An idea for TPF that I would need all of your help with!

[Mansi]

me2... glad to be of any help
sounds like a great idea

 

[Xmetal]

I'll kick off the ideas...

As most of you know I specialise in Automotive Photography. Ksmattfish, Alison,Hobbes, Elsaspet and Photogoddess all specialise in Wedding Photography, Digital Matt and Vonnagy specialise in Landscapes...

What i'm saying is: These people should be the ones writing the Genre tutorials.

Admins to nominate the pencil pushers.

 

[craig]

Yes!!!

 

[Artemis]

I can only say I specialise in animal photography, but there are better people here than me at that...

 

[Rob]

I'll do you something on night or long-exposure photography if you like. I'd consider that one of my stronger areas.

Rob

 

[thebeginning]

that's an awesome idea! to tell you the truth i've thought of something similar (only more seperated, and with articles) and was planning on suggesting it to you eventually, but this idea is even better.

I would love to help wherever you might need it!

 

[Dweller]

I have two thoughts on this that kind of work together.

First, instead of one large all encompassing beginners document hwo about a series of small bite-size articles like "shutter speed" "aperature" "Film"

My next thought after seeing the kind of response here, why not host a wiki? Forum members can then easily add, edit and contribute content.

The way a wiki works for those not familiar with the format is each article will have keywords in it like "aperature" for example that then would be a hyperlink to an article about aperature. That article in turn may mention "shutter" and would link to an article about shutter speed. All of these in turn would link to the article on Exposure and so on and so on. Each article can easily be edited by someone if they have more information to add or want to clarify a point so over time it becomes an excellent resource for anyone visiting the site.

I think this would be an excellent resource and a great way to make this project happen without a ton of time investment. Build it and they will contribute hehe

Thoughts?

for a more thorough definition of a wiki I wil provide a like to its definiton on the mother of all wikis, wikipedia.org.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

 

[Unimaxium]

I'd also be up for editing. I'm a big stickler for grammar. You can be sure that under me there will be no apostrophe misuse! And that the word aperture will be spelled aperture, not aperature (sorry dweller ). I might also be able to write something, but I don't know what.

The idea of making it a wiki sounds interesting as well. But I think that to make it clear and understandable to beginning users, we should not go about fiddling with articles too much once they're completed. An important part of a beginner's guide IMO is to make sure that everything is well-explained and laid out so that it flows in an easy-to-comprehend manner, rather than having a freely-editable mishmash of paragraphs and sentences all from different users.

 

[Matty-Bass]

And that the word aperture will be spelled aperture, not aperature (sorry dweller ).

Sorry Unimaximum, but you started the sentence with "And", and it doesn't work in this context. If you said By the way instead of And, it would work :mrgreen:

 

[Dweller]

I'd also be up for editing. I'm a big stickler for grammar. You can be sure that under me there will be no apostrophe misuse! And that the word aperture will be spelled aperture, not aperature (sorry dweller ). I might also be able to write something, but I don't know what.

The idea of making it a wiki sounds interesting as well. But I think that to make it clear and understandable to beginning users, we should not go about fiddling with articles too much once they're completed. An important part of a beginner's guide IMO is to make sure that everything is well-explained and laid out so that it flows in an easy-to-comprehend manner, rather than having a freely-editable mishmash of paragraphs and sentences all from different users.

Wow. spell checkers will be the death of me. I used to be so good at spelling too.... :blushing:

From what I have seen Wikis tend to evolve into each article standing alone as a comprehensive document. I understand the concern of it being a mishmash of paragraphs but since new submissions are flagged (and previous versions are retrievable(sp?) ) it is easy for someone to go take a look and if the article is not flowing well to make some tweaks and tunes to the spelling grammar etc to polish it up a bit. Over time it will become a collection of great resources for new and existing members to refer to when they have a question about a term or a technique.

 

[Unimaxium]

That is true that many wiki articles tend to evolve well. I do think the wiki idea is pretty good. Perhaps the best strategy (I'm just throwing out ideas here) would be to assign wirters / editors / etc. to different articles or sections, so that there is a primary author, but then leave the wiki open to editing so that it can be tweaked by other users as they see fit.

Another thing with wikis is always the possibility of vandalism or incorrect info. While a wiki article can always be reverted to a previous version, it might still be nicer if an article could get to a point where everyone feels it is good and then limit the amount it can be edited. But I don't know, I'm actually a little ambivalent about doing anything like that. I'm just tossing the idea out there.

I guess if anything ever becomes an isuse we can always adjust the rules later so it doesn't remain a problem.

But the more I think about it, the more I do see that a wiki would likely work very well for this sort of guide. Whaddaya think, great dodge-ito?

Just some 2¢

 

[Chase]

I kicked around the wiki idea before, but I just can't make up my mind on it. I'm hoping for the guide to be a more managed project I think. I could see doing the wiki idea as a secondary project maybe, with the topics being wide open.

 

[Matty-Bass]

To be honest, as a beginner I've seen sites that try the Wiki thing, but they're much more confusing. I find that structured articles in an orderly fashion tend to be easier, like in "lesson" sequences, if you will. When you're a beginner, you tend to try and overwhelm yourself and if you have too many links going to advanced articles you get confused about where to start.

 

[Dweller]

When I started learning photography I approached it liek I do so many other things. I would start with a general introduction trying to pick up some terms then I would seek out more information on the terms I heard the most often. From there I would branch into specifics of something I wanted to learn more about.

For me a Wiki would be ideal once I got past the very first "what is photography" articles and was ready to learn more specific things.

In fact I would still love to have a photography based wiki that I could turn to. I have been "learning" for going on 2 years now and have so much more I would like to learn about but as it sits now its scattered across the net and usually the specific things I am looking for is buried in some multi-page article that either retreads things I have read a dozen times or never had any interest in learning.

That was why one of my thoughts on this is that it would be better to have "bite size" articles. For example describing aperture (see? I learned something today ) with perhaps links to follow up articles that go deeper into the hows and whys, depth of field, exposure etc.

I still keep coming back to the thought that a wiki is ideal for this. Maybe our illustrious leader could quietly start one up on some corner of the site so people that are interested can start populating it and he can see how it works out.

 

[Matty-Bass]

I guess it all comes down to how people learn. Some learn different ways than other people do right?

But I'm right because I'm from Canada! :mrgreen: (= Bad Reputation from everyone else )