RangeFinderForum Under New Ownership

[swoop]

I'm hoping this will be a good thing. Though the idea of a business owning a user forum doesn't sound wise to me. Gandy appears to be an honest fellow and will allow the forum to be left as it is.

 

[Keith]

I have dealt with Stephen on several occasions and have always found him to be courteous and fair with an obvious enthusiasm for his vocation. The thought of a retailer owning this forum doesn't enthuse me but if that's the way it has to be ... I'm glad it's going to be Stephen Gandy.

As our new leader I only ask one thing ..... "Please don't send me to Iraq." 😱

 

[ndnbrunei]

Thank you Jorge!

Thank you Jorge!

Thank you Jorge for your hard work - setting up and maintaining a site like this could have been no small effort.

Congratulations on your achievement - I have not found another site that has anything close to the degree of camaraderie that this site has. The sense of community is very refreshing and it is great to see that people's postings are valued.

I hope the integrity of the site is maintained.

Regards, Andrew (ndnbrunei).

 

[nikola]

Good elf Stephen is now the new capo.... best wishes! 😀

...and I also hope that we will not lose George. 🙂

Nikola

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

I would like to thank everyone for the support. This really is a special online community, and I am very committed to only making RFF better.

IF anyone cares, my first RFF move was having George add the Argus forum. The importance of those cameras combined with their relatively low cost and lack of recognition has always facinated me.

Stephen

Having bought several things from Stephen and exchanged many emails on questions regarding RF cameras and possible purchases over the years, I am very happy that Stephen has taken RFF under his wing and i'd like to thank Jorge, Joe and Rover for all their hard work to bring this site to the size and importance as a resource site as it is now and it's special online community.

 

[Huck Finn]

I hope I'm not coming across as being unduly pessimistic, but it's the conflict of interest I'm calling into question and not the character of the parties involved.

Perhaps I'm a bit sensitive to this because I recently left a site where I had participated for many years because a tyrannical site owner thought he 'owned' the content that had been provided for him - gratis - by his paid site members, and that the content was his to sell to advertisers.

And it must be pointed out that Cameraquest has at times posted erroneous opinions as fact, with no recourse to editing to correct the mistake. (I'm thinking of the Hexar RF debacle.)

I hope it works out, too. But I'd rather have something to rely on than hope.

Kevin, you've hit the nail on the head. 😱

This is not a good move in my opinion. It wasn't just the Hexar RF comments, but the dissing of the Rollei 35 RF & the strange saga of CQ's relationship with the Zeiss Ikon, any reference to which has now been expunged from the site.

The internet is the new news medium for the 21st century. Advertsers have always had too much say in what was reprted in the media (newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, etc.) The evolution of photo magazines into the vacuous conduits for advertisements that they have become attests to that. When advertisers become owners, you have a major conflict of interest.

Ownership by Cameraquest is a clear conflict of interest.

Many thanks to Jorge & everyone else who have made RFF such an enjoyable place to spend time & swap opinions.

Huck

 

[Huck Finn]

KevinM,

I understand those sentiments; but I also look at this site as being an extremely busy hub of information and photos and "chit chat".

Someone, somewhere, has to pay for the upkeep.
Bandwidth is not free; neither is hosting and neither are the servers/routers/etc. that carry our little messages to and fro.

It all costs someone, somewhere quite a bit of coin. Jorge has never instilled a "mandatory" membership fee and that's a good thing. A lot of us gave of our own accord - but we gave that once - have any of us given funds to help run the site on a regular basis? I know I haven't. I gave $25 one time a year and a half ago. I doubt that my $25 is still making this site run today.

Jorge is a single individual and I'm sure not made of money - Stephen as well is a single individual but knows how to run a business (otherwise Cameraquest wouldn't be as successful as it is currently) - this marriage may not be one that everyone has wished for but it does make sense.

I don't think Stephen is the type of person to banish anyone who speaks out against Cosina / Voigtlander anymore than Jorge would throw anyone out for speaking ill of the M8 or such. Stephen has yet to log in and say is piece but I really think that, based on what I've had to deal with him for, and how it was handled, and the fact that he is not here 24/7, this site is not going to lose it's ability to allow for differing opinions or viewpoints on camera brands.

Dave

All good points.

However, there is a reason that there are rules about ownership of newspapers & other media. In a democracy, the press is "the fourth estate." It needs a free hand to operate. It has nothing to do with how benevolent the ownership is nor how decent a person any particular owner is. Ownership is tranferable. When an arm of the media is owned by a dealer who is also a distributor for one particular manufacturer, that media outlet goes with the sale of the dealership &/or the distributorship - unless something has been made explicit in the contract. Even in the latter case, it remains an inherent conflict of interests for the same individual to own both entities.

The internet is sorting itself out, but the general trend in the media in America has been to move in an unhealthy direction in the past quarter century. So-called "news" on TV has deteriorated into fluff instead of serious journalism. It is now just one more advertising platform to attract viewers & fill up space between ads.

Huck

 

[Andy Aitken]

OK but if RFF has to be owned by a business then I can't think of a better owner than CameraQuest. Stephen Gandy strikes me as an enthusiast first and a businessman second. Gandy will be no tyrant - that's for sure.

Big thanks to Jorge and good luck to both.

 

[MP Guy]

I plan to be around for a while. In fact Stephen and I are working on a top secret web page 🙂 that should rock the world 😀 But it's just a pebble now. In the meantime, I will still do what I did before. So, don't expect anything less from me than what I have done in the past. Going with Stephen for the forum was a no brainer since we both share a common interest. RF cameras.

 

[ferider]

In fact Stephen and I are working on a top secret web page 🙂 that should rock the world 😀.

Jorge,

the first thing I was thinking after your announcement was: "it would be great if Stephens RF web site would be integrated with RFF and grow as an RFF FAQ".

Roland.

 

[Pherdinand]

cool.
Let's wait to see how it will work out before we get involved in negative predictions.

Good luck, Stephen -if i may call you like that.

 

[Max Power]

Jorge,
Thanks for taking us this far you have made it a fantastic place.

Stephen,
Congratulations on taking over the RFF, and for being a great source of information and a first rate vendor.

Great success to both of you!

Kent

 

[kevin m]

Someone, somewhere, has to pay for the upkeep.

So we sell our souls to the devil for "upkeep?" 🙄

Fine. Charge $100 a year - or whatever it takes - and be done with the silly notion of 'owning' the content of a forum. Stephen is by all accounts a decent guy but, as Huck pointed out, the whole point of ownership is the ability to transfer your assets, and even if Mr. Gandy proves to be exceptional in the role, there's no guarantee the next owner will be half as decent.

 

[arbib]

Congrats to all the RFF staff. I am a fairly new member, but I have and do enjoy all the site has to offer. Not just Rff lore, but in great threads I am learning from too. Especially the great photos that are posted.

So Jorge, and Staff, You all have a great site here. Glad you are expanding. (I hate the term "grow your company" Plants Grow, Business's expand ..

 

[Huck Finn]

Jorge,

the first thing I was thinking after your announcement was: "it would be great if Stephens RF web site would be integrated with RFF and grow as an RFF FAQ".

Roland.

You've got to be kidding. 😱

 

[JohnM]

Eh. It's a message board, not the New York Times.

I'm just happy there's someone out there willing to invest the time, energy and money to provide me with this little way to pass some time. I don't care that he happens to sell cameras.

Thanks Stephen, Jorge, Joe, Rover and whoever else has pitched in here to date.

 

[Calvin]

Though I signed up this site not long, ppl around here are so great in exchanging ideas, thoughts, experiences and most importantly, your masterpieces. I also like this forum as members are coming from different corners of the world. Hope the new bartender would follow this spirit in running the site.

 

[Huck Finn]

Eh. It's a message board, not the New York Times.

Time to update your thinking. Message boards, blogs, websites, & all the rest of the interactive digital world are the "New York Times" for the new century.

I'm just happy there's someone out there willing to invest the time, energy and money to provide me with this little way to pass some time. I don't care that he happens to sell cameras.

Thanks Stephen, Jorge, Joe, Rover and whoever else has pitched in here to date.

Mr. Gandy will restore my faith in the new management when he restores information about the Zeiss Ikon to the historical portions of his CameraQuest website. Publishing a website that ostensibly offers objective historical information separate from its advertsing & sales sections, but then edits out all of that previously published ZI information over a dispute with the company, which is only vaguely explained, does not portend well for attitudes toward censorship as issues arise in the future.

 

[Al Patterson]

I do not agree re: Zeiss

I do not agree re: Zeiss

Mr. Gandy will restore my faith in the new management when he restores information about the Zeiss Ikon to the historical portions of his CameraQuest website. Publishing a website that ostensibly offers objective historical information separate from its advertsing & sales sections, but then edits out all of that previously published ZI information over a dispute with the company, which is only vaguely explained, does not portend well for attitudes toward censorship as issues arise in the future.

If I owned the de-facto best M mount research site and had a dispute with Zeiss, I would have pulled the Ikon stuff as well. As to "vaguely explained", it is NOT our business, or our website for that matter. Now, were Mr. Gandy to pull the Zeiss forum here, I'd be right with any ZI owner who complained.

And besides, who says he won't re-post all that info when the ZI becomes a part of M history rather than a current model?

 

[Huck Finn]

If I owned the de-facto best M mount research site and had a dispute with Zeiss, I would have pulled the Ikon stuff as well. As to "vaguely explained", it is NOT our business, or our website for that matter. Now, were Mr. Gandy to pull the Zeiss forum here, I'd be right with any ZI owner who complained.

And besides, who says he won't re-post all that info when the ZI becomes a part of M history rather than a current model?

I agree that it is not our business, so it would have been better for him to have said nothing about it.

He had every right to pull whatever he wanted to pull off his website, but removal of the ZI information detracts from the site as the best "de facto M-mount research site."

By "historical information," I'm referring to current as well as ancient history. The article on the Konica Hexar RF, for example, didn't appear when it became "part of M history." It was there when the Hexar RF was in production & an active competitor to the CV gear that was being sold by CameraQuest so there's no reason that the Zeiss Ikon should have been handled differently. To be consistent & to maintain the integrity of that part of the site, non-sales information like Tom Abrahamsson's article should have been left there. That's just my opinion; I am in no way disputing Mr. Gandy's right to manage his site however he chooses.