New forum suggestion - websites and blogs

[cfimages]

Hi Brian,

 

More and more these days, I see posts in the various forums, where

members introduce/critique their new/redesigned website or photoblog.

Have you thought about creating a separate forum for this purpose?

 

The basic ideas of the forum (in my mind) would be :

 

1)Any requests for viewing/critique of a new site have to be posted

here. Any posted in other forums to be moved to here.

2)Have a categories selection that has to be entered (similar to the

critique gallery categories) before posting. But add an extra category

for "general" or "other" for sites that don't fit into the assigned

categories list.

 

I know there is the ability to provide a link to a website in each

memebers homepage. But I think it'd be great to be able to go into a

forum, and get a whole bunch of posts with links to sites, so that a

member could have at hand, what is effectively, an up to date list of

new sites.

 

Your thoughts?

 

Craig

[mottershead]

I think this is great idea, and I've been thinking of doing it for a long time.

[cfimages]

Brian,

 

Glad to hear you've been thinking about it.

 

I'd be happy to moderate it (ie screening out porn/spam sites etc). However, I live in Asia, so there's a 12 hour time difference to the US - at least, to the photo.net timezone.

[bobatkins]

It's a good idea. I suggested something similar a while ago, but my suggestion was for a forum which wasn't just for website critique, but also dealt with the nuts and bolts of setting up a photo website, the various options for creating image galleries, for hosting it and promoting it.

 

I think that's what a website "critique" forum might turn into anyway, so it might be best to plan it with categories bearing that in mind.

 

Would it really be of any practical use to have it categorized by subject? Do we want seperate places to discuss nature sites, documentary sites, people sites etc. After all if the forum is for discussion of the SITE rather than discussion of the specific IMAGES, comments would pretty much apply to sites on any topic.

 

It might be better called a "photography website DISCUSSION" forum rather than a "photography website CRITIQUE" forum, since on this site "critique" is a word so tightly linked with image critique. Call it "critique" and people will want a system to give numerical ratings to websites...

[mottershead]

Given how popular the rating system is, I don't know that rating photography portfolio sites and weblogs is necessarily such a bad thing. The Site Feedback forum (and possible Mr Atkins) to the contrary notwithstanding, the photo rating system is, by far, the most popular feature on photo.net. It might be quite interesting to extend it to photography web sites. So even if "critique" does have the connotations that Bob suggests, I think it might be quite reasonable to describe it as a Photography Web Site Critique Forum.

 

As for the "how to" aspects, that might well be another forum, related to the "Critique Forum". The reason that I might like to have it be separate is that I'm thinking of some special features for the Critique Forum, such as automatically generating a screen shot for the URL's that are submitted for critique. So, I would kind of like a structure where in that forum, each thread represents the critique/commentary/discussion on one specific photography web site.

[bobatkins]

Brian - I'm not denying - or belittling - the popularity of ratings (or their economic impact on photo.net!), but they do tend to overwhelm anything else due to their universal popular appeal. A separate forum for the mechanics of photo website creation wouldn't be a bad thing. Such discussions could easily be lost in a critique forum among the myriad threads about how some nasty, mean spirited person - who didn't even HAVE their own website - only gave a website a 2/3, when others had given it a 7/7...and how clearly those without a website aren't qualified to comment on anyone else's.

 

My guess is that any website critique forum will end up critiquing the images (and all that goes with that), but perhaps that's good and part of the original idea. However it might be an idea to somehow make it clear whether it was the site, structure and presentation of the site which was under discussion or whether it was the portfolio of images presented there - or both. They really are two different things. You could easily have a great site with lousy images (rated 7/2?) or a lousy site with great images (rated 2/7?). The ability to take pictures and design a website probably don't correlate well!

 

Will there be TRW (top rated website) lists? I'm ready to apply...

[keith turrill]

Photography websites have some unique issues such as bandwidth, development of "search engine friendly" structures, and development software and server platforms. The details change as fast as computers and software programs.

 

Not to mention that website development gives users the ability to "link out" to content in an enviroment of their own chosing.

[keith_laban]

Nice idea, but please, not another rating opportunity.

[mbb]

A real great idea indeed. But maybe just votes (if it is necessary for some placement) but not ratings? Members can just cast one vote per site if they like it.

[cfimages]

When I mentioned critique and categories, I never meant to make it sound like there should be ratings attached to websites. A site that I might design, using one of the free website providers (geocities etc), is going to look a lot different to a site designed by someone who does web design for a living. Although the quality of the images may well be similar. So ratings would be impossible, as we'd never know if it's the images being rated or the site itself.

 

The suggestion about categories was made with the idea that, suppose I want to look at some sites dedicated to, say, travel shots. I can choose sites from the forum that have been categorised as this, and not have to waste my time clicking on links that take me to sites that are full of nudes, or flowers, or weddings etc. Then, another day, when i want to look at wedding sites, I can find these straight away.

 

Of course, it could just be made a rule that the subject line of the post should be descriptive of the website content, but seeing as a while ago, Bob (I think it was him), made an admin post in the Canon EOS forum about using descriptive subjects, and most people it seems ignored that, and continued doing what they were doing, I couldn't see that that would work in a website forum.

[bobatkins]

Craig - we don't really need a forum for that. We could just have a "weblinks" page (or a set of such pages, one for each category) where people could list their websites.

 

As for ratings, well, what's the point of viewing anything on the web if you can't rate it. One of the most popular sites these days is "Rate My *****", where ***** is anything from a car, to a boob job, to several things which I'm not inclined to mention here. "Rate my website" would be mild in comparison...

[mottershead]

I think a combination of Photography Web Directory/ User Reviews/ Recommendations/ Critiques/ Share-your-Bookmarks/ Ratings would be immensely popular, both with people trying to get traffic for, and input about, their sites and with people looking for good photography web sites. There is a very large number of portfolio sites and photo blogs. They struggle for traffic, and it would be a service to the on-line photography community to use photo.net's traffic and visibility to help make the best of them more known.

 

Even though people writing in the Site Feedback forum complain all the time about the photo rating system, there is a reason why the rating system is popular. People like rating things: somehow it is satisfying to solidify your opinion of something through the act of rating it, especially when you know that your rating is going to be helpful to other people -- in the case of photos, by helping decide which photos get visibility. And people who have ratable things are interested in having them rated both for the "feedback" and for the consequences that follow from high ratings, which in the case of photo.net photos is visibility, bragging rights, and the more valuable feedback that comes from comments.

 

Yes, it is possible to pick fault with the details of the rating mechanisms, and to dwell on the abuse around the edges. And it is possible to make elitist comments about "popular taste", etc, comparing all rating sites on the web to the "Am I Hot?" rating sites, which take the whole concept to a comical (or pathetic, depending on your point of view) extreme. There is plenty of such commentary in the Site Feedback forum. But I don't think photo rating is dumb, and I don't think community rating of photography web sites would be dumb either.

[jreades]

I can see the fun of a 'rate my photography web site' addition to the site, but I would hate to see something that sounds like it's likely to take quite some time to roll out sidetrack us from the original idea: a new forum topic for all things web-related. Since the latter would be no different from the Digital Darkroom or Canon EOS forums, I would be hope that it could be added fairly quickly. Could we do that first and then look at the more complex task?

 

If we are looking for sub-forums, I'd suggest (off the top of my head):

 

1. Web Site Reviews -- where people can ask for and receive a review of their web site with no rating attached or to recommend a site that they came across while surfing. Think of it as the future 'Critique Only' for sites.

 

2. Web Site Design/Presentation -- all things HTML, CSS, PS, and JS/DHTML-related. Basically, anything to do with the front-end to your site.

 

3. Web Site Scripting/Technologies -- all things RDBM, PHP, Perl, Java, AOLServer-related. Basically, anything to do with the back-end to your site.

 

4. Web Site Hosting/Domains -- everything to do with actually setting up your domain and web site on a 'live' site.

 

I'm a little leery of having web site ratings simply because the criteria there are even more bizarre than for photography in general. For instance, I can't wait 'til I get my first "Why did you give my site a 2/2 and say that it doesn't work in Firefox? What's Firefox and why should I care what doesn't work for you?" Or do we say "Given that you were using geocities, this site actually gets a 6/7 because I've never seen anyone make anything usable with their tool." Ah well, with luck this won't be an issue for a few months.

 

jon

[mottershead]

Not working in your browser seems like a legitimate reason to down-rate a site. Similarly, using a lot of Flash stuff is likely to attract high ratings from people with high bandwidth (assuming you do a good job), and to get you down-ratings from people with slow lines. If someone is interested in the overall reaction of visitors, then that would be important to know.

 

Presumably, if the site works in popular browsers and gives people with slow lines an alternative to the Flash stuff, those things won't be issues and the site will come out ahead of a site that doesn't work in popular browsers, is slow, or demands high bandwidth connections from visitors. That is as it should be.

 

As for not down-rating a site because its design doesn't suck as much as other sites developed with the same tool: sorry, the world doesn't care what tool you used. If you can't produce a design that doesn't suck using a particular tool, or on geocities, that's too bad for you. Get a different tool, or use a different web hosting outfit. People don't hesitate to criticize photo.net's design, despite the constraints imposed by nearly 10-year-old code, and I don't expect them to.

 

Anyway, in rating photography web sites, it seems that there might be several different dimensions, including site design, site speed, site ease-of-use, photograph quality and interest, overall impression, etc. I'm not sure how one would translate these into a reasonable rating system.

[root]

One significant difference is that few people create multiple web sites, so the premise of rating for the purpose of selecting only a few each day to feature on this site doesn't apply. It seems we've now finally admitted that rating primarily as a fun activity is a sufficient reason to promote it.

 

I would hope that the most important consideration in setting this up is to figure out a way to attract PN members who have set up web sites for professional reasons. What would it take to get them to be regular contributers to this forum? Please don't tell me this smacks of elitism.

 

I think we'd be better off asking for a description of each site that would simply allow PN to sort by category.

 

. . . . and please use words rather than numbers as the only currency if you must have some sort of ranking.

[mottershead]

People don't rate things on the Internet entirely for altruism. It gives them the opportunity to form and express an opinion, and it is obvious that people like doing that. I think people might like rating things even if there was no conceivable valid purpose or if there was a negative purpose, such as the "Am I hot?" rating sites.

 

In the case of photos on photo.net, rating does in fact make a contribution to the site and its visitors by helping to identify the photos that merit attention, from among the very large number that are submitted. Some of the photographers like the feedback of the ratings also, and while I've said many times that a single rating by itself is not very meaningful to a photographer, the averages can be meaningful. So the raters are providing feedback to the photographers. All in all, photo rating is by far the most popular feature on the site, and photo.net would have no more than 20% of its current visitors and traffic without it. From a financial point of view, the site might well not exist at all if not for photo.rating and critique. If you look at the statistics and ignore history, it is quite clear that photo.net is first, second, and third a photo rating and critique site, followed by, fourth, forums, and then some other features.

 

It isn't hard to see how rating web sites would be helpful to people looking for photography sites. The highest-rated photo sites (according to photo.net) would probably be pretty interesting. If they weren't, then there would be something wrong with the rating system. More interesting probably than just relying on Google Page Ranks. And while people doing photography web sites might only do one of them, that does not mean that feedback would be irrelevant to them. Unlike with photos, they can change their site in response to traffic and feedback, so what people say about a site and how they rate it on the average could be of interest to site designers.

[bobatkins]

I think the reason people like to rate things is that people like to have a voice. I'd imagine that the reason why talk radio is so popular is the same reason why people like to rate stuff. It give people something of a feeling of empowerment. You're giving as well as getting, not just being a listener but being a participant and "making a difference".

 

I think a website discussion forum would be a valuable addition to the site. I'm not knocking ratings at all as a way of attracting visitors. It's just that people sometimes take them WAY too seriously and get SO upset by them when given in a personal context that it's hard to decide if the situation is tragic or funny.

 

The success of sites like "epinions" clearly shows that there is commercial value in opinions, plus there are now software companies which make nothing but "hot or not" type ratings software for websites so you can buy an off the shelf professional package for under $100 which will add that function to any website so clearly there is a demand.

 

It probably wouldn't be a bad idea if photo.net had an area that also numerically rated cameras, lenses, software etc. Just a simple 1 to 5 star rating. I'd bet it would be very popular and certainly less contentious than rating people's images (or their websites)!

 

I think that the fact that people want to rate anything from parts of their anatomy to music to movies to images to websites is a graphic indication of some sort of basic drive which most people have and if photo.net can serve to satisfy that urge and generate extra traffic in the process, so much the better. As long as it doesn't lead to public fist fights, drive people to the depths of despair or anger them to the point of retaliation.

[mmmee]

This is an exciting idea/development for Photo.net. I like the idea of seperating the discussion from the ratings. I think Jon has some excellent ideas for what the first criterea could be for this discussion forum. Personally, I find ratings and all that goes with it are a distraction from the actual learning process. But I can see where I am in the minority in regard to the traffic generated by the ratings games.

 

I have been having some thoughts about categories of yet another kind. There are professional web masters, there are amatures, there are template sites, there are just blogs. There are sites created by web designers for their photography clients. There are sites that are hobbies and sites that are commercial. There are sites that include other hobbies besides photography. It is going to take some great organizational skills to put this all into a workable site. It sounds to me like it could almost be a site of its own, loosely affiliated with Photo.net. A site to generate its own income, perhaps with its own new servers and all.

 

You have my first rating for the idea! Its a 10/10 and definitely a WOW.

[smhickel]

Of course, the rating of this site, photo.net, is important too from the standpoint of being rated by outside photographers, magazines, and other photo-related media.

 

It can only help the photogs of photo.net to gain recognition for their photos and also drive additional traffic to photo.net. I have always had this sense that photo.net is an important player in bringing out talent, whether it be the endpoint of it or just a mirror of it -- recognizing this website for its contribution to the photographic "cause" is just as important and one that will server its patrons well....

 

Steve