tom t

FWIW I also got a page telling me that I have a virus. The url is something on www.amaena.com.

Only got this once - it's like something (one of the ads) redirected the photo.net homepage to this page. I'm using latest version of firefox.

Tom

Here in Belgium (where the situation is complex because we got 3 national languages...) most are in in English and are relevant content-wise but irrelevant from a geography point of view. No belgian is going to hire a US based wedding photographer, for example.

Some, I'd say about 30% are in dutch (my mothertongue) - about half of those are relevant.

Tom

Sylvie,

I don't consider rating feedback. Critiques are feedback. Ignore the rates; give feedback.

Tom

Ben - you got an (obvious) error in your link to the Five page. <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/4062848">Here is a correct link</a>.

<p> Tom

I'm in too.

Tom

Brian, overhere where I'm sitting (europe) it's instant. I'm on a rather fast line and TRP is like boom. Faster than CNN! Congrats with the new toy. Fedora, hunh? Good for you! It should be rock-solid in terms of stability.

Tom

Some replies:

<p>

To Ben S. I am not a social scientist and neither do I want to pose as one. I merely posted some numbers - is all. If the choice of words 'experiment' was a poor one (as it was not really planned) then I apologise. I still wonder why you want to put the words 'disappointment' and 'complain' in my mouth but let's leave it at that.

<p>

To Ben A - I think we are basically on the same page here. Except that I am not trying to accuse you (or anyone) of anything. I did not say that popular photogs are bad ones. No need to twist my words. The way you go about critiqueing is wih a clear (valid!) strategy (just like the mate raters have a strategy) and it certainly works for your. Well I never said that this was bad (like mate-rating is bad); all I'm saying is that it's a 'strategy' (your word), 'tactic', 'game' (the latter are my words). Apologies if the use of the word 'game' has a bad connotation - in my mothertongue it does not. The way you go about critiques seems reasonable, positive and constructive and I never wanted to imply otherwise.

<p>

All I was trying to say is that blindly putting in a volume of critiques is not going to make anyone receive critiques. So <b>that</b> advice to the ones complaining about lack of critiques, as I'v seen in many a thread here, is imho a bit naieve.

<p>

Which in turn is exactly what you are saying: <em> "It's not as simple as simply stating: critique and you will get critiques." Yes, agreed in general you wont get an avalanche this way but it will have some effect. To get higher volumes you have to work at it with a strategy, preferably one that isn't hell bent on self aggrandisement.</em> And I fully agree with that.

<p>

Thanks or yor reactions, always appreciated!

<p>

Tom

Ben S - I am not at all disappointed! As Stephen pointed out I

correctly I do have critiques (and quite interesting ones in general I might add) on most of the images I have posted so personally I am quite happy.

Jamies comment that "one should not expect a critique back for every critique given" nailed it for me, personally. When the advice "critique and you will get critiques" is given to members that complain about lack of critiques, that nuance should be made in my humble opinion. Seven's numbers confirm what I saw during my month of posting (not critiqueing!) inactivity!

I also agree with Ben A's idea of emailing members. I have had quite a few interesting email exchanges with members here after a critique exchange!

Also to Ben A: To each their own style of critiqueing. Personally I could not care less whether I would expect someone to return a critique when I write one. If others base themselves on hat expectation (or lack thereof) that's for them to decide. Personally I leave a critique to am image if I have something to say. I don't care how many images that person posted that day. I don't care whether the poster is a PN celebrity or a total newby. And I don't care whether that person reprocicates or not. Point stays: it's not as simple as simply stating: critique and you will get critiques. What some of you are saying is "critique 'wisely' and you will get critiques" - whatever 'wisely' works for you. I will agree that's correct. But IMHO that's playing a game not unsimilar to the ratings game (be it less for cheap instant praise than the rating game - but a game - or a tactic if you will - nonetheless).

Knicky: no worries - I've had comments from you and you've had them from me. I do think I remember you commenting on the stucco wall - ah well if PN swallowed a couple of critiques (heck I got plenty more :).

And to several of you - please re-read my first sentence - this was not a complaint - it was merely a summary of numbers and facts to those of you who give sentiment/game based advice to those who complain here.

Tom - a reasonably happy PN member. Really.

... and I just saw I mis-counted. I had 1 ( O N E ) critique in that period. Does not change the observation, though...

Tom

... this was not planned. I just happened not to post any shots for about a month (been too busy with other things and end of year celebrations)... and I noticed yesterday that I had not received any critiques in over a month. After the discussion in

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00EtKs&tag=">this thread</a>

I just decided to count how many critiques I had given in that month and was sort of surprised. That's all.

<p>

Tom

First of all, this is not a complaint, I'm just giving some numbers -

draw your own conclusions. My posting history is public (like anyone

else's) so anyone can verify correctness of what follows. I am not

bitter, and as my <a

href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=617763">Picture

This</a> friends know, I could not care less about the attention (or

lack thereof) I personally get on Photo.net. Others do seem to care

(judging by how often the subject comes up) so I figured I'd get you

all some facts, rather than opions and emotions. Here it goes.

<p>

There are tons of complaints on this site about lack of critiques.

Standard reply from many members is: critique others and they will

reciproke.

<p>

Here are some numbers about that. Since December 16, and till now (17

January - 1 month period) I have not posted any images and not asked

for critiques. In that 1 month period I have critiqued about 60

images. About 25 of which were <a

href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=617763">Picture

This</a> critiques for which I should perhaps not expect anything in

return. Still, I average more than 1 critique per day. This is about

my average on this site for the last 3 years. (if you take extended

time off for big travel projects into account). I have hardly rated

anything in that period, and my rating average is around 4/4 so mate

rating is certainly not my thing. Look at what I post on other's

shots - I am certainly not the type that just gives 'Great 7/7'

comments - I honestly try to point out flaws, offer alternatives as

well as indicate what I do like about shots. So my behavior on

Photo.net over this 1 month period period can be considered as my

typical behavior - haven't done anything I would not have done otherwise.

<p> Now ......in this 1 month period I have received 0 ( Z E R O )

critiques myself. I have plenty of images to comment on ....

<p> Critique others and the favor will be returned on this site? Draw

your own conclusions...

<p> I do admit that if I had posted a couple of RFCs I probably

would have gotten some critiques in the last month. But it would have

been hard to classify those as reciprocity (or figure out which ones

to consider as reciprocity) in this little experiment.

<p> Morale of the story? Have fun, shoot pictures, and don't bother

with (number of) rates and critiques. Critique others if you like,

but to expect others to return the favor should not be the reason for

critiqueing others. If it is, you're probably in for a disappointment

here.

<p> Thx for your time,

<p> Tom (picking up my camera and going to have fun shooting)

Not sure whether it's related - my posting history sqys the following today:

A member of the www.photo.net community since August 07, 2002. (Mark this person as interesting)HTTP/1.0 500 Internal Server Error MIME-Version: 1.0 Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 20:16:34 GMT Server: AOLserver/4.0 Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 540 Connection: close

Server Error

The requested URL cannot be accessed due to a system error on this server.

Tom

Me too I like Bob's idea!

Wouldn't fly with the majority here -- but you could make a separate category for it?

I'll go back to dreaming now ....

Tom

What Brian said. It takes work, and no free lunches.

However, be realistic. It's a sad world outthere when it comes to critiques. On average I critique 2-3 shots per day I guess, have been doing this for several years now, and I don't get the same number of critiques back. If I get 2-3 comments per week it's a good week. That is judging by quantity: at least half of those comments are like 'thanks for your comment, I like your photographs' - not exactly helpful.

Also I get the impression that lots of folks here don't really want honest critiques; they want glory in terms of rates. There are indeed plenty of little groups of dumb ego-monsters, expect them to react ticked off if you dare critique one of their beloved out-of-focus flower macro shots.

That said, there *are* plenty of interesting, good photographers here that will gladly critique your images. You may have to spend some time finding them here.

Regards,

Tom

Great Brian!

But I would urge to include (or separarely count) comments and critiques to photos. We're here to learn (well, most of us are) and as we all know the rating game does not help us much (though I am grateful for the recent changes too!). If the promise of getting a 'prolific' or whatever icon next to folks' names will push folks to comment more then I'm all for that. That is, taking into account Bob's comment about quality and quantity...

Even apart from that, guys like Peter Daalder have posted over 2000 (!) comments to photos, and I'll bet that each of those was helpful in some way. That's prolific too, in my eyes, and deserves some acknowledgement as well. So I hope you'll find the time and energy to count critiques sometime soon.

Regards,

Tom

PS - I'm not getting paid by Peter D. - he's just an example, and there are others.

Thx Brian. I just renewed too. My subscription was up last August but since I hape PayPal I just let it be. This feature is appreciated!

Tom

Mary,

In emails, the sender can be spoofed. So spammers can create mails that look like they came from bill.gates@microsoft.com, even though they are sent from some other account. One way to check this is to open up the mail in it's complete form (show mail headers or something in your mail options) - you'll see a bunch of techno-babble, including the real sender.

Trouble is that some AV software is too stupid to figure that out. It has happened to me that some ISP blocked my email address, because they had received viruses in mails that had my name and address as a sende. In every such case, when investigated, the mails actually originated from some hotmail accounts...

Hope that helps,

Tom

Ermmm... given the many complaints about rates with no comments, why not do something similar on number of comments? Personally I stopped rating about a year ago... but I do commnent daily.

Just a thought of course... I'm sure Brian is quite busy!

Tom

I'm with Dave N. on a feature to comment on a folder.

That said, I'm glad to see some changes. May not agree with all of them but I'm not going to participate in silly discussions - you simply can't please everyone. Thx for trying stuff, Brian.

-- Tom

I have the Sigma 50mm EX 2.8 macro. It's a very nice lens (I love it for it's general use as a 50mm lens). But for real small work (say diamonds) the working distance is too close. Your lens ends up blocking the light (unless you got a really good light kit hooked up). I got myself the 50mm 1.8 canon (they cheap one) and am switching to the Sigma 105 as soon as my dealer gets one in (I'm getting my money back on the 50mm macro). My only reason for switching is working distance. I can recommend the quality of the lens, though

Cheers,

Tom