spaghetti_western

"...Why do you take the deletion of your thread so personally?..."

 

far from that. i resented the deletion of a good IDEA and for no reason given. and since i choose to post under a moniker then by definition i take nothing on the net personally. but my sadness springs from the fact that the validity of an IDEA one proposes is assumed to be dubious and dismissed out of hand ONLY BECAUSE the proposer has no 'track record'. but nothing would give me more satisfaction than if someone KNOWN AND RESPECTED in PN were to take this ball and run with it because now i wont do it. and thats because someone from PN who identified h'self as "NOBODY" (that's right, NOBODY) emailed me to say that "I'm deleting your thread from the photo.net Site Feedback forum because it inappropriate content for this forum" without stating why

 

now. the very idea that "some members propose/nominate pictures" those SOME being self-nominated cogniscentis should have everyone laughing their heads off for its absurdity. GET REAL

 

why not try something simple that will actually work, and then fine tune it from the ground up? keep the goal simple. start small. KISS. a simple and easy to do method to alert other members to a photo that even just one person thinks deserves positive and constructive attention. perhaps confine the alerts to its own forum corner of PN so that those interested can check them out and those not interested wont be bothered. other threads in the forum can highlight which nominations have actually engendered discussions, say each day. youll know if a nomination is 'worthy' by the fact that people will bother to comment on that photo. otherwise no harm no foul. its just that simple because it has a simple 'just do it' quality. KISS. and if enough people do this then PN HAS TO assign 'IMAGE THIS" (or whatever it gets called) its own forum

how sad that this thread has generated a discussion about a hideously elite STAR CHAMBER approach to nominating discussion-worthy images. how very un-PN of you, marc. at this point brian m has ceased wondering that you still dont 'get it' about this site. and just because i am a nobody here without some track record or whatnot doesnt mean that i cant have a valid idea. but no matter. if someone else with sufficient PN validity wants to pick up the ball on "IMAGE THIS", in all its brilliant simplicity, egality, and elegance, then be my guest and run with it. KISS makes things happen

but its interesting that the very act of totally deleting my thread literally speaks volumes about this site's tacit policy about not permittting any alternative to calling members attention to interesting photos other than via 'proper channels' namely the popularity-driven gallery and a sickly POW chosen weekly by simpletonic 'elves'

thanks, anthony. but the moderator could well have easily purged just the specific link reference and not the entire though brief discussion that ensued about the idea

"...Why not just critique the images where they are already, without inventing another category..."

 

precisely, john. the gist of my IMAGE THIS idea is a simple ad hoc signaling method for any PN member to call attention to other members that a photo that she/he thinks is worthy of discussion or critique should be worth a link-click just to check it out in the portfolio folder where it sits, without all the dubious rigamorole and organized folderol

well, there you have it. a PN moderator or administrative completely eliminated my IMAGE THIS idea thread without so much as allowing a discussion on the topic. this censorship was completely unnecessary and unwarranted. no abuse was done by posting it. well, forget about it. this site obviously doesnt want to promote any imaginatively simple, user-friendly alternative that might divert attention from its ratings based gallery

well, i might as well actually do it and see what happens, so here goes

no sam, its a very basic idea more akin to the ad hoc democratic nature of "WORDS/NO WORDS" but instead of posting a photo, one would post a LINK to a photo already uploaded by another member. sort of a nominate an interesting photo by a committee of one, meaning YOU. the way it would work is simple. start a thread titled "IMAGE THIS", then in the thread dialog post the link to the photo, and optionally write a brief paragraph explaining why. if members go to that photo to discuss it, then you know that youve succeeded in bringing an interesting but perhaps obscure photo to others attention. if not, then no harm, no foul. if a forum gets allocated by PN for this purpose, all the better, because something like this would probably need to be moderated for one reason or another

anyway, the basic idea would be to engender a way to announce "here ye, here ye, IMAGE THIS photo" to readers in this and other forums. well, actually if something like this would 'catch on' then maybe brian might allocate an IMAGE THIS forum akin to words/no words. seems worth a try

okay, so the basic model would be to announce an image for discussion (like this)

 

"IMAGE THIS" (then provide the image link)

 

"http://www.photo.net/photo/29xxxxx"

 

(then give a brief intro as to why) - but this really optional

 

if members visit the image then youll see a discussion develop on the image photo page. if not, then not

 

anyone care to discuss and improve on this ad hoc method, please do

http://www.photo.net/photo/2901440

 

just giving this grass-roots method a test spin, so here goes:

 

given more than 900 images now on the 3-day TRP averaging better than 5/5, how in the world does an image like this one get rated less? i think it is a sumptuous street-cityscape-night-travel shot, not deep in meaning mind you, but photographically interesting with much to say and critique about it

now this one is truly hysterical. not even our brothers and sisters down under would propose such a kangaroo court. maybe nominate this suggestion for "PN's off-the-deep-end city" award

 

seriously. why not keep it simple. why not propose something sensible, democratic, and culturally PN. and then see if it flies. here it is: all you need do is post the link to any image you feel is worth discussing for any reason. perhaps give the thread title a recognizable buzz-word or acronym (similar to "Picture This" or "W/NW") to identify it as a "controversial image link alert" or "CILA" or perhaps "Image This", or something to that effect. then all people need do is click on the link and pursue the discussion of that image where it belongs, on the image page itself

just because Brian (really the only person who can officially speak for 'administration') doesnt answer doesnt mean he doesnt read or consider suggestions. and just because you post suggestions doesnt mean he is obliged to respond. imagine if he did then he might have to do nothing else but respond to any and all manner of speculative stuff not to mention debates about them to needlessly tax his time

 

as for "culture of posters who take less risks, and post more of 'what works' for ratings" there are probably more who jump on the high rate bandwagon of the latest risky looking thing (so they can appear to be leading PN lights) and soon what was risky last week becomes banal soon enough as a result, but your point is valid since rarely anything gets fostered, highlighted, or promoted for 'why' discussions outside the POW

yes in your portfolio on your community page and in the comments only critique forum

 

you might try commenting about others photos to attention to yours

or ?????

 

5) didnt like the photo for quite valid reasons

 

despite it averaging 6~6 (without the 1~1) i could see giving that pic a 3~3 on a reasonably bad day (we all have em). that said, a 1~1 is closer to a 3~3 than to a 6~6, so there you have it

 

all that said, i personally do not see a valid point to giving ANY photo a 1~1. sure there might be some deserving this for purely technical reasons but why bother if one assumes theres a valid enough reason for postinga photo to the critique forum

 

perhaps as an incentive the site could invalidate 1~1 (and maybe also 1~2 and 2~1 scores) as simply 'unreasonable' for any photo requesting a critique, still leaving open the option to rate a photo 1~3, 4~1, and so forth

upon surveying the pn site as to this question:

 

rate recent critique forum, A on top of O, then after one rates, left side display shows A on top of O followed by number of ratings ®

 

gallery trp pages, as you noted, R then O then A

 

detail page of a photo, as you noted, R then A then O

 

conclusion: the gallery trp page view should read R then A then O for site and viewer consistency

pn itself wouldnt place itself in a position to favor or showcase some members work over others in an effort to squeeze out maximum commissions on such sales. doing so would lose more subscriberships than it gains by fostering real competition for the attentions of potential dollar payers, and turn pn into something it is not. so its board would consider this idea a non starter

"...But, if we as photographers could conceivably sell more prints/get more exposure, AND at the same time help Photo.net gain added revenue, then how could that be such a bad deal?? Sounds like there is some Win-Win in there to me..."

 

get more exposure? you mean like if PN promotes SOME members work over others? a slippery slope there, especially if mostly pretty theme pix sell the most

 

a better model would be if PN creatively encourages private transactions without getting directly involved, and gets increased subscriberships as a consequence of satisfactory party-to-party transactions by members

no doubt adorama is very good, but i bet the file you send is bigger than the typical 50-200 kbs residing on the PN server for the large size print quality you want, and thats my point. what can be easier than contacting the photographer and arranging for a custom print, that is my question that no one has answered

suspending reason for the moment, so wouldnt it be simpler if you just email the photographer, make an offer or negotiate for a print, perhaps even a mounted one? wouldnt this help ensure best quality? surely this is the way prints get sold now between members. but even to go thru PN (if something got set up) means that a lesser quality image file goes to 3rd party vendor and the quality you get will be indeterminate

if the views arent real then why should it matter

this has absolutely nothing to do with 'site feedback' which is about the workings of the photo.net website. since this is about a disposable digital camera it therefore belongs in the 'digital cameras' forum. so why not post it there instead

i dont necessarily find so-called controversial images to be particularly interesting per se. they are often overly pretentious (makes ya wanna say 'oh, that stuff, huh?') and are not necessarily interesting photographically. but i suppose if i were of a mind to find them then i would call up the comments view and begin there

http://www.photo.net/photo/2845679

 

an example of a photo with 8 pairs of ratings (out of 14 total ratings at the time of this posting for 11.36). not particularly 'controversial' though the image passes my 'interesting' test for its lighting

controversial isn't numerical. my own quick scan of images in the 3-day TRP found the highest concentration of most interesting images of all types between 12.0 and 10.66. too many images higher suffer from the usual popular genre and other pretentions. most images lower suffer from a number of maladies so you need to dig under the very top pages. a page GO-TO option would be an improvement. also an "experimental" category in the critique request upload list could help too