This is getting ridiculous!

[root]

Brian Daniels, your numbers teach you nothing.

 

When you get a comment you should do two things. Acknowledge it and try to discuss the point(s) made. Then return the favor by visiting the commenters portfolio, pick an image that you especially like, and explain why it works for you. That benefits both parties.

 

If at all possible, join a local camera club.

[bens]

brian, your bluntness is admirable on the one hand; on the other hand, it has an abrupt, dismissive tone that i think is reflected in the photo.net feedback culture, to the negative at times. as more and more internet resources for photographers emerge, i think its important that you view posters less like captive clients and more like suppliers, and do what you can to address concerns somewhat more. you don't have to change anything, but for example, articulating whatever photo.net's goals are to the membership if you think they are misunderstood, conducting a survey or two, those kinds of things keep the trust of the "community." and as the leader, you have to remember your tone and willingness to explain things is crucial to the collective tone around here. your comments here are more along the lines of saying "that photo stinks," than explaining what it is that could be improved. i know its not the same -- you could do this feedback stuff endlessly i'm sure and take your eye off of important stuff. but it does matter. and remember, for every complaint you get, there are many who feel the same way and speak with their feet . . .

[__hank_boneroneo1]

After a while, I don't believe the 'giant sucking sound' of NAFTA could hold a candle to this forum. It goes on day after day after...

[mike dixon]

I'm not clear on the rationale behind having the site administrators bend over backwards to politely explain things which have been explained over and over and over and over again (just check the archives!) in a way that won't offend the current round of vocal complainers. If you do check the archives you'll see that, while they are only a tiny percentage of the site's members, people who like to make a lot of noise about what they think is wrong aren't really a scarce resource.

[jayme]

Brian- I think we all get the fact that you are not interested in our complaints or ideas. I guess I just find your attitude a arrogant. As some one mentioned above about complaining to their local grocery about out dated produce. I run a very successful business, if someone came in to voice a complaint & one of my staff members replied to their concerns in the manner you reply to our complaints, I'd fire them. That's the end of the story. You'd be packing your stuff and gone before you could utter another word. I know lots of successful business people and your way is not the norm. Customer satisfaction is important to a successful business. You sound as though you own this business and at all cost will have it your way. I own our business, I don't respond like you. Your sign up level might be high, but it is people like those above that are consistent posters and feedback/raters. You must certainly realize we make your site a success, not you personally. Our posts/rating/feedback are the back bone of your success, not your gruff, "my way or the highway" personality. They come here to learn and receive feedback from people like us. I know I am personally responsible for at lot of your new members. And possibly many more I do not know about. So who is your supervisor, Rajeev Surati CEO/Chairman of the board of PN? I've emailed him with a link to this page. Maybe he will be interested in your behavior/ maybe not, but it's worth a try. I know as an owner and board member of our business, I would be interested & concerned over your behavior. Maybe you are burned out, maybe you need a vacation, maybe you need to listen, maybe you need to move on.

 

For the record, with over 7 thousand patients registered in our office. I had 2 or 3 members complain about one of our staff members. I personally supervised her and advised her on our policy. After a few weeks I decided it was best to let her go, she was not consistent with our policy. After I let her go, several hundred patients voiced their opinions & relief she was gone, telling me multiple stories of her misbehavior that they were hesitant to voice while she worked in or office. If they had complained before, I would have fired her sooner, but they chose to stay silent. Why? Because they were nice people and did not want to appear as complainers. Get the analogy?

 

So from one not so nice person to another, if you loose you major posters/raters/feedback members, you will most certainly not continue to succeed, you will fail like so many other.com /.net companies. There arrogance got the better of them too.

[bens]

jayme, great stuff, but i've come to temper criticisms of brian and the photo.net staff because i am guessing that he is overworked and underpaid, aided by a largely volunteer force, seeking to accomplish a yet-unachieved mission of building a financially viable site in a fiercely competitive, ever changing field, hoping that this site makes it as an institution, rather than as a memory of something that was ahead of its time. i wouldn't want his job. having said that, my comments above speak for themselves. brian, i think you will find that honey beats vinegar most of the time in building "brand" loyalty. i hope you have an experienced people in marketing and the like to help you.

[johnmyers]

Mondiani, I'm in. I think it's a good idea. Anyone else?

[sandy.]

<P>It is sheer arrogance to try to knock down Brian. This is crowd mentality. I am not impressed with how successful you are in you business. From the tone of what you have written, I am sure you have a full staff supporting and helping you. You are lucky.

<P>Meanwhile, Brian is trying to please thousands of people everyday, most of them are rehashing old, stale subjects, or just bitching without better things to do. It is not fair. Try to imaging running you great business all by yourself and while you yourself are grossly under paid then you'll know. Be thankful.

 

<P>I, for one, am not impressed by how successful your business is. I also own a business that is in the high ten figures, so what ? and what has that got to do with PN? I may be impressed if you tell me you have just acuired a fleet of Challenger 604's, if you know what they are.

<P>Count your blessings, guy. If anyone of you were in Brian's position, I am sure your'll either quit or bitch like hell.

<P>Be thankful.

[vincetylor]

Sorry Jayme, I just cannot support your point of view either. Totally out of line in my opinion. Sorry.

 

Brian does communicate at times in what sounds like a cavalier-ish tone. Much of it is tongue and cheek actually. But the fact that he IS communicating, and trying to express his points of view over and over (even though I may not agree with those points of view) tells me he is doing what he thinks is best for the site. To threaten to find superiors, to threaten his actual position, and at the same time tell us publicly just how great YOU are at something (once again) is just plain arrogant. I've seen how far you'll go to get your way Jayme. That last situation is still fresh. Thought you'd know better by now. Too bad. Perhaps another apology is in order like last month. We'll see.

[keith_laban]

For God's sake people give the Man a break!

 

From what I can gather Brian works his guts out here for a fraction of the income he could attract elsewhere and has also personally invested a considerable sum to secure the future of photo.net.

 

Photo.net is simply the best online photographic resource available today. There is far more to photo.net than the rather silly TRP page and the ratings game. If I were Brian I'd have walked away long ago, but the fact that he is still here reflects his belief in this wonderful website.

 

Frankly Jayme I know what I would do if I were Brian.

[mondiani]

Brian didn't say he don't listen to the few minority who complain over and over about ratings he said if he will apply the many changes they request to please this tiny percentage this will affect the way that near 100% of people use the website. The already little number of ratings and comments they give will decrease which will certainly affect the number of photos uploaded to the site. I may be wrong but this is what he fears. That's why I made the proposition above. None read it? even not the short version?

[jayme]

Sorry People- I deal with health insurance companies everyday, please don't tell me about rude, ok. I'm the guy that gets YOUR health insurance bills paid. I DO KNOW what it's like to deal with chronically complaining, ill, easily irritated, over worked, underpaid, and redundant people all the time! I may complain to myself, but I am always pleasant to my patients (customers). I have a small staff (3)and absolutely NO volunteers at my disposal. Unlike Brian, I actually see my patients face to face, not via email & cyber forums. I deal with real life issues, like terminal cancer, COPD, heart failure, chest pain, Flu, Alzheimer's, depression, anxiety, drug addiction and death. Not just minor irritations like, cyber robots, mate rating & low-balling trolls. I think I CAN put this into perspective. So please don't admonish me for being disappointed and expecting better responses from Brian. Sorry, but when we accept a job, we should pretty darn well know what the responsibilities are and if you can not accept the responsibilities and do them well, then we should find another job! Brian does not even have to respond on this forum or any forum. It would be pretty darn difficult for me to walk away from a patient looking me in the face and not respond.

 

I am really tired of people NOT taking responsibility for their actions. I make mistakes just like everyone else, and.... I admit to them and try not to make that same mistake again. Thanks for reminding me Vincent. I am eternally sorry. Hopefully I won't make the same mistake again, but I might. Making excuses for others is not my job, making excuses for myself is unacceptable.

 

So Sandy, assuming I have a lot of staff supporting and helping me is an error. The total is 3. So the next time your health insurance company decides to deny to pay a claim at your physicians office for a "cold" because it's a pre-existing condition, you call the insurance company an get it straightened out! See how that goes, ok? You spend 15 minutes going through their round robin answering machines to wait on hold for 20 minutes to get a "claims specialist" who tells you, in order to determine if this is NOT a pre-existing condition you must mail in 2 years of prior office notes and wait for it to be sent to review, 60-90 day process. Now how ignorant, a simple "cold" being a pre-existing condition. This actually happens, oh yeah, I kid you not!

 

Brian implies that we are chronic complainers. In my mind, a chronic complainer is someone who complains about everything. We repeatedly complain about the SAME things. I've repeatedly stated "I enjoy PN & it's a wonderful site". But it does have room for improvement. Brian on the other hand, repeatedly states he's not listening and our same old "stale" complaints aren't going to influence any decisions regarding PN and if we don't like it leave.

 

I reiterate, this is NOT a good business practice. If he's over worked and under paid, go to management and insist he get more help & pay. According to him, the site is growing by leaps and bounds. Yahoo! So they should be able to afford more help for Brian, he has the stats to back him up.

 

I may not like the way the US government is run, but I'll be darned if I'm going to pack up and move to some other country. I will stay and voice my opinion and vote (during every election), write my Congressmen and my state Representatives, that is my God given right as an American. So until PN makes offering suggestions and voicing complaints off limits, I will continue to state my opinion. You can count on that. Change never occurred by giving someone an "at a boy" pat on the back every time they did nothing.

 

Sorry if I have offended anyone, but that's my opinion and I'm, sticking to it! I don't think I'm alone in my thinking, if I were we'd still be paying taxes to England and woman would not be able to vote! Conflict usually leads to change, which in my opinion would be good!

[jayme]

Oh and one more thing...... Sandy, I work for my husband in his physician's office, I do not take a cent of pay! I prefer it that way! He'd go out of business if he paid me my usual salary. So I guess he does have one volunteer, Me!

[mottershead]

Jayme, you are rather missing the point with your doctor's office analogy.

 

If I went to a doctor's office with a complaint about the service I had received, and someone told me that my complaint wouldn't be listened to, I would also be upset.

 

But that is not what regularly goes on in this forum. It is more like one of your patients coming in, not with a complaint about the service that he or she had personally received (which is the analogy of our abuse mailbox), but with "complaints" like: I think your service should be free; I don't like the fact that your parking lot is always full; you should charge more so that your waiting list for an appointment isn't so long; I think you should prevent smelly people from being patients here because they stink up the waiting room; when are you going to get rid of all these noisy little germbag kids who come in here (it being a pediatricians office); how come you don't go into the Dentistry business -- we need a dentist around here.

 

You might listen politely to these suggestions the first couple of times, but if the same people persisted, and stood around your office making their "suggestions" unendingly, so that new patients arriving were exposed to all the loud complaining, eventually you would get fed up and let them know that their suggestions were unwelcome, and after a bit more time, you'd call the cops.

[spaghetti_western]

if i may paraphrase what i was reminded in a past thread by giving yas the ol' one-two punchline:

 

this is not getting ridiculous because THIS IS PHOTO.NET

 

thank you, bailey 'Z' seals (re 'this is spinal tap')

[bens]

i'm sorry brian, but i hope you can hear this. you read like someone overworked and too isolated. many of us have been where you are. calling the cops is the lose-lose scenario. i hope you can find a way to a winning approach that enables you to separate wheat from chaff and use the resources of people trying to help. i suggest that rather than responding negatively to the negative, that you find that affirmative direction and lead with your actions and words as much as possible in that direction. i think -- from my own significant, successful experience -- you will find that it will clear the air and make the experience more enjoyable for you and many others. please try to reflect, and understand that your actions contribute to the dynamic that you dislike, and that a change in your own actions is about all you can do. i write this out of respect and hope that you find it useful.

[jayme]

Brian-I think your analogy is a little off base, but then things like this happen everyday at our office. We do listen, we do try to accommodate our patients. For examples:

 

I do have people that think they should be able to drop by, get their blood pressure check, have it evaluated by the physician, change their medicine and give them samples, all for free. I politely explain this is not going to happen. I don't tell them I'm not listening and I'm tired of them complaining. I tell them well, if they follow their diet and watch their salt intake, they may be able to stop their medicine. Then they can drop by anytime they like and get a free blood pressure, as long as they are not on meds. It works!

 

We put in hours of work assisting indigent patients so they may receive drug assistance through most of the major drug companies. We spend hours and charge them nothing. Our staff gets paid, but the patients don't pay us for these meds, they are free! We don't mind because it provides a wonderful service to those that can not afford their medicine the keeps them well.

 

In fact we moved our office about 3 years ago because the parking was atrocious. People were calling us on cell phones to say they were sorry they were late, but they couldn't find a parking place. We listened, we moved.

 

Yes, we get our share of unruly children, I do politely ask the parents to keep them under control, plus we provide an area just for the kids with toys and games, etc. It solved the unruly children problem.

 

We do listen when people complain about waiting too long. Usually there has been some sort of patient emergency that has put us behind, I politely explain to the remaining patients that they are welcome to wait, however they are also welcome to reschedule. Most wait patiently. We provide up to date magazines and since we are a small office, we generally know the patient and carry on informal conversations with them about their families and such.

 

For those that are disruptive in the waiting room, like they are vomiting or coughing all over the other patients, we place them in a patient room immediately. Now as for smelly people, I'm sure we have a few, but our waiting room is large and open aired, so another patient can move to another area and not be bothered.

 

I have only once asked a patient to leave. They were demanding I do something illegal, and I was not going to do it. We discharged that patient immediately.

 

Now as for the dentist, you may laugh, but we've had our share of dental patients that came to us because they couldn't get into their dentist until 2 weeks from Thursday. Unfortunately, Health ins and Dental ins are 2 separate things. So we can file a claim for "jaw pain" but not for "abscessed tooth" go figure. Antibiotics are the treatment and then they go to their dentist for the remaining root canal? Who knows, not a dentist.

 

So you see, we do deal with these and many more strange and bizarre incidents on a daily basis, but we have always listened and tried to come up with a solution we could all live with. If I told someone flat out I'm not listening and they were just a chronic complainer, yep.....they would become disruptive. We just do not allow this to happen. We deal with each individuals problem as it arises. Therefore, they know we do care about what they think and they do have some control over what happens. Some of their suggestions have been wonderful. I was glad I listened.

 

Obviously, Brian, you must think you have a rare situation, when in fact it's pretty common. So maybe listening and offering solutions instead of complaining back might be a help. Some people have come up with wonderful sounding ideas to alleviate the problems. Please listen. Stop the "my way or the highway" thinking.

[spaghetti_western]

brian makes a good point. ironic that not once have i read any post pointing to the abuse dept of PN as a problem requiring site feedback redress. am i to conclude either that the abuse dept of PN works expeditiously, fairly, and nearly perfectly if not always satisfactorily to the complainant OR that most of the complaints made to this forum about ratings abuses do not get reported to abuse at PN and therefore are allowed to fester? case in point the user who goes by the moniker 'd s' -- http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=1456641 -- who continues to shower high uniform ratings in a methodical but arbitrary and capricious manner in the ratings queue which makes a mockery of how an individual ought to rate photos. now will anyone report this to abuse at PN? dont look at me cuz i jus the messenger who folks say has no legit standing in PN as in 'dont post, dont rate'

[mark lucas]

Spaghetti,

 

I take it you took note of the fact the person you refer to is NOT a paid member?

[mg]

Well... Could anyone please update me on these "clones" ? Are we sure that they are clones, and if so, what has been done so far about them/him...? I've just received little presents from 3 of them myself:

<p>

Mohan Al-Granhi, Markus G, Gill Thomas.

<p>

So I'm just wondering what's the status...? *If* guilty as charged, is there any reason why these accounts have not been nuked...? Regards.

[mg]

As for the rest, well....... I guess most of you already know what I think, and since we are never listened to anyway, I will simply keep quiet...:-)

[mg]

Maybe just this: Somebody suggested a survey to find out who is satisfied and who is not about the rating system and the gallery... Well, do you really have anything to lose...? A survey would bring you all the information you need and even the information that you didn't need, or didn't know you needed... So, what can possibly be wrong, about having such a survey...?! I suppose it feels more comfortable to assume that 99% of the people are happy, but... why not find out ?

[spaghetti_western]

"...I take it you took note of the fact the person you refer to is NOT a paid member?..."

 

you mean to say that if that person was a paying member then his rating modus operendi would be considered legit??? this is why i applaud site policy to treat every member with equal respect according to an unflappable business policy standard and just give subscribers more goodies (but no more 'say' than the next member)

[mark lucas]

No, it seemed that you took umbrage with his ratings. The point is, were rating for members only he wouldn't be able to rate.

 

Anyway, what exactly was your point - he's not the worst by a long way. Marc G and I have pointed out many fictional raters in the past, invented to boost individuals ratings and deny me and you access to the TRP (where comments are more likely to be received - like it or not) and nothing has been done about it.

 

I think the only answer now is to give myself a Spanish name.

[vincetylor]

Dear Jayme. Asking Brian to stop the "my way or highway" approach is reasonable enough. Sharing your opinions on what you or I think is good for the site is also fair. Sharing your own stories/experiences as examples to illustrate your points have always been an effective means to do that, so no issues from me there either. I do believe (if it matters) that your intentions are sincere and just looking out for the interests of the site. It is HERE that I felt you really crossed the line:

 

"So who is your supervisor, Rajeev Surati CEO/Chairman of the board of PN? I've emailed him with a link to this page. Maybe he will be interested in your behavior/ maybe not, but it's worth a try. I know as an owner and board member of our business, I would be interested & concerned over your behavior. Maybe you are burned out, maybe you need a vacation, maybe you need to listen, maybe you need to move on."

 

That sounds a little like somebody on a crusade to "let's get rid of this bum altogether" simply because he does not agree with my point of view. That in my opinion is excessive. Wonder how your husband would feel if one of his long-time patients tried to get his medical license revoked because simply because he was not as *polite* as he thought he should be. Or perhaps because he does not open on Saturdays. Or did not like his magazine selections....

 

Let's just agree to disagree then. But there is no need to go to extremes. Not for this anyway. Hope you and yours are doing well Jayme. Have a great day! Aloha.