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Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 2:40 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by Fourtoes
This is weird. I haven't had any problems posting images here.....Photobucket is an easy thing to do.

Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 2:57 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by Nigels
I vote for the Status Quo! :D

Image

Sorry! Its an SF image but I couldn't resist!

Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 2:58 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by joolsb
As one who has never had a passport or felt the need to own one I really can't see the need of forum members to continually brag about their ability to rush off to France at the drop of a hat.
I'm headed there at the weekend, as it happens. I'd invite you to join me but as you don't have a passport, that could be a wee bit tricky.... :mrgreen: :twisted:

Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 3:03 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by Joanna Carter
vanman wrote:I'm now waiting for the traditional insults to my posts from here and our former colonies.
I, for one, have no reason to insult you.
vanman wrote:A photographic forum where the posters can't post images has got to be a bit of a joke in the 21st century!
Of course it would be; which is why we provide a way of linking to as many images as you like in your posts. What we are not is an image hosting service; there are plenty of those for you to choose from already.
vanman wrote:Certain peoples insistance of needing to look more important than the rest of us by having their names highlighted in red is just sad, I've not noticed this on any other forum that I've visited.
As has been stated many times before, the highlighting is there, as part of the default forum configuration, to let people know who they can contact, should the need arise. Believe it or not, some of us want to let others know that we are there to help; I certainly don't benefit from the highlighting; in fact, it opens me to be insulted, but that has only been a problem over the past couple of months.
vanman wrote:Trying to deny that the power base of this forum is in the northern half of the country is, in my opinion, pretty pointless.
What is this "power base"? We, as founder members are trying to provide a nice, friendly place where people can enjoy discussing their photography and, until recently, that is something we had no problem doing.
vanman wrote:When was any event last held in the midlands?
Unfortunately, not yet but, as we have said before, we are not the only people who can organise get-togethers; anyone is welcome to post a message and organise such get-togethers on their own.
vanman wrote:Why boast that 7 of the UKLFPG's top posters are from outside The UK, what's this got to do with anything?
In response to the accusation that we were not national or international enough.
vanman wrote:If this forum loses Ian and Andrew, who has not posted yet, have you banned him,
No, I have not banned Andrew; he has obviously chosen not to reply.
vanman wrote:… it will be to the detriment of other forum members? Their vast knowledge of photographic information, and their willingness to share that knowledge freely, not through expensive courses, is a massive asset.
I don't doubt their knowledge and their willingness to share it. So far we haven't charged a cent for any of the UKLFPG workshops, even though they cost those of us who prepare them quite a lot of money and time. Unfortunately, due to personal financial constraints, I have not been able to organise anything for the last year or so but Charles did provide the latest get-together in Saltburn.

We have already organised workshops in Somerset and Maldon, Essex but, due to the cost of travelling and accommodation, and a reticence of anyone else to organise on our behalf, we simply cannot cover much further than our own "back yard".

Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 3:04 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by Joanna Carter
Nigels wrote:I vote for the Status Quo! :D

Sorry! Its an SF image but I couldn't resist!
You're forgiven :lol: :roll:

Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 3:37 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by Charles Twist
Thanks Vanman for your cool, calm and considered post. Ian needs all the help he can get with promoting his vision. I know that you and Ian agree on many points and I am really glad to have you taking part. I look forward to hearing from Andrew too at some stage (I haven't banned him either). We really need to work out what Ian's proposal consists of beyond vague suggestions and particular complaints. Then we can see what we can do. Inevitably, there'll be a compromise and we'll have to agree to disagree on some things. I hope that won't mean losing some members in the process.

Ian has mentioned on several occasions that there are many more than the three of you who share these views. I expect it's true but there is no evidence for it. So far, on this thread started by Ian, the vast majority of participants are not in favour of his views. We've all considered what the various parties have had to say. Joanna and I have spent a lot of time poring over the detail, seeing what we can do to help. I am afraid we can't do much more without some constructive proposals.

For me to answer your various questions in detail would only be to reiterate what other members have said above. Are you satisfied with their answers or do I need to expand on any particular points?

Regards,
Charles

Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 4:08 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by Andrew Plume
[quote="Charles Twist"]I look forward to hearing from Andrew too at some stage..............


Thanks Charles

I've decided that it's best to 'sit this one out'

regards

andrew

Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 8:52 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by IanG
joolsb wrote:

To be frank, I'm getting increasingly irritated by this discussion. So far all people are doing is defending positions with nothing positive being discussed. Either make some positive suggestions showing clear benefits or accept that the status quo isn't set to change anytime soon.
Positive suggestions have been made in threads that have been deleted or heavily edited/censored, and that's what is particularly irratating.

There's also been much off board discussion about the antics of one moderator and that HAS to be kept private.

There are issues easily and quickly sorted out but with no will on the part of some of the board admin to carry them out. This thread is a result of a question Andrew Plume posted in a deleted series of responses to another thread. Without seeing all that was discussed it's impossible to explain everything.

Charles Twist is stuck in the middle between a set of Luddites and the rest of us. Any constructive critiscism is taken to be personal attacks but that was far from the case when the issues were first raised

The only issues at stake would imprive the forum for all. it's not a case of the Status Quo is OK because the issues won't go away.

Ian

Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 11:50 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by DJ
IanG wrote:Positive suggestions have been made in threads that have been deleted or heavily edited/censored, and that's what is particularly irratating.
There would be absolutely no need to edit, censor or delete a positive constructive suggestion, that makes no sense. If you (or anyone else) has any constructive suggestions, they have always and will continue to be listened to. If there is support for the idea, and it is feasible within whatever technical/financial/other constraints we must comply with, it will likely be implemented.
IanG wrote:There's also been much off board discussion about the antics of one moderator and that HAS to be kept private.
But you claim it's nothing personal.... :roll:

For the record, I think I can say without fear of contradiction, that Joanna does more to manage the day-to-day running of this forum than all the other admins and moderators put together.
IanG wrote:There are issues easily and quickly sorted out but with no will on the part of some of the board admin to carry them out.
Firstly Ian, your every whim is not an "issue", and neither is anyone obligated to act upon them and run this forum entirely to your specification.

This thread has already shown that a majority are quite content with the forum as it is.
IanG wrote:This thread is a result of a question Andrew Plume posted in a deleted series of responses to another thread. Without seeing all taht was discussed it's impossible to explain everything
If you're referring the announcement thread, as has already been explained this was trimmed because it was only meant to be an informational announcement, yet some took it as another opportunity to have a dig at an individual.
IanG wrote:Charles Twist is stuck in the middle between a set of Luddites and the rest of us. Any constructive critiscism is taken to be personalm attacks but taht was far from the case.
No, it was not far from the case. In this thread alone you have made several thinly veiled personal attacks upon Joanna, you've referred the forum as "Mickey Mouse", and now several of us as "Luddites", and yet you claim this is constructive criticism and not personal attacks. Seriously? :lol:

It's time to face up to the truth Ian. Your comments are not in any way constructive, they are merely the very poorly mannered outbursts of an overly opinionated bully.

Your bluff was called, you were handed the soapbox and given every opportunity to come up with some constructive suggestions to improve this forum for everyone, you had nothing but petty prejudices and immature name calling.

For all your posturing about there being a "clique" on this forum, your major problem with the moderators turned out to be that "they shoot film then scan then use Photoshop", which apparently means "they don't have full commitment to the spirit of LF photography" and presumably are therefore somehow unworthy of being moderators. If that's not "cliquey" and elitist, I don't know what is, not to mention hypocritical.

You seem to be overtly prejudiced against Ebony cameras and/or their owners, claiming this was a "Hug an Ebony" forum (another dig at Joanna via her post "signature"), despite the fact that there are significantly more members of this community who do not own Ebony cameras than do, as if it what brand of camera a person owns makes a damn of difference in any case. You also seem to have a prejudice against people based upon what part of the country they live, referring to the board having a "Northern clique", as if any forum has any control over where its members live or that it actually matters. That's just juvenile.

You continually complained the software was 4 years out of date, which you apparently considered to be a big problem that was holding the forum back, stating that "MAJOR improvements in the software" were needed and the admins were somehow complacent; until it emerged that in fact, the software isn't out of date, you had merely jumped to a conclusion it was and didn't really have any idea what you were talking about. Many of your other criticisms in this thread have similarly been proven to be utterly baseless. I think your credibility here is all but exhausted.

Far from this forum improving over the last 6-9 months, I believe it has diminished thanks solely to the conduct of two individuals who, by their lack of civility, have poisoned the pleasant atmosphere this community enjoyed for many years. This used to be a breath of fresh air compared with other forums, free of the petty bickering and back-biting you see in other sites, just people being friendly, helpful, polite and considerate. Right now Ian, the biggest negative impact on this forum, is you, so much so that I do wonder if your sole purpose in being here is to deliberately cause disruption.

Personal attacks on anyone will not be tolerated, including thinly veiled "digs" in someone's direction. In our history we've only ever had a problem with this recently from two individuals. This thread already shows there are those among the other 718 members who are fed up with these overly aggressive tirades of yours, so in the interests of the majority, they should cease. Enough is enough.

So, here it is. If you cannot be polite and civil, then leave.

Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 1:08 am Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by Sal Santamaura
IanG wrote:...stuck in the middle between a set of Luddites and the rest of us...
A forum dedicated to photography using large format cameras would seem to be, by definition, a gathering of Luddites. Proud Luddites, at that. If "the rest of you" aren't Luddites, leaving might be your best course of action. :wink:

Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 9:14 am Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by joolsb
stuck in the middle between a set of Luddites and the rest of us
Coming from someone who suggests that people who "shoot film then scan then use Photoshop ... don't have full commitment to the spirit of LF photography", this is a litle rich don't you think? ;)

Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 10:06 am Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by Paul Mitchell
I like to think that I play an active part in promoting this forum whenever I see an opportunity, indeed we have had two new participants join us as a consequence of a discussion I've been having on another forum. What does worry me is that their first experience of the forum is a discussion that is going round in circles with personal attacks becoming stronger.

What perplexes me even more is 'why now?'. Surely after 5 years of the forum being run quite adequately, are all these issues being raised?

I also equate the argument between being totally analogue and being a hybrid like being a 'vegan' or a 'vegetarian'... I still like to wear leather shoes thanks! :wink:

Paul

Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:20 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by Lynne Evans
Does Ian know something that I don't? First he complains there are not enough images on the site, then decries the membership that makes images on film and scans them into Photoshop. I've tried all ways of posting my originals onto the site by stuffing my trannies into the computer via the keyboard, internet connector and even the little camera at the top of the screen, but to no avail! :? :lol:

Sorry, that was not constructive.
It was not intended to be a personal insult.
It was very silly!

Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 4:28 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by dave_whatever
Maybe we should just post up ASCII-art approximations of images. Its a great leveller, no ebony, petzval or collodion required. No photoshop and low bandwidth. Everybody wins.

Re: The way this Board is run

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 5:42 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00
by masch
OK, I apologise for not getting involved sooner here, but RL is a bit dense at the moment. Too many students. :?

First and foremost, everyone step back from the keyboards now and take 10 deep breaths..... :roll:

IanG, I'm sorry to say, even from the relatively objective viewpoint, that I am coming in right now (not having participated in the earlier threads), you have left the line of decent and appropriate discussion well behind you. I have not seen some of the earlier threads, and from some comments here, it appears that is probably a good thing. I am not prepared to let this thread or the board descend further into namecalling and insults.
I suggest you review the board policy (Yes, I know it has been in draft for 5 years, but nobody had anything to comment, so it is pretty much there by default... :) ). Play nice!

vanman, posting that you are assuming that mods or admins will insult you as a result of your post is really just rude. I do not know your reasons for this, but, again: Play nice!






Sheesh, where to begin....

Bandwidth:
There seems to be a misconception here, that "infinite reliable bandwidth" is cheap in the 21st century. :)
I've tried a few "infinite bandwidth" or "infinite storage" hosts and ultimately, their service is abysmal and certainly not sufficient to retain reasonable uptime.
So: The board is run on a (borrowed) shoestring, with a hosting company who provided us with some free hosting because one of the owners is a good friend of mine. This is, btw, a reason why we are moving servers, since he is leaving the company and this arrangement can not continue. There were, also a couple of minor outages related to their SQL server, which had a backlash on the board.
We have, from day one, made it pretty clear (although it wasn't shouted about) that hosting images on the board would not be an option. There were a couple of instances, where this had to be relaxed, but the basic premisse should still stand.

Frankly, in the days of ubiquitous Flickr, Photobucket and Dropbox services which are available for free, there should not be any necessity to have images hosted on the server. There is an excellent thread on how to embed images about.

It should also be noted, that we never charged anyone a penny for running this board. I did pass the hat once, at the meeting in Somerset (south of the hotpot parallel, I'm sure you'll agree) which generously netted approx £27.50. All that is still available, and will likely go on the domain registation over the next few years since we are no longer freeloading from Pagehosting :)
(Incidentally, the money was intended to go on the hosting costs with PH but in the end it was decided that the admin effort was not worth the potential income :) )
To repeat: From day one, we had made a considered decision not to charge people for using this board, and run everything as cheaply as possible.

If a philantrophic member wishes to make a large donation that can support dedicated bandwidth and storage costs for this board for the next 5 years, we are more than happy to take this forward... But make no mistake, we are not talking about a small sum :)
Otherwise, we are more than happy to accept DJ's generous offer to host us alongside his personal systems. This will, in future, as well as in the past, require the avoidance of image storage on the server. No surprise here.

Positioning of this board:
We have, from day one, said that we are not intending to compete with boards such as QT Luongs excellent largeformatphotography.info or photo.net or such. Those boards are massive and have critical mass for far more information sharing than we have. APUG, photo.net and such do run commercially or semi commercially (or at least did the last time I checked) with user privileges being available for membership fees. This was a route that we did not think was suitable for this board, which was here to bring UK LF photographers together and was always intended as an extension of annual or bi-annual get togethers. It grew out of the fact that some people had issues with higher volume mailing lists.

We are NOT COMPETING with those boards. We at maximum, hope to provide a UK localised option IN ADDITION to these other ressources.
(And if anyone can tell me how QT pays for the hosting costs, I'd be very interested)

Highlighting of Admin usernames:
Seriously? I mean really, in all seriousness?
There is unhappiness about some default setting somewhere buried deep in phpBB controls, in combination with the default skin for the board highlights the board admin names. And there is a suggestion that this is an attention grab by those admins? Is this really a core problem? :shock:
I think Jo is looking into this, but honestly, I think there are some things that have a slightly higher priority. One might consider inferring that the issue is in the eye of the beholder here.....

Board Software:
As DJ pointed out a while ago. phpBB is probably the furthest distributed and best supported www BB software around. There are other options, such as vBBS or IP.board but they require a lot more effort. So phpBB it is, certainly for the foreseeable future. Not the least, since transferring and existing user and message base from one sw to another is anything but trivial. Why don't you review the history of largeformatphotography.info and ask QT about the problems they had with transferring the old photo.net database to their own software and then to vBBS?
Sorry, but realistically, the resources for this appear to be beyond us.
phpBB runs boards an order of magnitude larger that lf-photo.org.uk without serious problems, it will certainly do for us.
And to clarify again, IanG: as DJ has already said, we are running pretty much the latest stable build of phpBB. It would be nice if you made sre you had suitable data before making accusations. The fact that a skin hasn't been updated in "over 3 years" isn't really an indication of the version of the backend software.

Now:
As DJ and Jo have asked before, can someone please summarise the important issues that are really in need of improvement? Any reasonable issue can be investigated after the server move.



Marc (apparently aka "Mickey Mouse")
(and now hiding from Disney)