Things need to change.

Sorry, any general or everything or any hint of topic overlap simply causes confusion. People who dont put much effort into posting will always post in the least common denominator... The one that takes little thought in the decision and yet still be somewhat correct.

do I post for critque in a defined themed gallery or this "for everything" critique gallery. most will just post in the for everything one... less effort

A question about a camera. It can go into beginners, beyond, discussion or equipment. Right now its a mess.

I want to post a bird picture. Does it go in beginners forum, just for fun, nature/wildlife, or general? Even better, what if its black and white picture of a bird... now It might be in a BW forum too?

There should be litttle ambiguity and overlap as possible. The less subforums to manage, the easier it is to avoid overlap.


Here is another that gets me.... People gallery has street photography listed as part of its descripton BUT thats somehow different from photojournalism subforum.
 
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or... and why is sports photography on the same forum as photojournalism?

Sports photogs and Journalists have so little in common in terms of mindset, technique, and even equipment.

or whats the differemce between Commercial/product gallery and the professional gallery? If i where making a living as a photographer who shoots comercial photographs, which is the place to post?

or... digital discussion versus film discussion versus equipment versus photo discussion. Are not photos made by either film nor digital both also photo related? DSLR nikon versus canon... under equipment or digital?


the last thing this place needs is more subforums.
 
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Personally, The organization here doesn't bother me that much, but there is room for improvement, by combining overlapping sections, and eliminating redundancy. So, even though no one will care what I think(hell, I hardly care what I think), here is how I would Lay out the forum, section, by section.

The Photo Forum, and contest sections remain the same.

Foundations of photography
General technical discussion.-everything in the beginners and beyond the basics, but no photos.
Non-Technical Photographic Discussion- same as current Photographic discussion
Equipment-same as now.
Photo assignments and challenges.

General shop Talk.- The 2 professional galleries should be moved into the other gallery section, it is disjointed to keep them separate.

Film Photography- probably keep all sections the same.

Digital Photography- Eliminate Digital discussion, almost all of the questions here should be in general tech, or equipment forums
Graphics programs, and HDR- I'm not sure these need separate categories, but I don't visit these much.

As for the galleries, they could probably be condensed in to broader, but not so overlapping categories, but I'll leave that open.

Thanks for reading.
 
I am not much of a poster, but I've been around for a while. Like some members mentioned, I don't think allowing posting shots for critique in the beginners section was a good thing. Now it's just a gallery, other threads are a minority. I would also merge the beginners' and beyond the basics sections because, as mentioned earlier, it is really hard to judge whether a question is about basics or not.
As for the critique threads, yeah, they do belong in the gallery section, and probably should be moved there. But keep in mind, that most of the shots in the gallery sections are actually pretty good. What will happen if the section gets flooded with the shots posted in the current beginners forum?

EDIT: Maybe it would be a good idea to introduce mandatory tagging of new threads in certain sections. The OP would have a few options to choose from while creating new topics, for example in the beginners' section it could be DSLR, P&S, Lens, Lighting, Critics (if it has to stay in the beginners forum) etc. The tag would then appear in the thread's title in square brackets. This way the forum wouldn't be divided into hundreds of sections but still keep the clarity of discussion topics, even more if we could filter them.

It's been years since I've been managing my own forum, so I am not up to date with modern scripts, but I think it's definitely doable.
 
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