The forum in 2011 - Advice appreciated!

Mountainsandh

Love the forum just as it is.
I've tried looking at a few other for...:oa (?) but I actually didn't like that "everything neat in its drawer" set up. I love happening upon a thread, say, something that I would never normally seek will just sort of pop up, I'll chance a quick look, and find that I'm actually learning loads/am interested. Things that are not too interesting to most will tend to slide down into oblivion so I don't find them an annoyance.


Oh, and the bickering can be rather entertaining sometimes, we need a popcorn smiley though. :)

magicbastarder

humberklog wrote: »

Oh a pet peeve: Knock randomers on the head that come on looking for people to keep an eye out for thier recently stolen gear. Mostly these are people who only join in order to alert/whinge and then don't post again but do attract a lot of sympathy. A bit like an RIP thread in After Hours.

is this a big enough problem to worry about though? i can understand and sympathise with someone who may be facing a serious financial loss wanting to explore every avenue to get their gear back, especially in a forum where people will be in a position to understand the loss, and i think the damage done by explicitly banning it would be far greater than allowing it; which i don't think is any harm anyway.

PopeBuckfastXVI

Strobist sub forum for tips and help and lighting C&C could be very useful!

magicbastarder

maybe we could have a film and a digital sub forum, just to light further fires?

Tallon

Paulw wrote: »

Speaking of clean slates ... maybe there should be an amnesty for someone previously banned? Like the US president does each year ... one convict is freed (or in our case, brought back in)??

I can't see this happening... the people that are/were banned have had their DRP looked at

Again, I don't think thats a forum issue, more of a user issue

Kintarō Hattori

sNarah wrote: »

.....Anyhoooo, keep on giving suggestions, yous are all a great bunch

Ah you're great, keep it coming!

humberklog

magicbastarder wrote: »

is this a big enough problem to worry about though? i can understand and sympathise with someone who may be facing a serious financial loss wanting to explore every avenue to get their gear back, especially in a forum where people will be in a position to understand the loss, and i think the damage done by explicitly banning it would be far greater than allowing it; which i don't think is any harm anyway.

Oh, it's just a nitpick...but it does get my goat a tad:). Well in fairness no it doesn't happen a lot but probably 4 times a year. Well Mr. "I need you now" you can have your onions.

And btw a pleasure to meet you the other day Magic, drop in anytime and I think your other-half bought you the most beautiful gift and am looking forward to seeing some results. A big wooden box! Beautiful.

magicbastarder

am just about to start scanning the first roll, actually...

5uspect

The digital darkroom doesn't see a huge amount of traffic. Perhaps it would a good idea to rename it to the Workshop or something where all things technical can be discussed, not just Photoshop, but lighting and strobist stuff and general gear chitchat.

Buzz Lightyear

CabanSail wrote: »

If you know of people who are not posting here any more, or a lot less, maybe let them know about this thread. It's nice to get the pats on the back but would like to hear from everyone.

I must have heard your mind whirring. Sorry for being a lurker rather than a poster over the last while. I'll try to change that

stcstc wrote: »

I would like to see the forum broken down more

for example have a gear forum, a critque forum, and a lounge kinda thing for general chat

this would allow people to focus on the bits they want to. with the almost flat forum as is its kinda of hard sometimes to see whats going on and weed out the chaff, if that makes sense

As AnCatDubh said earlier other fora have multiple subfora and this works for them. Personally I find the pace of this forum makes browsing and keeping up a bit easier, instead of having to thrawl through sub-fora to find updates. I suppose different strokes for different folks. If I were to change anything tho' it would be to add one slight sub fora for gear - I suppose from my point of view it would be to lessen the noise.

I like the community spirit within here generally. The majority of posters are genuinely nice people, many of whom I have become friends with IRL. There can be an undertone from a minority of posters who disrupt the harmony here. While I laughed and smiled at Daire's suggestion of a daily posting limit, I realise this would not be practical to implement. I do however think an attitude of less tolerance by way of modding would better suit the harmony of this forum.

I do like the C&C threads where they genuinely work as well as the challenge threads.

This place has a lot of good within it. Long may it continue.

Buzz Lightyear

Paulw wrote: »

Speaking of clean slates ... maybe there should be an amnesty for someone previously banned? Like the US president does each year ... one convict is freed (or in our case, brought back in)??

I think in this case, this particular person has a wealth of knowledge to offer this forum. I think a probationary release would be very welcome.

sNarah

5uspect wrote: »

The digital darkroom doesn't see a huge amount of traffic. Perhaps it would a good idea to rename it to the Workshop or something where all things technical can be discussed, not just Photoshop, but lighting and strobist stuff and general gear chitchat.

The workshop huh? I like it...

AnCatDubh

humberklog wrote: »

A Thanks but No thanks Random thread. just like the normal random thread but with the thanks function disabled.
This may make no sense in reality but it does pop into my head now and again

I like the idea. One of them strange random euro tv news stations did a "no comment" segment where they used to broadcast video footage only with no audio. Very interesting. Your mind did some work.

Often the comment in the random thread annoys me at least when it takes over half a page of text when we're supposed to be seeing random images - I think I even reported some of it recently (and the mods ignored me ! Hah - that showed me - eh, and rightly so - it kinda corrected itself)

So, no comment, no thanks, just images could be beautiful.

Actually, would like to see a 'flickr river' or lens view wall (whatever its called) of random thread images. That would be nice. Images only.

dinneenp

suggestions:
1. maybe some camera database sub forum. not sure exactly what (as many other sites do extensive reviews) but m)aybe a few posts on make/model that one person mods. others could add pluses, minuses about the model. (The mod would then add them to the original post to make reading as easy as possible).

2. It would be good if people could reply/comment more on 'C&C' threads. Some get a lot of comments but some very few.

3. Have photo(s) of the week thread, where the top photos are added (from random... threads & 'C&C' threads.

4. Try to (revive) 'Photography 101' or 'Photo tips n tricks' thread (if I remember one exists).

5. See if the forum/boards can get some discount from a/some photography store(s).

I visit a few photo forums but like this one a lot as it's Irish and therefore relates to me more (I think). I like the way there's not multiple sub forums as I end up viewing more threads than I would if they were all in sub forums.

Borderfox

Excellent feedback, great to see so many people interested in how the forum goes forward. I like the change to the workshop idea, for anything else eg strobist/tips might be good to keep them on the main forum as sub-forums/stickies imo either dont get used enough or clog up the page. Personally I like the way the forum is heading

AnCatDubh

We haven't used forum announcements that much on the photography forum so we've decided to try a particular use for them based on the feedback in this thread - when a photowalk is organised on the forum we'll use the announcement to leave it visible at the top of the main forum for 5 days or so.

We might extend to other photowalks where there is a sufficient interest from boards.ie members - for example, the photowalk.ie walks are usually well attened by boards.ie members so it might be appropriate. We've started with Will's Dublin Docklands walk.

If announcements don't work for you, please let the moderators know - or if its a good idea, also let them know. Thanks.

Tallon

Brilliant idea.. Should force me to go on one :pac:

Tallon

Just wanted to bump this thread to point out how relaxed the moderating actually is here...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056148030

Thecageyone

Well, it'd be a bit cruel to lock that one as it's camera-related ... kind of and it's very light hearted.

Tallon

I'm just saying, I've seen threads locked for worse on other forums

OldGoat

A sub-forum for C&C. The search function won't allow a 3 letter search so trawling back through dozens of pages to find C&C's is tedious.
Yes I know there are workarounds like searching with Google but having them all in one place makes sense.
The sub-forum could have a charter stating what C&C is and what to expect so the every critique doesn't have to start with out with a disclaimer to the OP apologising for what they are about to say.

Apologies is this was mentioned earlier. I did search the thread but the search engine won't allow 'C&C' as it's too small a term.:D

Necronomicon

Bump

This popped into my head earlier, but as it happens it relates to what OldGoat said above.

I wonder if it'd be a good idea to attach a thread prefix to all C&C threads. This has worked wonders in the Soccer forum; there are prefixes for all team-specific threads (which are invisible, for anybody thinking they are an eyesore!)

If this was applied to the Photography forum, a user starting a C&C thread would attach a C&C prefix to the thread title. This would be invisible when the thread is made - but users would be able to see every C&C thread by filtering the forum by the C&C prefix. Here's a screen grab to show how it works on Soccer ('Superthread' is the prefix name for team threads).

FoxT

That looks like a neat idea.

We need a superthread on.....
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BOKEH!

FoxT

PS - other than that, I really like this forum. Mods do a great job, other posters are generally interesting and/or fun, lots of useful info., but generally very little belligerence... My thanks to all.

- FoxT

sNarah

Dammit - I (we) *may* have forgotten to post and make changes...

I promise NEXt week.

I do rather like the prefix idea... could work for other topics too really.

magicbastarder

can we make bokeh a banned word? like **** and ****cock?

sNarah

No
(I rather like bokeh)
(Ha!)

sNarah

I could, however, make you a "No Bokeh" badge though.

DougL

AnCatDubh wrote: »

[opinion]I don't think it warrants any more splitting of it.[/opinion]

I mean some other Irish photography fora are very split up - everything goes neatly into its box - and that's fine for them but personally, I don't return to them particularly often. I don't think boards should try be like the others - it is part of what makes us a bit different. Otherwise we could all pack our bags and pop over to some of the other available fora.

I agree completely. I used to frequent one of the forums you speak of, and it just felt a bit like a near-empty 20-story building to me. It looked great, but there wasn't any life.

I get where you're coming from Steve, but I just don't think we have the critical mass for it.

ThOnda

What about to create sticky thread for HDR (pictures, C&C, tutorials,...)?
And I am bloody serious about that.

5uspect

ThOnda wrote: »

What about to create sticky thread for HDR (pictures, C&C, tutorials,...)?
And I am bloody serious about that.

Would posting in it have similar results to disparaging mustard in the Mustard Forum?

ThOnda

It would be easier for people interested in such specific technique to have all samples, resources and advice in one place. Seems logical to me.