to look at pictures without any worry or concern for the details or comments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
root Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 Keep going, Doug . . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mottershead Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 They hit the photo pages, Top Photos, etc. The forums are second. The "content" (i.e. the articles) and Philip Greenspun's photos are tied for third and fourth, and are fairly sizable. Contributions to the site (rating, uploading photos, writing comments and forum posts, etc) are not a major part of the traffic. Of course, these activities create the content which draws the real traffic. This should be obvious when you recall that there are 80-100,000 unique visitors per day, while there have only been a few hundred thousand registered members in the 10 year history of the site, many of these accounts being duplicates or empty accounts with no content. So the cultivation and satisfaction of the few tens of thousands of people who have contributed content over the years is important. A small percentage of these are subscribers, and that revenue is important. But these people are not where the traffic is coming from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garry edwards Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 <i>A small percentage of these are subscribers, and that revenue is important. But these people are not where the traffic is coming from.'</i><br>So much of the traffic is from people who are not subscribers, or at least who are not logged in, and they are mainly interested in looking at the photos, not in rating or commenting on them and not (primarily) in other parts of the site.<p>Fine, so it must surely follow that any changes to the site that help to reduce the visibility/rankings of indifferent photos will p*** off the mate-raters and please everyone else, including the non-subscribers whose advertising clicks are so valuable. It follows that they will be happy with the changes because the indifferent and sometimes downright poor photos that currently rise to the top will be replaced by genuinely good shots.<br>Or am I just being over optimistic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mottershead Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 Well hopefully the present changes will be attractive to people viewing photos because that is the intent. That and reducing the conflict in commentaries and emails over ratings. This comes at the expense of putting up an impediment to the mutual stroking that takes place between photographers who upload photos. That is both good and bad. The bad part is that many of the best photos were uploaded by people who were being rewarded and motivated by that stroking. While you might think that having your portfolio viewed and admired by tens of thousands of people per day would be reward enough for uploading to the photo.net Gallery, the fact is that most of those viewers never say anything, and their presence is a bit of an abstraction. Views on photo.net represent people looking at the photos on the Internet, but the admiration of those faceless people doesn't directly translate to anything that the normal world counts as fame or success, at least not yet. The mutual encouragement (stroking) by other photographers in the Gallery is not abstract. A high rating and a one sentence encouraging comment from another Gallery member seems a lot more important than the uncommunicated admiration of ten thousand fleeting visitors. Without the concreteness of the little comment and the positive rating from a recognized name, some photographers might feel that they aren't getting enough out of the site in return for their wonderful photos. As I said above, we will see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
root Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 Seems to me we should have a place to send this large group where they can view a variety of images selected for the purpose, without access to comments and totally apart from those uploaded for social or critical purposes we've discussed above. Each qualifying photographer can select one image to include in a random rotation of images. "Qualifying" criteria would be a closely guarded secret. No point in trying to find your image's 'ranking'. It's random, changing frequently, there is none. This in addition to POW(s), including discussions, featured portfolio or presentation, most popular images ever uploaded on PN, etc.. . . . . . . but not all the daily laundry that passes for critical discussion and the best of the day. Let's keep that in house. . . . just some ideas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terry_rory Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 Everybody has ad blocking on their PC dont they? I haven't seen any ads on photo.net for ages because my firewall blocks them all. (However I do pay a subscription so PN does get a little revenue from me.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincetylor Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 What you call stroking Brian (a derogatory term as I see it used above) is more or less what I would call interaction. Yes, ALL members that upload a photograph want interaction. Compliments (or stroking ...if you must) are simply just a *part* of that equation. Counsel and suggestions that are quite beneficial are also a part of that process. Rest assured, I am speaking from experience here. Carl believes many images receive too much of this interaction. Well interaction within the community of photographers is not always based on the best or most aesthetically pleasing or interesting photos. Sometimes a photographer also has a reputation. Perhaps involvment, perhaps sticking sround long enough unlike others that come and go. Perhaps his work is consistent. I know whenever I see Ivan Milovidov upload another of his stunning portraits I will almost always say something. I am a fan of his work. Not every one is a winner, but most all are in my opinion. Same with Richard Van H. and many others as well. Yes I have a few fans too.... so what? Nothing wrong with that either. If photographers are satisfied with the interaction that exists between one another and at the same time are happy with the freedom that exists to communicate openly without restrictions, then yes there is no reason on this earth why such people won't continue to upload photos on a regular basis for all the unique faceless visitors to enjoy and then hopefully move onto other revenue producing ads. So what if a few unworthy images make it onto the TRP. Basically most have been very good images from my two years here, and there still are very good images up there right now. The Elves choose one unique image each week and you Brian have the authority to choose portfolios (as many as you wish) as often as you wish. Right there on the front page! Why not let Carl choose some of those portfolios, then he might stop ranting on and on about the terrible ratings system at present. I get paid $100 for each image I ALLOW Webshots to post on their site, plus royalties of 15 percent for threee years usage. People in the hundreds of thousands download as screensavers and pass onto their friends. Sometimes hundreds of thousands in just one week. Yep, thats usually how it works if you want professional images to attract the public. No Brian, Photo.net does not pay the photographer one cent to post images for the public to enjoy here. In fact, I pay you to be able to do so. So then if the payoff is more interaction, helpful comments and some compliments/exposure (or stroking if you will) then so what? Let the photographers enjoy the experience. You can always put up warnings and delete the revenge backstabbing silliness that will always be an issue with any public site. I would like to also see you offer the opportunity for a donation of more than just $25. Many (including myself) would be happy to make a larger donation because the value we have received is worth even more. Tha value in which is even greater when we can remove the veils of annonymity and interact however we wish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mottershead Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 If you substitute "interaction" for "stroking" in what I said, Vincent, I think I am basically saying the same thing as you. I used the word "stroking" intentionally to emphasize psychological support, mutual encouragement, and other positive, rewarding interactions that make people feel good. The term perhaps came across as more sarcastic than I intended. Your word "interaction", on the hand, is a bit clinical and anyway is bit over-broad as it includes bickering, arguing, etc, and many other negative interactions which I don't think anybody would regard as a reward for uploading their photos to photo.net. So, actually, I think "stroking" is more accurate than "interaction". While the recent changes put up some minor impediments to positive interactions/"stroking" by making positive as well as negative ratings anononymous, I believe that they also make it less likely that negative interactions will happen due to people receiving ratings they consider "low". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike_morgan1 Posted July 11, 2004 Share Posted July 11, 2004 <i>Take a look at successful businesses and I think you'll find that the most successful generally tend to be those whose model places quality above quantity</i><p><p> It is exactly opposite. Whichy ou know. Quantity rules, not quality, in this modern society, with few exceptions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter_daalder Posted July 11, 2004 Share Posted July 11, 2004 <i>Brian Mottershead, jul 02, 2004; 10:48 a.m.:<br> About 99.9999+% of the human population boycott the photo.net Gallery every day.</i><p> I've often come across the term <i>reality check</i> and Brian's statement above has to qualify as one of them!<br>There is so much more to life than spending your time in this wonderful place (PN) that many of us are so passionate about. I fully endorse all recent changes that have been made and look forward to any other future enhancements...<br>Pnina, I don't think that the society spirit has been taken out with these "improvements".<br> For me, there is now even more incentive to leave comments on posted images in the Gallery.<br>The attached image hopefully illustrates the heading of my contribution to this thread. Adding fuel to the fire?!<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnital Posted July 11, 2004 Author Share Posted July 11, 2004 Peter, first let me tell you that I realy like the "fire" ( photo) you uploaded with your comment.It is exactly the story of the chicken and the egg, PN needs the photographers that upload photos so viewers will click through to look at them(I reffer to these who just look at them). Photographers upload photos for all the reasons mentioned above ,that I will call them in one word feedback!! Every artist in every field that is exposing his work, want and needs feedback in order to develope and make a progress.What Brian calls stroking, is many times appreciation of works done by photographers that one have liked, and comes again to see ( new uploads) and give feedback. I know that even a good photographer and artist has good, medium, and excellent works.I think that an honest artist will not rate and comment a medium work as high only because of virtual friendship.In order to evaluate a feedback given, it will be a different evaluation if one appreciate the skills of the giver, when one knows that it was given out of knowledge, than a feedback from a layman, that liked the image but don't have the knowledge to judge more proffesionaly. I myself don't rate and comment any work if I think it is not a good one, even I will rate many good works of that same photographer.I can not jadge correctly all the changes( so many all together), so time will tell if it was worth all the work put into them. Pnina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnital Posted July 11, 2004 Author Share Posted July 11, 2004 I find out that I have to put more time for the same actions than before, and work a lot more with the mouse..... a problem, Brian? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter_daalder Posted July 14, 2004 Share Posted July 14, 2004 <i>I find out that I have to put more time for the same actions than before, and work a lot more with the mouse..... a problem, Brian?</i><p>Pnina, one of the recent improvements to photo.net, was the introduction of the <a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/follow-up"> Follow-Up Photo Comments </a> page.<br>This is now the entry point to photo.net for me and I find that the society spirit is alive and well through exchange of comments (critiques).<br> I'm often surprised to see titles of images (re-)appear, that I visited a long time ago.<br> As far as I'm concerned, PN is getting better and better all the time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter_daalder Posted July 14, 2004 Share Posted July 14, 2004 Got distracted whilst writing the last posting...<br> I included your question to Brian about having to do more mouse clicking being a problem, for a particular purpose. As far as I'm concerned, as long as ANY of those extra mouse clicks go towards raising revenue for photo.net, I haven't got a problem with it at all. There are still not enough people who subscribe. Hopefully the <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo-posting-guidelines"> new image quota allocation </a> will encourage more new subscriptions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnital Posted July 17, 2004 Author Share Posted July 17, 2004 Peter, Thanks for the information.If the extra clicks are better for the PN revenues, I agree to click them.........I don't see how the page you presented is helping, as even if I start with that if I want to see the comments on a given photo, or comment it myself, I still have to go into the folder( image).Anyway Thanks for taking the time to answer. Pnina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnital Posted July 17, 2004 Author Share Posted July 17, 2004 Peter, ok, The follow up is photos that I have commeted on them, but if I want to read the other comments added I still have to go in ( as I have written in the previous one). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erin_____grasshopper__rice Posted July 20, 2004 Share Posted July 20, 2004 We love you, Brian. We appreciate you! Keep on keepin' on and don't listen to any negative stuffs!!! (except for mine! :P) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter_daalder Posted July 20, 2004 Share Posted July 20, 2004 Yes, Erin. Perhaps Brian can win after all...<br> I'll have to retract my previous heading... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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