Not Here

Sandy: Do you lose your car keys, your car; uh, forget what you ordered to eat before it gets to the table? LOL, gotta laugh on this site to keep from crying... Mike

If you really, really feel the need to re-up your membership and want to circumvent the auto-renew feature; check your bank card and see if they offer a "virtual card" option. I've used this feature for years with CITI. When purchasing online you can activate a virtual or temporary card number that is only good for whatever dollar value and time period you select. $25 for 2 months would renew your membership but the number would not be any good next year. That is, if you really, really want to re-up... Mike

Glenn: I don't pretend to be the common denominator of issues and problems. I run a Dell XPS with Windows10 and either Firefox or, most of the time, Microsoft Edge; all updated regularly and I don't have any of the problems that're plaguing many members. Now PN doesn't run worth crap on my iPad but I can understand not being able to communicate with Apple, I don't communicate well with Apple either. My plea above, and frustration, is that so many other members are having difficulties that it distracts and keeps members from fully participating, and that directly affects me. My main issue remains, as I've tried to communicate many times in various threads, the loss of community contact in V2. The inability to track both comments to my images and comments I've made on other's images, from My Portfolio, without the use of email is a deal breaker. The addition of "Your Activity" was a positive first step but then the effort became null when the images aren't sorted with the newest on top. A half-step was implemented when comments "within" each image were sorted by newest; but unless the whole Your Activity is sorted comments are still embedded deep down in the list of images and lost, without scanning the entire list at every visit. And even if an email notification arrives with follow-up comments noted, I still have to search to find the subject image. All of that could be avoided and the Your Activity made into a usable tool by simply sorting, not only the comments within each image, but also all the referenced images under Your Activity (Last Week, Last Month and 3 Months). I just can't believe that would be difficult to accomplish and, please believe me, this is very important to many people; certainly the list of Favorite Photographers I follow. A review of the comment reporting functionality of V1 would be the appropriate guide. I haven't had email reports activated (just now changed that to receive) but yet I've been receiving occasional email from PhotoNet. I would suggest that Upgrade and Progress Reports be emailed to your most current (last 5 years maybe) membership to keep a carrot dangling, otherwise they're going to be gone for good. It's really sad to see how many long time photographers are no longer active... Mike

Glenn: Please, please, please get rid of this rote response! We get it, V1 is gone, finished, never to return and guess what, that's fine, ok, nobody gives a rat's, uh, but I digress. Think like the parent of that cute little bundle you carry; when she cries you have to interpret what she really wants and in the membership crying here on PN I think I can speak for most when I say WE DON'T CARE ABOUT V1, V2, V...whatever, we don't care what language it speaks, we don't care what goes on beyond our monitors; we just want it to work! And the only functional base we have to compare it to is V1. We want the function of V1. I just don't understand why a programming team would want to take an established site and reinvent it's character. I can only assume they're not photographers and just don't understand what is desired. Understand that I'm speaking of the photography side of PNet, not this forum side. I'm going to offer an opinion that you won't agree with, won't like and will probably disavow, but I'm old(er) and I can read the writing on the wall. The 35-40 members who're hanging on here and trying to be supportive aren't going to keep this ship afloat. So beg, borrow or steal more funds, fire your programmers, or whatever it takes to fix this Rube Goldberg or just save us the frustration and your company a lot of money and close it down. I'll make you a promise. If you fix the site I'll renew my membership and will agree to pay up to $50 a year to offset more (better) programming. If you continue to hunker down, stay on the defensive and insist that the Emperor is indeed wearing a tuxedo, then you get zip... Mike

And please don't forget #8 (8) Inability to track both comments on the photographer's own images and comments made on other's. A simple sort to "newest on top" to the "Your Activity" pages would probably satisfy this need.

(8) Inability to track both comments on the photographer's own images and comments made on other's. A simple sort to "newest on top" to the "Your Activity" pages would probably satisfy this need. But then, nothing seems to be simple.

But "Your Activity" is not, making it impossible to track comments without the aid of email notices. Why partially fix something?

Well, I started this thread (original post above) somewhat facetiously but now realize that I was clairvoyant. Wish I'd bought a lottery ticket. Can anyone honestly say that anything of substance has changed since this dog was released? The "Back" button is still an adventure. Kinda odd that it works on every other site on the internet. Galleries are still a jumbled mess. It's still impossible to track both our own comments and others without email help. And even with email it's an entire portfolio search to find the image with the new comment. Every browser on the market seems to respond and behave differently. Again, really odd that all other sites seem to work just fine on all browsers. Speed is still lacking, even though this has reportedly been the number one work item. I remain convinced that neither the programmers or management ever opens the photo critiques, otherwise they would recognize it's unusable. I could go on and on with all the issues that fill this so called "Help" forum, but they've all been repeated ad nauseam and nothing is being done. All this frustration has taken the joy out of the Photo Net that I've used and enjoyed for 10 years and I've decided to release the stress. I just spent part of two days deleting every image from my portfolio, ten years worth of comments, help and fraternization with some of the nicest people on this globe. A sad end just so management can attract "new users" from the Tweet and Facebook zombies. Isn't it sweet how they all "like" each other. By the way, that doesn't look like it's working so well, the same 30-40 members seem to frequent the site. I remain hopeful that somewhere around V15 some of the function we lost from V1 will return. A shame all my old friends won't be around to see it. I'm outa here... Mike Mancil

Glenn: I'm going to save you a few seconds of time and retire from any forum posting, it's not something I usually do or enjoy anyway and now I see it's also counter productive for both of us... Mike

This site has been both education and entertaining for over 10 years and it's sad that it's struggling because management is letting ego and personal pride run the show. No professional manager that I've ever encountered would reply to a customer as you just did. Do I feel better? No, I'm truly disheartened... Mike

Glenn: Ok, I'll accept your response as facetious and admit that my comment was a tad close to the belt. But flippant responses aren't going to get this site going. I worked for 35 years in an industry where schedules, plans, reviews and performance mattered and during all that time I found that the two most critical and volatile issues were lack of communication and time. No one, not the designer, not the owners, and certainly not the end users like being fed snippets of information and told to be happy about it; and on top of that there's time. Time is relative to each of us, but when the user who has an image to share and can't load it has to wait, when a user wants to respond to another member who was gracious enough to take the time to make a comment and can't even track those comments (without the aid of an outside email), and when casual browsing becomes frustrating because navigation is such a challenge; then time becomes a decision as to whether or not it's worth the effort. And that's where it becomes your problem as Project Manager or Staff or Testing or whatever. The long and short of it is that, whether you like it or not, you're our face, our go to guy and let me offer without any hysterics, without undue emotion and without anything personal; you gotta take charge, communicate (like Leslie has done for you) and get this site functional; even if it means replacing your resources that aren't performing. In the interim please accept my apology for the low blow, but be open to the cause... Mike