wolves3012
Veteran
I hope sincerely that you don't shut the place down! I'd miss it greatly...
the joy of photography
- Thread starter back alley
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wolves3012
Veteran
This made me chuckle! I'd agree with your ideas for sure.
wolves3012
Veteran
I'll second that. Two mods isn't enough anymore. I have zero complaints about them though.
Sparrow
Veteran
I think it’s a mistake to generalise, drive the length of the east coast a few times and you’ll find the same diversity in Americans as you would in a drive across Europe, not as cynical as we are, and more polite but just as diverse
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Well, yes, exactly; which is why I threw the generalization straight back. I've driven across the USA E-W and W-E eight times (counting each one-way journey as a trip, though I'd need to check that it wasn't 7 or 9) and Frances lived in New York State until 17 and California from 17-35. That's apart from our research on Battlefields of the Civil War.
As Frances pointed out, calling Europeans 'more arrogant and willing to insult people' is itself something of an arrogant insult, and rather supports my argument that people can be arrogant and insulting without realizing that someone from another culture might see it as such.
Yes, you can take 'thinner skinned' as an insult too, but I didn't see it that way, and nor did Frances -- and she's lived about 40 years in the USA and about 20 in Europe. 'All generalizations are dangerous, including this one', but I don't see it as an unrealistic generalization that different cultures have dfferent sensibilities.
Cheers,
R.
Sparrow
Veteran
I meant you as in one, not you in particular … I knew you had lived there
wgerrard
Veteran
Man, isn't that true. People may tend to forgive the trespasses of clueless tourists, but visiting or living in a new place can really be enhanced if we make the effort to behave appropriately by local standards.
More rambling on this thread's topic: Few successful online forums survive without some form of diligent moderation. This forum seems to be pretty large for two moderators, if we assume they need to look at every post. Much of a moderator's task will always be a judgment call, and we need to remember that. I've seen gratuitously nasty posts here, and would be pleased if they were removed. I've also seen people take exception to posts I thought were innocuous. And I know I've written things I intended to be innocuous that still managed to offend someone.
Words often produce unintended reactions, especially when they are presented on screen or on paper, isolated and removed from their speaker. That's why writers of fiction work hard at creating the words that prompt the intended reaction in the reader. What I think my words mean may or may not be what you think they mean. E.g., I can insert what I see as an innocently wry comment into a thread, but if I don't succeed in conveying that wryness via the words I use, then someone else might see the comment as needlessly sarcastic and abusive. A little care in crafting our comments here, and some thought about how others may interpret them can go a long way.
Michael Markey
Veteran
In general Americans do seem to be more polite in my experience and with non of the silent anger ,as one forum member described it to me, of us Brits (as people seem to call us). I thought that to be an astute observation.
I blame it on the weather over here 🙂
Wasn`t it Somerset Maugham who said that you had to live in about three other countries before you could arrive at a view about your own.
I must admit that I come here for a quite time so tend not to value the robust exchange of views as much as others.
I blame it on the weather over here 🙂
Wasn`t it Somerset Maugham who said that you had to live in about three other countries before you could arrive at a view about your own.
I must admit that I come here for a quite time so tend not to value the robust exchange of views as much as others.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Bill,
(Of the highlight) But alas, not always far enough. You are however absolutely right throughout the post.
As an aside in cultural differences, my name is pronounced in French exactly the same way as the letter X. For years, Frances wondered why she got funny looks when booking into an hotel as M. et Mme. X...
Cheers,
R.
The problems that I have with some members on the forum are not about a wry comment with misconstrued meanings. The problem is with members that launch personal attacks, that post only to insult and provoke others. That is what we are seeing with this current swing of the pendulum. I would like to see a more even enforcement of the rules that have been in affect since 2003 when I first started reading threads here.
ferider
Veteran
Dear Roger,
how did we get from the fact that our two moderators are overloaded with a heavily grown forum (they obviously can not be everywhere), and from the request, that as stated in the rules, politics are not being discussed, to the fear of excessive moderation ?
In contrast to Brian, I worry much less about somebody being intemperate - maybe because I am European myself.... Unless it's systematic, the occasional emotional flare is usually ignorable/fixable. Do not misunderstand me, I very much agree that rudeness is plain wrong.
But I can not identify with an RFF in which for days, the most active threads (with hundreds of posts and thousands of views) involve clearly controversial political subjects that have nothing to do with photography.
Roland.
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Dave Wilkinson
Veteran
Michael - I have never visited America, and can only form an impression from film, TV documentaries etc. but when - in these I see and hear the attitudes of waiters, shop assistants and other 'service' (for want of a better word!) folks - I cannot agree with the first part of your opening sentence.
Dave.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Michael,
(Highlight) I think you're right -- sort of -- but this suggests to me that Frances is right about Americans taking offence more easily: to borrow a boxing metaphor, if you live among people with glass jaws, you have to pull your punches, or not punch at all.
The big problem is that if you come from a different culture, you may not know what is going to offend someone, and even if you do, you may feel in an international forum that all cultures have equal rights to live by their own norms instead of submitting to the standards of the thinnest-skinned, regardless of where the thin-skinned come from.
No country is perfect. I've lived in the UK, Malta, Bermuda, the United States and France (and Cornwall and Scotland if you're going to get manically nationalistic), and there are things I miss about (or in) all of them. There are also things I'm happy to live without. The 'silent anger' of many Britons is undeniable, and it's not always so silent: look at road rage (though as far as I can see, many Italians drive in a permanent state of road rage). But equally, many French businesses have a certain amount to learn about customer service.
A big question is what constitutes a 'quiet time'. If I didn't get a decent-sized chunk of intellectual stimulation from RFF, I'd not bother to belong to the forum. That's not calling you names, or denigrating what you get from the forum; just pointing out that a 'quiet time' of arguing constructively (and with any luck learning something) is, for me, a pleasure.
Also, RFF is great displacement activity. Right now I should be updating www.mctie.com which has languished since 2003, but I'm having some difficulty in handling the excitement of researching which countries allow motorcycles to park on the pavement (sidewalk)
Cheers,
R.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Roland,
And I cannot identify with one that does not.
As someone perceptively pointed out recently, the early days of Magnum used to be marked by blazing political arguments. Politics are what life is about. To deny any political commitment is to regress to swans-and-sunsets, and kittens-in-boots. EDIT: While purely political threads may fall outside the rules, a 'drift' to politics in many threads seems all but inevitable, and hard to police, which I assume is why purely, overtly political threads are tolerated too.
The political threads are easy to avoid, but the fact that they are are so very popular suggests that many members have wider interests than saccharine, anodyne or empty pictures, or the bokeh of different versions of Summicron. What does anyone lose by the existence of political (and other) debate, so long as we also discuss photography on other threads (as I certainly do, along with most others)? EDIT: I am not accusing you of saccharine pics, etc., or of being a bokeh fanatic, but you get my drift. I can't see why RFF can't be a broader church than you seem to want.
I shoot much less overtly political stuff than I used to, though I could still find my pictures of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders marches in the 1970s or the Tibetan Government in Exile in the 80s. But I still think that political photography is important, and therefore, by extension, that politics is even more important.
As I have said before, a very significant part of the value of RFF for me is that I get to 'meet' a wide variety of people who are united by a love of photography in general, and in many cases, rangefinder photography in particular. To say, "Go to a political forum" is to miss the point. Political forums are self-selecting for (usually polarized) politics. RFF isn't. Am I alone in finding this valuable and fascinating?
Cheers,
R.
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Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Roland,
I think you are correct in the highlighted assumption. A magazine has some degree of editorial direction; is more or less subservient to a capitalist publishing house and its advertisers (Leica-bashing articles wouldn't go far, nor 'Film Is Dead' articles); and is created by relatively few people. Something like RFF is created, in effect, by hundreds or even thousands of people, with widely differing viewpoints and no editorial direction.
Of course Stephen can impose any rules he likes, and throw me (or you) off the forum without notice. He is also a capitalist: he'd soon go broke otherwise. But I for one am profoundly grateful that he is substantially 'hands-off' and provides a forum where we can, within reason, discuss almost anything on the basis that what unites us is a love of photography, without restricting ourselves artificially.
To be sure, there are those who bemoan the way that RFF has changed, and hanker after a smaller and perhaps more cliquey organization. Personally, I much prefer it the way it is today. Which of us is right? Hard to say. But unless Stephen wants to shrink RFF back to the size it was a few years ago, I find it hard to believe that there is any great advantage in being significantly more restrictive.
And, as I keep saying, you don't have to keep on reading the threads that aren't going the way you want. There are hundreds of active threads. Read the ones that interest you, and when you think they're taking a wrong turning, stop reading them. What do you lose by affording others the pleasure of discussions in which you do not want to take part?
Cheers,
R.
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wgerrard
Veteran
We Americans portray pretty screwy versions of ourselves in the TV and movies we export. I know plenty of Americans, too, who have never been to the UK and think everyone there behaves like the people they see on Are You Being Served?, Doctor Who, and Eastenders.
People do tend to have buttons that, if pushed, can set them off in paroxysms of inexplicable craziness. When I was in the UK, I had an American colleague who, to all appearances loved the place. One day, though, driving in London (his first mistake) he turned left off Oxford Street and was stopped and ticketed for going the wrong way on a one-way street. I knew the street and knew that it was clearly, and abundantly, well posted with one-way signs and warnings. Yet, he insisted no signs or warnings were posted, and insisted on going to court over it. He lost, of course. But, the experience soured him on all things British. He stopped traveling, he started ranting about the "oppressiveness" of the place, and he left as soon as he could. Go figure.
Anyway, Dave, I hope you get the chance, if you wish, to visit the U.S. someday. I'm pretty sure I'll be back in the UK, and Yorkshire, again.
I've been here a long time. I have seen many non-Americans get bent out of shape over posts, some as simple as a datasheet on a Russian lens. Many get bent out of shape if you hint that the quality control on a Russian camera was not as good as a German or Japanese camera. This is clearly not an "Americans get bent out of shape too easily". This is an attempt to bring the pendulum back towards the center again, an international group that can post to a forum without insults, anger, hate, and bigotry.
There are a few members that post here just to piss people off. They "score points" that way. I'm tired of it. Vicious attacks and posts designed just to piss people off should not be allowed space on this forum.
Unlike two times before, where I've posted "That's it, I'm leaving" - I'm trying something new. Posting images on the W/NW forums. It's a break, it's a statement, it's passive aggressive, it's whatever. But I have been spending a lot more time taking pictures and uploading them. It's more fun.
There are a few members that post here just to piss people off. They "score points" that way. I'm tired of it. Vicious attacks and posts designed just to piss people off should not be allowed space on this forum.
Unlike two times before, where I've posted "That's it, I'm leaving" - I'm trying something new. Posting images on the W/NW forums. It's a break, it's a statement, it's passive aggressive, it's whatever. But I have been spending a lot more time taking pictures and uploading them. It's more fun.
I know the feeling.
I can show the facts based on Datasheets and the Laws of Physics. I work in an Optics Lab. It rubs off on you. And yet someone will post an image taken with their one example of a lens, in conditions that do not show the incompatibilities between systems. You can make good pictures with Contax lenses on a Nikon RF, and sometimes you can get lucky. Everyone accepts the documented difference. But a Russian lens on a Leica...
If someone needs advice, let them ask. I will answer PM's, and answer questions on ziforums.com where I have control over the content. You are welcome to join.
I can show the facts based on Datasheets and the Laws of Physics. I work in an Optics Lab. It rubs off on you. And yet someone will post an image taken with their one example of a lens, in conditions that do not show the incompatibilities between systems. You can make good pictures with Contax lenses on a Nikon RF, and sometimes you can get lucky. Everyone accepts the documented difference. But a Russian lens on a Leica...
If someone needs advice, let them ask. I will answer PM's, and answer questions on ziforums.com where I have control over the content. You are welcome to join.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
back alley
IMAGES
A WORD OR 2 ABOUT COMMUNICATION...
i used to teach classes in communication and problem solving, one of the first 'lessons' i did involved having the people in class sit back, eyes closed and think of their favourite, most comfortable 'chair'.
i asked that they just relax and 'see' the chair and think about how it felt to sit comfortably in it.
afterwards we would have a discussion about our chairs and how the single word chair had many meanings for each of us. i had them describe their chairs to the class. there were rocking chairs, leather chairs, high back chairs, mushy, sink into the cushion chairs...you get the idea.
imagine us having a discussion here about our favourite chair, each having our own vision about what that chair was like.
10 or 20 of us with maybe 5 to 10 to 20 differing 'chairs' but each of us thinking that we 'knew' what the other was talking about becuase we each knew what a chair was.
this is a simple excersize that shows just how easy it is to misunderstand each other while using the same words...
i used to teach classes in communication and problem solving, one of the first 'lessons' i did involved having the people in class sit back, eyes closed and think of their favourite, most comfortable 'chair'.
i asked that they just relax and 'see' the chair and think about how it felt to sit comfortably in it.
afterwards we would have a discussion about our chairs and how the single word chair had many meanings for each of us. i had them describe their chairs to the class. there were rocking chairs, leather chairs, high back chairs, mushy, sink into the cushion chairs...you get the idea.
imagine us having a discussion here about our favourite chair, each having our own vision about what that chair was like.
10 or 20 of us with maybe 5 to 10 to 20 differing 'chairs' but each of us thinking that we 'knew' what the other was talking about becuase we each knew what a chair was.
this is a simple excersize that shows just how easy it is to misunderstand each other while using the same words...