Critique circles

[michelle_cox]

I've seen people asking about the critique circles and even had one

email me. I know it's been mentioned before that no new circles were

created because it was more work to manage than was expected. So all

we have are the initial circles created. I was lucky enough to be in

on it in the begining and am making an attempt to revive the circle

that I'm in.

 

Which got me thinking that it would be nice if I could invite in new

members that are looking to get into a circle. While I can tell them

to post in the forum, I have no way of turning on the option to submit

an image to the circle for critiquing.

 

I've heard people say that they'd like to help, but for most things it

takes more time to train them than would be worthwhile. But managing

critique circles could be like moderating and shouldn't take a lot of

work on the part of the administrators once the initial programming is

done. Yeah, I do know that is a problem. My idea would require

programming and so would have to be fit in with the zillion other

things Brian has to do already. But if it could be fit in, I think it

would be beneficial.

 

My idea is basically to use the existing critique circle code, but

augment it with special moderator access. So you'd put one (or more)

people in charge of the circle and they can decide who's in or out.

There should also be some facility for someone to apply to start a new

circle. They could say why none of the existing circles meet their

needs, what their theme is, and that they would be willing to moderate

it. Then Brian (or whoever is in charge of this section) would create

a new circle and let that person go through the work of maintaining

it. It's kind of like the Yahoo groups. They set up the

infrastructure, but it's up to the volunteers to make a group work.

 

I think the critique circles are a great idea. I think they're even

better if they have a certain theme and not just people put together

randomly. If people don't like the circle they're in, they can leave

and request to join another. Perhaps limit the number of circles a

person can be in at a time. It's much nicer to submit a photo to a

small group of people that will be likely to critique it than just

throw it out to the whole site and hope someone will take the time to

look at it. And since photos uploaded to submit to a circle will end

up on the recent upload pages as well, you're gaining and not losing.

 

Ok, enough of what I think. What do others think?

[root]

I'm all for it . . both as a participant and moderator.

[bacsa]

well...i sent once an e-mail to *that* address related to getting in a circle(which was not even completely dead); never got back any answer.

 

i think they should be good to have around. What is that so much programming that would be needed? (don't tell me; i'm dumb for it actually:o) )

[peter_daalder]

Michelle, you might like to take a look at <a href="http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member?user_id=617763"> Picture This. </a><br>It is a "critique circle" with an important difference... Everyone's uploads remain anonymous, and are listed as images by Picture This. So, all comments are concentrated on the images and members' personalities don't come into consideration. We don't rate, just critique... There is an <a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/presentation.tcl?presentation_id=191933"> FAQ page </a> available.

[michelle_cox]

Peter -

 

It looks interesting, but it sounds like it would be more of a time commitment than I'm able to do. I tend to do photography in spurts, so I could never commit to uploading a photo on a certain theme every month.

 

Thanks for mentioning it, though

[reillyphotography]

Count me in. I sent an email a week for months to the critique circles and never recieved a response. I won't hold my breath waiting for them to open up again especially with the hardware issues that Brian is now working on. Maybe we can form a group informally and go from there.