the joy of photography

gdi said:
That would be great, but I don't think it very likely to happen. Is this the worst place I have seen on the net? No, but it is a lot worse than it used to be. Granted I have only been here for 4 years (Member Number 8545; the latest members are in the 36000's), but the atmosphere is far more acerbic.

And I agree with a poster above it is not just the film is dead, digital sux, you are an idiot for buying a Leica/Fed/Bessa/Blah/Blah/Blah, posts that have changed the character of the forum. There are a number of arrogant and simply rude members who take every opportunity to insult people based on their religion, or their nationality, or political viewpoints.

It gets oh so tiresome to come to a photography forum and read again and again posts from members (usually ill-informed ones) how ignorant or stupid or looney people from your home country, or you neighbors of a particular religion are. Sure, you can put them on ignore - but why should you have to? Would most of us put earplugs in to avoid hearing someone insulting us in a bar? I think most will either confront the rude behavior or leave. And we see these choices being made every day in this forum.

Make no mistake I am not against a healthy debate - but name calling and insults are not healthy. It is petty and poisonous to a community - real or virtual. It all comes down to the type of forum the site management and mods want - this thread is an indicator of which direction things have gone to this point.
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In all fairness, though, there are also those who are unreasonably willing to be 'insulted', and who read every criticism that way, even when it's completely justified.

Most of the more extreme posts seem to be in 'Off Topic' and they're easy enough to avoid: to use your bar analogy, there are some bars you go into, and some you avoid. Also, even in your favourite bar, there's always the possibility of someone coming in and being unpleasant.

My own personal approach, as far as possible, is not to post anything I would not be willing to say to someone's face. If they then get upset about it, I can either apologize (if they have mistaken what I said, or if I feel I went too far) or decide that they're absurdly thin-skinned or simply wrong.

Of course I don't always succeed in being civil, but at least I try. And I think the same is true of the vast majority of people on this forum. We try. I find it a lot more agreeable since Stephen bought it.

Finally, I don't understand people who not only refuse to discuss religion or politics, but get all bent out of shape when others do it. One of the most valuable things about RFF for me is 'meeting' people I normally wouldn't encounter, be they political wingnuts, religious fanatics, or rabid devotees of a particular kind of camera for which I have no time.

Cheers,

R.
 
There are worse forums... On a well known forum I won't name, some years ago when I was digital (yes, I'm sorry... :)), I was suddenly told by an american girl: "You're a stupid fake! Everyone here knows you're not in Spain because you post when the time in Spain is 2-6 AM, and I'm sure you don't have the cameras you say and maybe you don't even shoot at all... You might be some kind of spy..." Then I gave her my studio address in Barcelona and kindly invited her to come visit me and offered myself to show her the city... Then I received some answers from other members telling me how dangerous it is to give my address in an american forum for several reasons... I left the forum that day.

And I remember here on RFF a year ago I was talking about getting a smaller, lighter line of cameras from CV so we could hang two or three from our necks for hours with no pain, and I used the title "some necks around here say..." and it was incredible: people thought I was trying to offend them in a way yet I don't understand... On the contrary, some times I've felt some members tried to offend me and then after reading again I understood I was wrong... So I think I've learned a bit (I'm on it yet) to let things pass without getting too involved... I really appreciate this forum and their members... I think everyone here feels real passion about shooting.

Cheers,

Juan
 
I can't believe that in the progress of this thread not an ounce of light has been shed on which really is better, film or digital. What a waste :D

Maybe it is SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder?
 
As this forum's grown in numbers it has changed IMO. When I joined it had the personal hands on friendly feeling of a small country town ... with around five thousand members!

At more than six times that original membership it's now taken on the feeling of a slightly impersonal competitive and often combative metropolis!

That's progress I guess!
 
Roger Hicks said:
In all fairness, though, there are also those who are unreasonably willing to be 'insulted', and who read every criticism that way, even when it's completely justified.

Most of the more extreme posts seem to be in 'Off Topic' and they're easy enough to avoid: to use your bar analogy, there are some bars you go into, and some you avoid. Also, even in your favourite bar, there's always the possibility of someone coming in and being unpleasant.

My own personal approach, as far as possible, is not to post anything I would not be willing to say to someone's face. If they then get upset about it, I can either apologize (if they have mistaken what I said, or if I feel I went too far) or decide that they're absurdly thin-skinned or simply wrong.

Of course I don't always succeed in being civil, but at least I try. And I think the same is true of the vast majority of people on this forum. We try. I find it a lot more agreeable since Stephen bought it.

Finally, I don't understand people who not only refuse to discuss religion or politics, but get all bent out of shape when others do it. One of the most valuable things about RFF for me is 'meeting' people I normally wouldn't encounter, be they political wingnuts, religious fanatics, or rabid devotees of a particular kind of camera for which I have no time.

Cheers,

R.
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My post is obviously an opinion and I don't intend to turn it into a debate on the facts; each member can observe and judge their appropriateness as they see fit. But I will respond to a couple of your comments.

Your comment that criticism that is justifiable in the mind of the "critic" should not be judged as insults is really the oldest excuse in the book for rude behavior. "I am just the truth teller, if you can't handle the truth, it is your problem". That is the essence of your thin skinned argument - a dismissal of the other person's perspective.

And you try to refute my analogy regarding a bar by claiming one can just choose not to enter the off topic forum. But two facts make that impractical. First, all posts show up on the recent posts page; I would wager a lot of people would not be comfortable with a bar in their neighborhood that allows the patrons to shout insults out the door at passersby. And second, there is plenty of this going on in other forums.

I don't have a problem debating anything, and I can give as good as I get. And I do at time challenge the rudeness and intolerance. But I realize that I cannot convert the ill mannered and I would simply prefer it take place elsewhere.
 
gdi said:
My post is obviously an opinion and I don't intend to turn it into a debate on the facts; each member can observe and judge their appropriateness as they see fit. But I will respond to a couple of your comments.

Your comment that criticism that is justifiable in the mind of the "critic" should not be judged as insults is really the oldest excuse in the book for rude behavior. "I am just the truth teller, if you can't handle the truth, it is your problem". That is the essence of your thin skinned argument - a dismissal of the other person's perspective.

And you try to refute my analogy regarding a bar by claiming one can just choose not to enter the off topic forum. But two facts make that impractical. First, all posts show up on the recent posts page; I would wager a lot of people would not be comfortable with a bar in their neighborhood that allows the patrons to shout insults out the door at passersby. And second, there is plenty of this going on in other forums.

I don't have a problem debating anything, and I can give as good as I get. And I do at time challenge the rudeness and intolerance. But I realize that I cannot convert the ill mannered and I would simply prefer it take place elsewhere.
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I am sure that very few people deliberately set out to be rude, but we can all be misconstrued. If we are persistently misconstrued, despite our best efforts, then there is a spectrum of explanations, ranging from our own inability to fit into social norms at one end of the scale, to the persistently offended person's inability to fit in at the other. Someone who is more or less permanently misconstruing others is probably in the latter end of the spectrum. They are the ones I label 'thin-skinned'. Do you deny that such people exist?

Also, there are cultural as well as personal norms in debate. What is 'robust' to one person may be 'rude' to another.

As for 'trying to refute' your bar analogy, I don't quite see your argument there either. Very few thread topics are provocatively titled -- "All ______s are Dumb Arseholes" or the like -- and even if they are, they are clearly marked "Off Topic", and you don't have to read them.

More often, there will be a thread header such as "Congratulations to All Americans" or "American Health Care." It's a fairly safe bet that sooner or later a certain sort of person will be offended by some of the content of such threads, but only if (to use your own analogy) they choose to walk into the bar.

Personally, I am fairly seldom offended, though I am sometimes exasperated at what I see as ignorance or stupidity. If someone never posts anything helpful, and consistently attacks me personally, or simply if I find them too exasperating, I just put them on ignore. I don't think I've ever had more than three people on ignore at a time. I don't own the forum; I can't govern its style or content (nor do I presume to do so); and as with every other forum I've ever spent much time on, I'll stay as long as the good outweighs the bad. This is about the most civil forum I have ever dealt with, but I'd leave at a moment's notice if I didn't like it.

Cheers,

R.
 
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gdi, yours is the hardest to discern avatar I've ever seen... It took me several seconds... I guess I need a bigger screen... :)

Cheers,

Juan
 
I think quite a few misunderstandings occur due to the differing sense of humour, and perceptions of what is 'tongue in cheek' or light hearted banter - around the world. A few times my wife and I have laughed when something we have put in a way that would obviously be deemed humour - over here, has met with a string of very serious replies :)
Dave.
 
Some people think they are the best know everything fu*&^ng Einsteins and that's where trouble starts and then there are trolls.
 
One thing that I remember from my original join date years ago is that most of the forum's prominent and controversial personalities generally posted images regularly in the gallery and in threads.

To me these days it seems that a lot of people are only here for the arguments and we seldom see their photographs.


edit ... but then again after going back to the forum home page and having a look at it the word 'photography' doesn't exactly smack one in the eye ... silly me!
 
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Keith said:
One thing that I remember from my original join date years ago is that most of the forum's prominent and controversial personalities generally posted images regularly in the gallery and in threads.

To me these days it seems that a lot of people are only here for the arguments and we seldom see their photographs.


edit ... but then again after going back to the forum home page and having a look at it the word 'photography' doesn't exactly smack one in the eye ... silly me!
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Dear Keith,

It may also be that a lot of people post links to Flickr, web-sites, etc, because there's a lot more of that sort of thing around than there used to be. I'm not saying that is the case, just putting it out as a sort of hypothesis, the more so as if you obey the forum rules on 'Manage Attachments' your pictures come up pretty tiny.

Cheers,

R.
 
I seldom post anything on RFF but I sure do enjoy it, enjoy most of the people on it, enjoy the mods and think they do a great job! I guess that's why I log in usually every day just to see what my favorite folks have to say about this or that! I'm very happy with RFF and will continue to log in daily if possible.
Regards,
Tom Harrell
 
That's my case, Roger... In one year I haven't been able to post an image to be seen big on the screen, just those tiny attachments or links to flickr... Linus laptop... Another PITA for me is that I process my images in a windows computer with no access to internet: it's a laptop too but got a wild virus and couldn't get fixed in ANY way, so it's my Photoshop and nothing else laptop... Then, anytime I want to post a shot or a test, I need to scan and process in one computer, then save data in a memory, transfer data to the second computer, and then try to upload it from the second (internet) computer: and all that for a tiny image where nothing can be seen... It's a lot of time for little visual interest...

Cheers,

Juan
 
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Well, I've had another look and I still can't make out gdi's avatar. Old age must be a'creeping up far faster than I thought. Taking up the point about numbers on RFF, its really the number that are active and posting that matter. Looking at the members list it seems there are any number who haven't accessed for several months, and some have even signed up on one day and never visited again. And you have to wonder why?
I enjoy RFF. Many threads I don't even bother to glance at - the title dosn't grab me and I know another will. The outcome is that as a result of my reading selection I get a biased opinion of other members' views. I suspect that apart from the mods we all could. So its very easy to generalise about how the forum has developed. I think it varies very much on a weekly basis.
jesse
 
Keith said:
One thing that I remember from my original join date years ago is that most of the forum's prominent and controversial personalities generally posted images regularly in the gallery and in threads.

To me these days it seems that a lot of people are only here for the arguments and we seldom see their photographs.


edit ... but then again after going back to the forum home page and having a look at it the word 'photography' doesn't exactly smack one in the eye ... silly me!
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I post about the same number, but on Flickr and then link them in the threads here, I started when there was the volume storage problems.

Plus then I can lose track of them all in the same place
 
Just lately I've recommended this forum to a new student of photography. He loves it. And has told me how informative and inspirational the words and images have been. If there is a rude tone to this forum he would have mentioned it. As far as the competitive and combative undercurrents, I think that can't be helped. Thousands of voices and visions coming out from the dark and the silence, all struggling to heard and seen.



Leica 35 1.4 Summilux and M6 on Ektar 100
 
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There's very little importance placed on the gallery here IMO.

I visit the gallery every day and see the same old contributors uploading images and the same old members passing comments on those images.

Every week 'gallery picks' has the same group (mostly) of members involving themselves in this excellent core 'photography' thread which often struggles to reach thirty posts. Start a thread about your M9 falling of the dressing table beside your bed and knocking the rangefinder out of alignment and posters will flock to your side to offer sympathy for such a calamitous event!

Call me a cynic!
 
Keith said:
There's very little importance placed on the gallery here IMO.

I visit the gallery every day and see the same old contributors uploading images and the same old members passing comments on those images.

Every week 'gallery picks' has the same group (mostly) of members involving themselves in this excellent core 'photography' thread which often struggles to reach thirty posts. Start a thread about your M9 falling of the dressing table beside your bed and knocking the rangefinder out of alignment and posters will flock to your side to offer sympathy for such a calamitous event!

Call me cynic!
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o.k. Keith!....like me you are a f*#king cynic! :D
 
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