Photo Forum is Changing rant.

[LaFoto]

Hey, start a rant-thread about how people put fake link words into their threads and you click and click until your finger hurts before you realised the word was plainly underlined! That must be taken as yet another step towards total decline of TPF, must it not?

 

[droyz2000]

The way that this forum is moving is just the way that photography is moving in general. I sell cameras at a Circuit City. I have had numerous people wanting to return their SLR because they get blurry pictures in theaters and gyms. The fact of the matter is that they try to shoot in low light with a kit lens and have no idea what ISO does. They just think that buy a camera that cost a lot more then their last point and shoot will take a lot better pictures straight out of the box and not knowing anything. I see it everyday. Instead of just reading the manual and doing a quick search online, people think that a camera is crap. When I purchased my D200, I read so many reviews and learned as much as I could before purchasing it. Once I got it, I read the manual 2-3 times so that I could know as much about each function as I could. I did not rely on a 20 minute conversation that I had with someone at an electronics store.

I think that D-50 has hit on a point. We are a forum and we try to help people get better, but the person posting must ask a quality question to get a quality answer.

 

[dEARlEADER]

That's cool. Next time some one asks if they should think about using flash and ten people chime in that it makes your pictures look like crap because they only flash they've ever used is the pop up, I'll just let it go and chalk it up to it just being "how it is."

Precisely....

Nobody is demanding you answer... it's not like your sitting down for dinner and your pager goes off to answer another noob question at TPF....

There is a place for noobs to be noobs... it's called the beginners forum...

Why can't people just let the noobs play in their sandbox??

If the noob section does not stimulate your appetite for discussion there is another forum called beyond the basics... Here's a crazy idea that solves most of this thread... Simply skip all threads that don't interest you...

The only other thing I would do to keep noobs out of the senior scale would be to add a gallery subforum in the beginners section for noobs to post their awful pictures there instead of the real galleries... this would clean up the gallery for intermediate work and above....

voila... an entry level place for noobs to exchange idea's and pictures without impeding upon senior members who are feeling "down" about all of the rookie posts....

 

[TheOtherBob]

Hey, start a rant-thread about how people put fake link words into their threads and you click and click until your finger hurts before you realised the word was plainly underlined! That must be taken as yet another step towards total decline of TPF, must it not?

Well, it's someone's decline...but I'd guess my own!


Seriously, though, I've edited my prior post to make it a link to something absolutely hilarious and witty. So everyone go try it again.

What, it didn't work?

Oh, sorry, forgot to mention that you have to click the underlined word exactly 53 times before it opens.

And you have to be wearing a tutu. Yeah, yeah, I know it's weird, but that's just how the internet operates. If you're not wearing a tutu when you click on it the 53rd time, the link won't work. But I promise that it's totally worth it.

Also, "totally" in the above sentence is a link. As long as you're wearing a fedora.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

...hmmm, wonder if there'd be a demand for a sarcasm smiley...

 

[Village Idiot]

Precisely....

Nobody is demanding you answer... it's not like your sitting down for dinner and your pager goes off to answer another noob question at TPF....

There is a place for noobs to be noobs... it's called the beginners forum...

Why can't people just let the noobs play in their sandbox??

If the noob section does not stimulate your appetite for discussion there is another forum called beyond the basics... Here's a crazy idea that solves most of this thread... Simply skip all threads that don't interest you...

The only other thing I would do to keep noobs out of the senior scale would be to add a gallery subforum in the beginners section for noobs to post their awful pictures there instead of the real galleries... this would clean up the gallery for intermediate work and above....

voila... an entry level place for noobs to exchange idea's and pictures without impeding upon senior members who are feeling "down" about all of the rookie posts....

That's a wonderful idea. When these noobs are no longer noobs and consider themselves professionals and start dealing out info that's wrong, that'll be really helpful to the photography community and will reflect really well on the forums they inhabit.

I guess you like to encourage mediocrity and misinformation. It would be funny if people did ignore the mistakes and the fact that people are telling false hoods, because they don't know better, and everyone eventually saw TPF as a giant joke. No one would participate and it would become a giant ghost town. Then you could hang out here by yourself wondering what happened.

There's reasons why some forums are successful and some aren't. It's usually based on the members that frequent them.

 

[Iron Flatline]

...hmmm, wonder if there'd be a demand for a sarcasm smiley...

THAT would change the Internet more than HTML and Email ever did...

 

[Chris of Arabia]

yup, we need that smiley...

 

[TheOtherBob]

...hmmm, wonder if there'd be a demand for a sarcasm smiley...

Oh, a sarcasm smiley, that's a *real* useful invention.

(Sorry, that's a Simpsons joke... Anyways, I've got to knock off the puns today -- something about this warm spring day is making everyone in my office act silly, and now it's extending onto here. )

 

[dEARlEADER]

That's a wonderful idea. When these noobs are no longer noobs and consider themselves professionals and start dealing out info that's wrong, that'll be really helpful to the photography community and will reflect really well on the forums they inhabit.

I guess you like to encourage mediocrity and misinformation. It would be funny if people did ignore the mistakes and the fact that people are telling false hoods, because they don't know better, and everyone eventually saw TPF as a giant joke. No one would participate and it would become a giant ghost town. Then you could hang out here by yourself wondering what happened.

There's reasons why some forums are successful and some aren't. It's usually based on the members that frequent them.

uhhh... no.... I don't encourage mediocrity and misinformation.....

I encourage noobs to post any question they may have in the noob forum

I encourage any senior member who is annoyed by these posts to refrain from them

Your fear of misinformed noobs taking over the world is a little rich...

Not sure if you've noticed but even the most basic noob question usually gets answered by at least one intermediate/senior who has the time and desire to field such questions...

this is the internet... it should be deemed obvious that posters questions could garner responses of misinformation. From what i see in the beginners forum, misinformation is dealt with quite quickly....

 

[seamus14]

I'll add to this as I think it's relevant to the thread. This is my first post on this forum but I've been reading for a couple of weeks. Aside from maybe posting an intro I have not had anything to contribute as I am an absolute beginner. I've learned so much in the past few weeks and it's mostly from the forum. Other than that it has been book that were recommended or helpful links that were posted. I've used the search feature ALOT and have gone back reading old threads. Everything I needed so far has been here, no need to post asking for it.

I can also say that even I am a bit annoyed at people posting questions that I have found the answers to very easily. I don't find it necessary but a WIKI would be great, there is a ton of great info on this board. Sometimes you can find what you are looking for with search but it could mean reading many threads, which I dont doing but I could see how other people wouldn't.

As fas as the instant experts... I've noticed that. Some of the advice I've read in posts contradicts what I have read in books and from more advanced users. No offense to some of the younger people here as I am amazed at their knowledge and skill but i think one of the issues is with the lack of conventional learning today. There is something to be said for experience, books and enough humility to know what you don't know. I see it in more than photography. People today read a few web sites, check out a few vids on youtube and now there are as experienced as everyone else.

I hadn't decided to post here or not before reading this thread. I can deal with the occasional cantankerous member or a few doling out crappy info as long as there are some to counter act them. Knowing there are members that what to keep the information here accurate and on a higher level makes me want to stay. Thanks to those that do.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

Hear, hear to that and welcome

 

[Overread]

ok ok - lets calm down a little here - we had a constructive day/discussion yesterday, lets not destroy what we gained with repetition and - far worse - clutching at the straws at the extreme ends.
Yes there are people who post wrong information - heck I bet we have all (with the possibly exception of Alpha ) posted things that are not true or don't show or explain the whole picuture, but in these cases I don't doubt that people here on this forum posting here are not doing this out of any desire to spite or misslead others - they post what they know and what they think, that is part of forum life and it won't ever change.
All that we can do - all the can be done - is if you see a wrong post, either hold your tongue and say nothing and not complain about it 5 months later OR (better) post in the thread and explain why it is wrong and what the right answer is - or link to a place showing and explaining the right answer.

 

[Antithesis]

\To re-make a point that I made recently, that I really believe might help the community - we ought to create a thick FAQ and a few locked series of threads that answer specific questions... which get asked again and again. Which dSLR is invariably answered with a number of set responses... let's get those down, and link to them whenever anyone asks. This would benefit the community by freeing it up from re-answering the same thing, and lead more quickly to finer discussions of what someone might specifically need.

I did this in the beginner forum, only to have the name changed by a mod because it would supposedly draw attention away from the TPF FAQs, but I don't even know where those are. I've been here for about a year and I can't find the FAQs, so a beginner would have even more trouble I would imagine.

I'm actually in the process of being disenchanted with digital photography. Everyone and their mother owns a dSLR and thinks they can become professionals just because they have a "professional" camera. The more I get involved with wedding photography, the more I want to jump straight into journalism, even thought the market is flooded their too. Salaries for photographers are falling and the overall quality of work is getting flooded with garbage. The equipment is too available and people aren't taking the time to educate themselves on how to take compelling images. The results are tragically poor and the entire industry is failing. Hooray for an easy buck gone wrong.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

I did this in the beginner forum, only to have the name changed by a mod because it would supposedly draw attention away from the TPF FAQs, but I don't even know where those are. I've been here for about a year and I can't find the FAQs, so a beginner would have even more trouble I would imagine.

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