amitai schwartz

<p>I am one who likes the block/ban idea. I had one experience where someone commented on a model in one of my images. The comment was racist. I could not leave the image up with that comment because it was degrading. Fortunately, the administrators removed the comment at my request. I hope I never have to use this feature in the future, but I think it makes sense to have it. </p>

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<p>Certainly Dr. Suess, Mark Twain, and John Le Carre (all pseudonyms), and many, many others, could register copyrights and enforce the copyrights when necessary. And what about Lady Gaga?</p>

Half Dome

Yosemite National Park

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<p>Although you own the copyright when the image is snapped, it is practically worthless in the US without registration. Registration gets you the right to collect between $750 - $30,000 without proof of actual damages for an infringement and up to $150,000 if the infringement is wilful. Most importantly, registration entitles you to collect your attorney's fees from the infringer. Without registration you would need to prove actual damages, meaning usually the extent to which your property was diminished by the infringement or you can prove the profits attributable to the infringement. You would not get your legal fees paid.<br>

With the new electronic upload of images, registration takes only a few months now. It's well worth it. The registration is secured the day the copyright office receives the images, not when they finally process the application.<br>

The copyright office has simple, easy to understand directions and faq's. Check them out. www.copyright.gov<br>

Let's hope the flickr folks registered their images.</p>

<p>In my experience, there are a fair number of people on this site -- some very good photographers -- who practically never leave comments for others. They take, but don't give much. Before I bother leaving a comment that takes much thought and time to write, I sometimes check to see whether the photographer ever comments on others' photos. If not, then I just appreciate their work and move on to someone who is more likely to give something to others. Whether the others include me doesn't much matter, so long as they participate in some way other than simply using this as a site to exhibit their work. The best thing about this site is the sense of community. But community means giving as well as taking.</p>

<p>I've noticed this too lately. I doubt it has anything to do with the synagogue inasmuch as these same "people" seem to be giving abnormally high rates to some nudes and singling out other images, as well.</p>

Frans. Without the ACLU battling for many decades you probably wouldn't have a First Amendment protecting everyone's rights, including your own rights to disagree, .

Regarding Daniel Lee Taylor's advice about arguing with the police officer on the street and threatening a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 lawsuit, I wouldn't advise it. Take it up with his or her superior later, complain to the Mayor's office, or file a section 1983 suit later. But arguing on the street with the police is a recipe for disaster. My experience and the literature supports this experience is that most negative encounters of otherwise innocent people exercising First Amendment protected rights are caused by some provocation. This provocation is usually a challenge to authority. Simply being an outsider can sometimes be viewed as a challenge.. Threatening to sue, although constitutionally protected by a line of Supreme Court precedents, may well result in an arrest on some bogus charge. While I'm all for the exercise of First Amendment rights and challenging authority when warranted, one should use some caution and common sense as to the time and place, if you want to avoid arrest or worse.

 

That said we have rights as citizens and photographers to be in public places and take photos in public places. We should stand our ground, but avoid immediate provocations that we will regret.

In Firefox you might try going to Tools, then Content, then default fonts. Then go to advanced and check the box that says allow pages to choose their own fonts. This may fix it.

Okay. Fair enough. Just giving a report without an expectation of instant cure. You guys do a terrific job, so the weekend respite is well deserved and will likely pay off in the long run. Thanks.

Still seeing it on home page and individual images in Firefox on PC.

Thanks, Josh. Glad to see this. You do listen, indeed.

The breakdown of anonymous ratings is not useful. However, I find that non-anonymous ratings can be helpful when I know the caliber and style of the rater. I can also cross check the caliber and style by looking at their work. This is not an argument for making all ratings public. I'm very familiar with the problems of mate rating and revenge rating. However, when I know or learn the photographer's work or rating style, I can put it in context and and it does tell me something about my own work . Some folks don't leave many comments and the ratings system overall, and over time, is a rough substitute.

 

Personally, I would prefer that ratings be limited to subscribers. I think we would get a more useful sampling from people who have shown some commitment to the site in addition to displaying their own work for free.

I've had some problems with the on/off switch. Sometimes I need to turn off the monitor and turn it on again to cure the problem It works.

The pop-ups block much of the image. This is very distracting and a little too cute. More importantly, I think it wreaks havoc on the eyes inasmuch as we must jump around to get information on an image, rather than viewing all the information in one place, like we normally do when we read captions.

Subscribe. Then you don't have to deal with this nonsense. Plus you support a site that gives a whole lot back to you.

One can still do a category search using the "browse" feature on the main critique requests page. Not quite as good, but it works.

Terrific. Can't wait. Many thanks in advance.

This is being treated like grade inflation in schools. Now the complaint is ratings below 5/5. 4/4 is suppose to be average, with the bell curve going either way. Sure it would be great to get comments on every photo, but not everyone has time to comment on every one. Ratings are a shorthand means of giving some feedback. Perhaps it is not ideal, but the ratings do serve many other functions as previously discussed in this forum many times.

If you click on the POW of the week on the PN home page, then go up to the upper left corner and you'll see the link to the photographer's portfolio, as usual when opening a thumbnail.