Do we want Random Gallery Picks back?

Gabriel M.A. said:
It's deja vu all over again...again

I actually suggest a "Click here to see Random Picks from the Users Gallery". That way, if you want to see it, you have to click it. If you don't, you don't. That way the "server load" issue won't be an "issue". Unless they keep on having a cowboy approach to site maintenance, of course...
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I second that suggestion! Thanks Gabriel.
What do you think about it, guys? That could be a solution.
 
I didn't vote in the poll and haven't read this entire thread carefully, but I think Gabriel's suggestion sounds like a very reasonable compromise. I also miss the Random Gallery Picks, but I also understand the issues w/ the server.
 
Joe -- I was unaware that he'd said that. I don't think anyone is being arrogant. A stimulating discussion has been generated on whether and how to enhance the visual aspects of RFF, and a return of Random Gallery Picks -- in some fashion (not necessarily as they were originally displayed) -- has become one part of that discussion. Perhaps it would be helpful to get a signal from Stephen about what can, and cannot, be done; if he's already send such a signal, I for one did not see it.

Steve
 
back alley said:
is there not a certain arrogance in bringing up this subject time & again when the owner of the site has stated in the clearest of terms that it will not happen?

joe
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Not trying to be a smart ass,
I never knew he said that.
Could I ask why?
 
Hi Steve,
Stephen has " given the signal" as you put it in at least 3 threads on the subject including the one where he put forward the whole idea of of how he wanted to generate more interest in pictures rather than gear. A quote from that giving his policy was quoted in big yellow letters in Ruben's post not 3 hours and 10 posts before yours. Since he first gave that signal and created a forum to discuss the whole issue, there have been several threads started outside of that discussion about the same thing with the same arguments and the same answers.

The bottom line is that the site owner is very keen to promote the art rather than the gear. However, he has stated on several ocassions that he is not prepared for a major change to the software with the trouble and expense that that would cause. The random gallery picks cause a major slow down of the site which most find unacceptable. There is a working group discussing the matter in open forum here http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=134 If people want to ignore that and all the discussion that has gone before, that's fine by me but I agree with Joe, I do think it is a little arrogant.

Regards
Kim
Bingley said:
Joe -- I was unaware that he'd said that. I don't think anyone is being arrogant. A stimulating discussion has been generated on whether and how to enhance the visual aspects of RFF, and a return of Random Gallery Picks -- in some fashion (not necessarily as they were originally displayed) -- has become one part of that discussion. Perhaps it would be helpful to get a signal from Stephen about what can, and cannot, be done; if he's already send such a signal, I for one did not see it.

Steve
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Marc-A. said:
Arrogance? That's a bit too much, Joe.
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marc, then give me another word for it.
and i'm not trying to be a smartass either.
this has come up many times, stephen has addressed it and many members have stated they would prefer a quicker site than one that has a random gallery on the front page. the software does not allow for the gallery and the qick while the classifieds seem to not slow down the site. i'm not a software geek and don't understand why it all works the way it does.

arrogance seems to be the word to me but maybe i should have said uninformed?
joe
 
OK, I stand corrected. I should have read the posts and threads more carefully. As I previously said, I understand the problems w/ the server and software, and just thought that Gabriel's idea might be worth considering... But! if it would still cause server or software problems, then I w/draw my previous comment.
 
I remember when RFF would be offline for hours and even a day on one occasion. This hasn’t happened in a long time. I think the loss of access to the site caused enough consternation. If the site can’t handle the load of a random image, I vote “site first, then random image”

Since no upgrades are forthcoming due to financial constraints I’m happy with the RFF as it is currently. I recall the random images and they were an interesting thing to see, however like Sitemistic has noted just go to the membership list and select someone to check out. That’s what I did during the first year I was here. It’s worth it.

Joe, don’t forget you “live here” so you see the flow of discussion daily. Some members don’t immerse themselves in RFF to the extent that they know all the discussions on this topic. Perhaps pointing to the appropriate threads at the outset might save a lot of time all around.
 
If random gallery per se isn't workable due to tech issues, then simply have a few people step up to identify "images of the week." That would be another low-tech way to populate a quasi-random gallery. Then there is zero tax on the server but the visual mission is served.

I'm pretty sure this has been suggested in a few places and it seems a good compromise, if there are people willing to nominate photos. Some nice folks already take the time to list the standout photos of the week; why not put their work to good use.

Or... picture-of-the-week nominations could be done numerically, by votes on posted images. Dry but efficient.

Just brainstorming.... and I'm sure everything I'm suggesting has been suggested before...
 
jan normandale said:
Joe, don’t forget you “live here” so you see the flow of discussion daily. Some members don’t immerse themselves in RFF to the extent that they know all the discussions on this topic. Perhaps pointing to the appropriate threads at the outset might save a lot of time all around.
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This is a good point. "Arrogance" has a negative connotation and I don't think anyone participating in this thread was acting with arrogance, Just unawareness. 🙂
 
we already have a pic of the week thread that claremontphoto does.

yes jan, you are correct. i spend way too much time here and usually have a fair idea of what's happening.

sorry dave, i am short tempered these days, being compared to a nazi and told what a poor moderator i am has that affect.
i need a long nap and some quiet time.
joe
 
just make it a habit to click once per visit on the "gallery" button, whats the big deal? this is not photo.net ... -_- on the other hand it wouldnt hurt to make the gallery page a bit more inviting and more easily browsable (first having to select a timespan before being able to browse the pictures? no thanks)
 
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back alley said:
we already have a pic of the week thread that claremontphoto does.
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Thank you back alley.

We get very little participation in Gallery Picks, and I was just about to give it up.

I've tried posting my own choices one at a time to bump the thread.

I'm also starting to add comments to stimulate talk about photos.

Any other suggestions to myself and the Gallery Picks regulars will be very welcome. And it would be great to see new regulars in there.
 
Dear Ruben,

ruben said:
Then I will explain myself better.
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I guess I should do the same. I hope that you don't mind if I rearrange the order of your text a little bit to make for a coherent response.

Stephen via ruben said:
[...]The final decisions on what changes implement will be made by myself, the moderators, and Memphis (leader of the imagery promo team). Changes have to be doable within our software. So don't expect a new site. We are looking to improve this site, not invent the wheel again.[...]
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I have actually read that, contrary to how it seems to appear.

Maybe it is just me being dense, but I don't read that as "Random Gallery Picks will never be back". I read that as "We will only do what our software will allow us to do". I don't think I have suggested anything different. I am not a vBulletin expert, but vBulletin is a rather flexible system with an extensive support community; I think it would be worth looking for a way to make Random Gallery Picks work with the existing software, and I would have liked the poll to be interpreted in this way, as giving suggestions what one could try. Maybe the old version of vBulletin just had a bug here. We shouldn't rule out Random Gallery Picks completely just because there were problems with the particular configuration and version RFF was running back then.

ruben said:
c) then my friend Philipp unilateraly decides not only to open A PARALEL THREAD BUT to make a public POLL about the Random Gallery.

At this point we should better analyze the character of this poll. There are polls and polls. Some polls deal with who smokes and what is the color of your underpaints. Fine.

But when you take the initiative to make A POLL CONCERNING INTERNAL ISSUES OF RFF you are going to split the neighbourhood between a majority and a minority. YOU ARE TELLING THE MINORITY: YOU ARE A MINORITY. And by this way you are disrupting any possibility of consensus or compromise.
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This is certainly not the character I had in mind. Following your tradition of yellow text, all I wanted to achieve here was to collect some ideas how it would be possible to get back one highly desirable feature while keeping server load manageable and while maintaining as much as possible of the site as it is. I am not trying to split anyone, or to disrupt consensus, or to bring up talk about minorities and majorities, or to force anyone to impose anything on anyone. If this is how I came across, then this has been a colossal misunderstanding. I am actually trying to be constructive, but I'm apparently coming across differently, which is a pity; making myself understood in this way is apparently something I am not very good at.

I opened a separate thread about this because I thought that the "open kettle" thread was for discussing the question of imagery on RFF on a broad scale, while this would be a collection of ideas and comments on a detail. The reason why I posted this in RFF Polls, as opposed to the Imagery Promo forum, is actually very simple; I thought this subforum was where I thought polls were supposed to go in general, and in fact I wasn't aware that it was possible to post a poll anywhere else. As evident from Marc-A's newer poll in the Imagery Promo forum, it's possible to have a poll there, so I guess I should just have tried, and I guess now some moderator reading it might just have moved it to where it was appropriate (instead of leaving it as it stands and telling me how arrogant I was about it). After your initial comment I would have suggested moving it myself, but I only have the opportunity and time to read RFF at irregular intervals here and came too late.

A concluding side note to Joe (and to some extent to Kim; I'm mainly quoting Joe here, because he is the one who brought it up and because most of the answer to Kim's elaboration is already contained above in this post here and I don't want to repeat myself too much):
back alley said:
is there not a certain arrogance in bringing up this subject time & again when the owner of the site has stated in the clearest of terms that it will not happen?)
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But that's not what he said!! He said he won't change the forum software just to bring up one specific feature. That's perfectly understandable. I don't remember ever reading that Random Gallery Picks were out of the question in principle, just that there were technical problems with them as they were with the existing configuration of the forum software. On the contrary, if Stephen indeed was against Random Gallery Picks categorically, I think he would have said so somewhere, instead of just pointing out that there are limits to the changes possible in the existing forum. If there was an earlier categorical statement somewhere, I may well have missed it, as my overview of what goes on at RFF is certainly less complete than yours.

On a personal level, as you will have realized by now, I did not appreciate your rhetorical question implying in public that you considered this an act of arrogance. In fact, putting it bluntly, I got quite angry. Since we're talking in public now anyway, I don't think I'm contradicting myself when I suggest that I would have preferred you to send me a PM about it instead, so that I can tell you what this is all about and/or suggest a course of action what to do with my post (editing for the sake of clarity, removing, moving, whatever). Regarding your other post, I don't think I've called you a Nazi, either, so please don't vent your anger in the direction of user A when you are actually angry at user B. But since apparently I am more difficult to understand than I thought I was, and since you state that you are short tempered these days, which happens to the best of us, I guess we all should now just drop the whole matter of who called whom arrogant, a Nazi, or a bad moderator. For my part I consider this closed for good and done over with and I certainly won't pursue it any further than this. If anything, please let's continue this in private.

Regarding what to do with this thread here, as I don't think I can do either of the two, I suggest that one of the moderators reading close this poll here and/or move it to the appropriate subforum.

Philipp
 
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philipp, my apologies as well. i did not mean to say that it was you calling me names or questioning my competence.
as jan pointed out earlier, i probably have a more 'global' view of rff than most as i try to read as much of it as i can. stephen has said elsewhere that the random gallery will not be back because the site turns to molasses when it's in operation.
in the future, if i have a concern that involves you i will first make contact in private. i too need to be more aware of my words, arrogance is not all that strong of a word to me, especially when compared to how i was feeling, so i am a bit surprised at the reaction to it's use.
honest dialog is best and i appreciate your direct candor.

joe
 
I understand your feeling, Philipp. And as I said, I don't understand attacks against this thread ... especially the boycott thing ... I boycott evil regimes, not Philipp's thread, who is among others a gentleman and a man of knowledge. If one is not interested in the discussion, it's fine of course, but call for boycott is far to much IMO.
And to make it clear: I don't care there's an official "kettle". As long as we are civil, polite, constructive, we can talk freely ... Philipp's initiative seemed useful to me and to others; we were wrong about the possibility to bring the random gallery back - Errare humanum est - fine, a short note about that would have been more than enough.
Sorry, I had to say. Now, AFAIC, let's forget the whole thing and move on ...
My 2 cents,
Marc
 
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