Charlie Shugart Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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An interesting idea, Fred.
I'm a "buy high/sell low" kind of guy, so I have no idea how the plan will work out.
Like many/most posters on FM, I post because I want to share my photographs with others- and to learn from friendly critiques.
It's always nice to get compliments- and constructive criticism can help in future efforts. Mostly, though, I just want people to have a chance to look at what I think is worthwhile and interesting.
To me, one good aspect of viewers making comments is that it bumps photos to the top of the page- and thereby gives more people a chance to view them. If this new idea causes viewers to make fewer comments than before- that might be a serious flaw imo.
Realistically, once a post drops to the bottom of a page (or goes to the next page), few people ever look at it. This is a natural thing- and important. But when a post drops to the next page with no comments (no matter how good or bad it is), it's discouraging to the poster. 46 views and no comments is no fun- especially if only a couple of others ever have it happen to them. At the very least, some of the "old hands" might make suggestions for improvement (and often they do).
Before discovering FM, I tried a couple of other photo forums. Both had a "rating system" for posted images that required nothing more than a quick click of the mouse to indicate if the viewer thought the image was excellent, average, or terrible. Because of the intrinsic anonymity of the net, it was very easy for mean-spirited people (yes, there are more than a few out there ) to really slam someone's work.
Although it's easy to tell others that "You shouldn't be so sensitive," the truth is that many people ARE hurt when someone checks the "stinks" icon (even if ten others click the "excellent" icon.
It's understood that not everyone likes everyone else's work. But when people go out of there way to tell posters they don't like it (and especially when they don't even bother to say why), posters are often discouraged. And eventually, most quit trying and drop out.
It happened too often to me on those forums, so I stopped using them. If people don't like my work- fine. But when they insult me and my work- that is NOT fine.
And that's why I like FM. Such things seldom happen here.
The vast majority of FM users are polite with their comments and, instead of saying "That stinks," they'll say something like "It looks overexposed on my monitor; try toning it down and perhaps using a bit more contrast to give it a little pop." (Note: in my case, it's usually "Hey Charlie: I know you love contrast, but I think you have a bit too much here .")
So, Fred, as long as you don't make it easy for rude people to be rude, pretty much anything else is probably fair game to me .
Good luck with this new plan.
Charlie
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