mjensen Posted October 25, 2022 Share Posted October 25, 2022 Hi Everyone, A few updates to share. The #1 point of feedback and support I’m getting from everyone is “where are my photos.” Which makes sense, since this is a photo site. They are there, but the way the platform has it set, is that they’re a few clicks deep on your profile. If you go to your profile page, then in the top right corner you'll see "see my activity". From there, left side and in the menu you'll see "Images." Like I said, not an easy user flow to get to your photos. I’m working with Invision (platform) now to surface them on the main profile page, so they’re more easily accessible. NSFW - If you recall, there was not an NSFW tag on any of the photos. That now has changes, but not all the photos have the tags. If you see one that needs the tag, please flag the image with the NSFW reason and we’ll update it. Photo Migration - The photo migration is officially done! 5.3 million photos. Unfortunately there were a little over 8,000 photos that were corrupted and were lost. I have a list of the file names, but not which account they were attached to. That being said, I’m sorry that we lost some photos. Menus - I'm hoping to push live an updated menu bar later this week. Help with navigation around the site. Please keep sending me messages, but I also ask for your patience. Photo.net is about 20% of my working day so I’m responding to as much as possible while also building out the site back to where it was before! If anyone want to help volunteer, I'm happy to train on some tasks and moderation duties. Shout out to @Sandy Vongries for keeping the moderation queue clear! 4 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjensen Posted October 25, 2022 Author Share Posted October 25, 2022 PS - I'll do better at sharing out updates once per week! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommiller Posted October 25, 2022 Share Posted October 25, 2022 I had roughly 1000 photos. I followed the instructions, and was able to see only about 100 of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Weishaupt Posted October 26, 2022 Share Posted October 26, 2022 I saw this update shortly after it was posted and I'm sure it will come as a relief for many. The change in my own gallery certainly came as a surprise. I still have no mechanism to add a photo to any heading under Gallery. However, under "Image Comments" there are photos by other people that I commented on over the last 10 years. I have no use for this. So, the only image content in MY gallery is not mine and I see no way to get rid of it. When will the means to have a fully functioning gallery come about? I've asked about this privately, now I'm asking here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjensen Posted October 26, 2022 Author Share Posted October 26, 2022 17 hours ago, tommiller said: I had roughly 1000 photos. I followed the instructions, and was able to see only about 100 of them. I checked your profile, and I see 39 pages of 25 photos which total about 975. I'll check some of the permissions to make sure you have full access to all of the albums they could be in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjensen Posted October 26, 2022 Author Share Posted October 26, 2022 7 hours ago, Laura Weishaupt said: However, under "Image Comments" there are photos by other people that I commented on over the last 10 years Checking on this now. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sanford Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 It's the Galleries we want back. Would you comment on this topic? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjensen Posted October 27, 2022 Author Share Posted October 27, 2022 2 hours ago, Sanford said: It's the Galleries we want back. Would you comment on this topic? Looking into what the options are now. Thank you. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sanford Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 4 minutes ago, mjensen said: Looking into what the options are now. Thank you. Is there is a chance of the return of the galleries...yes, no, maybe, some day soon. What's you're best estimate. I neeeeed a gallery and don't look foreward to the hunt for a new one. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickeysimpson Posted October 28, 2022 Share Posted October 28, 2022 (edited) 9 hours ago, Sanford said: Is there is a chance of the return of the galleries...yes, no, maybe, some day soon. What's you're best estimate. I neeeeed a gallery and don't look foreward to the hunt for a new one. I think that within the context of your note, the term gallery and portfolio are synonymous. I see my gallery (aka my portfolio) and have for several days once I stumbled onto the navigation to get there. Here is how I got to my PN gallery on my Windows 11 Pro system using the Edge browser. 1. There are two ways to start navigating to your PN Profile. 1.1. First Method: Select the “round icon” with your initial at the top right of the page. This will take you directly to your “Profile”. Skip to step 2. 1.2. Second Method: Select your “NAME” or the “drop down arrow” at the top right of the page. A pop out menu appears. Under the under the pop out menu heading “CONTENT”, Select “Profile”. This will take you to your “Profile”. 2. Select the button labeled “See my activity” on the right side of the page in the blue bar. 3. A new page pops with a labeled “All Activity” on the left side of the screen. 4. Scroll down through the “All Activity” items to see the available activity selections. 5. Select “Images” under the heading “Gallery” and your gallery (aka portfolio) page will pop up, but without your photos. 6. You need to select one of the display options listed under the dark blue bar having the label “Images posted by %Your_Name”. There you will see 3 icons on the right side of the page just to the left of the button labeled “SORT BY” for selecting the way you want to view your photos. It would be really nice if the display had a default setting that displayed your photos when the page first opens, rather than opening a blank page, while retaining the 3 display option icons. Once you are in your PN portfolio you can manage your content. Click on any image and it will open with a menu on the right. Select the “Settings Gear” in the top right corner to see your options to 1) Edit the Details; 2) Hide the Photo; 3) Delete the Photo, or 4) Enable the NSFW block. I seem to recall that Matt Jenson has stated that they are working to improve some of the navigation issues. In the meantime, I'm just poking buttons when I run into an issue. Hope this is helpful. Edited October 28, 2022 by mickeysimpson 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickeysimpson Posted October 28, 2022 Share Posted October 28, 2022 On 10/26/2022 at 6:15 AM, Laura Weishaupt said: I saw this update shortly after it was posted and I'm sure it will come as a relief for many. The change in my own gallery certainly came as a surprise. I still have no mechanism to add a photo to any heading under Gallery. However, under "Image Comments" there are photos by other people that I commented on over the last 10 years. I have no use for this. So, the only image content in MY gallery is not mine and I see no way to get rid of it. When will the means to have a fully functioning gallery come about? I've asked about this privately, now I'm asking here. Hi Laura. I think that my other post in this thread will resolve your gallery problem. Also, I did see that when I added a photo under the main menu "Explore" then "Gallery", the photo ultimately appears in my personal gallery. I personally think this is backwards. We should be able to add and manage our content in our personal galleries. For example, perhaps I want to add a photo, but want it to be hidden for some reason. Under the current process the photo is made public before you can manage it. IMHO, All PN members should be able to manage every aspect of their content via their personal gallery rather than having to jump between the public gallery and the personal gallery. I think that there were too many IT/web designer/managers making decisions without input from the end users. Unfortunately, this an IT - S/W development flaw that I have seen many times over during my career as an IT/Telecomm/Cloud/S/W Dev director, consultant and program manager. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Weishaupt Posted October 28, 2022 Share Posted October 28, 2022 4 hours ago, mickeysimpson said: think that my other post in this thread will resolve your gallery problem. Greetings Mickey, Thanks for the consideration. I did not have images in any portfolio/gallery/album on the old site. I didn't lose anything. I don't have any trouble finding the gallery section. The current and ongoing problem for me, as stated above, is that I have no mechanism by which to add a photo to any heading in the Gallery section. I get a box that says "there's nothing here yet" There are the little boxes for sorting, but no means to add an image. Also stated above, images belonging to OTHER PEOPLE are currently in MY gallery under the heading "Image Comments". I made comments on them years ago, but they should not be in MY gallery. These images need to be with their owner. There is no way to get rid of them. There are 3 pages of images that don't belong to me ranging from 2012 - 2017. (I stated 10 years worth in error) I have looked in the galleries of other people and I don't see this situation anywhere else. Currently the Gallery/portfolio/album section of this site is totally nonfunctional for me. What's the point of having a "Gallery" but not being able to hang a picture in it? I'm not going to ask again about this. I've done so enough times. The powers that be will either fix it, or not. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sanford Posted October 28, 2022 Share Posted October 28, 2022 I can get to some, but not all of my photographs by following the one of the methods above. What I want and what I had was "Photo.net/sanford" leading DIRECTLY to MY photos, over 6000 spread over 30 galleries. When will this be back, if at all? Photo.net/sanford 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sanford Posted October 28, 2022 Share Posted October 28, 2022 I see now I have 263 pages of 15-20 photos per page, so it appears they are all there, they just need to be back into a coherent gallery form. I wish someone of authority and knowledge of the subject would respond here. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samstevens Posted October 28, 2022 Share Posted October 28, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, Sanford said: I wish someone of authority and knowledge of the subject would respond here. He did. Less than 24 hours ago, in a direct response to your question about galleries … 20 hours ago, mjensen said: Looking into what the options are now. Thank you. He’s also said PN occupies only 20% of his work day. Edited October 28, 2022 by samstevens "You talkin' to me?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sanford Posted October 28, 2022 Share Posted October 28, 2022 1 hour ago, samstevens said: He did. Less than 24 hours ago, in a direct response to your question about galleries … He’s also said PN occupies only 20% of his work day. That's no answer! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PapaTango Posted October 28, 2022 Share Posted October 28, 2022 Unlike the previous PN migration debacle to Xenforo, at least we have someone that is responsive and actually active in the process. Even at 20% of their time. Invision Community is just that--designed as a wholistic community. Unfortunately like the other "big gun" forum platforms (such as vBulletin & Xenforo) they lean toward establishing 'micro-communities', collaboration, and community sharing. This is evidenced by menu functions such as Blog, Clubs, Events, and Store. As an aside, these items ought to be removed from the menu in the ACP until there is a use for them--if ever. None are really that hot "out of the box" in emulating the functions we had before, and all suffer from "compartmentalization syndrome" in how various aspects of the platform work. That said, overcoming some of the issues of compartmentalization can be accomplished with customization through software changes--adding or changing code, third party plugins, or a combination of both. I have spent the last several weeks assessing and experimenting with what is offered and what the potential is with the native core Administrative Control Panel options. Anyone can do this with Invision by creating their own personal demo site. It bodes well that mjensen is working with Invision support to solve the menu and front page gallery display problems and make things easier to find. There is no simple option to just create a new menu item for a particular user's gallery in the Menu Manager. However, it could be easily cleaned up of unused items to avoid distraction and confusion. Until then, we have this hard to drill down to menu coming out of Profile Activity. It's how the developers made the platform, and who knows why it is so circuitous--but it is baked into the core. Such things are also the subject of considerable conversation and debate in the forum administrators forum, TheAdminZone.com A particular 'teeth grinder' for me (and others) concerns the native Reaction/Rating interface. We love to interact with our images--and the options offered through the ranking bar: Like, Sad, Confused, Haha, and Thanks. These options might be appealing to the Facebook crowd--but is not remotely helpful for a site presenting images to others. Coming back to the various "Galleries" and their categories we are presented with the same silliness. Comments are enabled but they do not allow any kind of rank ability. There is one though, and one can see it in the 5 inactive and greyed out stars. This is the what the Review system does--something that essentially replaces the Comment box. It allows a 1-5 rating, and comments. The ratings are averaged across the ratings given in all reviews. This format is a direct throwback to what we have lamented losing that existed on PN for over 20 years. I have sent a couple ideas to Matt, perhaps when he has time he can look at them. This is what the ranking and review changes would look like: This is a look at the gallery rating review proposal: 3 "I See Things..." The FotoFora Community Experience [Link] A new community for creative photographers. Come join us! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rws Posted October 28, 2022 Share Posted October 28, 2022 Unfortunately, much of the above suggests to me that Invision may not be the best platform for a revitalized Photo.net. I don't know why some of the problems with gallery access and functionality weren't anticipated. before the conversion started. If it is indeed necessary to put up with the "hard to drill down to menu coming out of Profile Activity," I'll continue (reluctantly) moving my galleries elsewhere. I agree with you strongly that the Reaction/Rating system is not appropriate for a site like Photo.net. It seems to my antiquated brain to be very juvenile to me (something like putting stickers on grade school homework) and would be useless to me. I feel the same way about the "Leaderboard" under Explore. Sharing and enjoying photography is not a competition. What is the purpose of the leaderboard. Again, rather juvenile. On the other hand, I would not like having a 1-5 star rating system averaged across all reviews. This kind of star rating systems has very little value in my opinion -- maybe for rating vacuum cleaners or roofers but not for something as complex as photography which has no universal metric for assessing quality. And while I'm at it, I would get rid of the badges ("Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges," as they say in the movies) and the equally obnoxious Rank system. How does it help me to know that I am a Grand Master? How does it help anyone else to know that I have that rank? The ranks seem designed to establish some kind of status system that has no purpose on an art-sharing site. Just my two cents, but the above foolishness reinforces my dissatisfaction and frustration with the new site. I'm not willing to give up on Photo.net yet because I have gotten so much from it in past: insight, inspiration, humor, even profundity. But after nearly 4 weeks of this conversion, I am very close. My future interaction is likely to limited to only a few forum categories. I hope that future developments and fixes can change my mind about this. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PapaTango Posted October 28, 2022 Share Posted October 28, 2022 (edited) In one of his posts, mjenson mentioned that he was going to debut an updated menu system in the near future. Hopefully, this will remedy much of the "drill down" distractions. As to the flashy badges and reaction thingies, it is an engagement paradigm called "gamification." To learn more and to explain what the developers of Invision were thinking, read here: https://invisioncommunity.com/news/invision-community/drum-roll-please…-announcing-achievements-r1227/ Many forum publishers like this sort of thing, as it does seem to drive engagement is some user communities. Others detest it and turn a lot of it off... As to rating in Reviews, each individual Review comes with an opportunity to expand. It is also possible for readers of a review to react to that as well. This sort of thing is in some form along the major forum platforms. What some do is a lot of custom programming to get the results being looked for. That costs money and time. Edited October 28, 2022 by PapaTango "I See Things..." The FotoFora Community Experience [Link] A new community for creative photographers. Come join us! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericphelps Posted October 28, 2022 Share Posted October 28, 2022 (edited) Yes I'm now a Grand Master also.......Somehow sounds like I'm a power in the KKK........... Edited October 28, 2022 by ericphelps 3 Why do I say things... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rws Posted October 28, 2022 Share Posted October 28, 2022 Yes, I know about gamification and its success in some contexts. In one form or another, it's been around for a while. But I don't have much patience for it, as you can probably tell. Anyway, here's hoping the updated menu system proves to be a success. When the core part of a system works, many of the other irritations can be ignored. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Snell Posted October 29, 2022 Share Posted October 29, 2022 Perhaps someone has worked out that we are all entering our second childhood 😃🙃!? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandy Vongries Posted October 29, 2022 Share Posted October 29, 2022 Folks, ex. the few who have real experience, talk to me when you can do better. If you have the creds, jump in and help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayne Melia Posted October 29, 2022 Share Posted October 29, 2022 The gamification model seems to be a pathway to tictok. Alas. If decent to the lowest common denominator is the aim of the owners, then so be it. It is what it is. Is photo.net going to have it's own 'Mr Beast' of you tube? No disrespect to Mr Jensen, who is working with the parameters dictated to him and trying to keep us informed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
za33photo Posted October 29, 2022 Share Posted October 29, 2022 Why not just ignore the aspects of the site that irritate you , (many irritate me) , and carry on regardless , we after all still have a platform to post to. I am sure that the "Galaries" problem will be sorted out over time. 😈😈😄 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts