Community Suggestions

[Michael Mutmansky]

Don,

Darn, I'm surprised you remembered that...

I took a 6 month leave of absence from APUG due to uncharitable and uncivil posts by a member directed toward me from waaay out in left field. Interestingly, the same member is often involved in many of these 'debates' on APUG. I still don't post (or rather rarely post) in any groups other than the Large Format and Alternative Process groups for reasons related to this. For some reason I actually looked at this thread, because I normally completely ignore these types of discussions due to the inherently loaded nature of them.

Here's my proposal to eliminate all the absolute crap that has the effect of tearing down the community:

ACTIVELY ELIMINATE ALL OFF-TOPIC POSTS.

Why? Simple, the OT posts and chatter are bandwidth that are irrelevant to APUG as a photography community. If people want to spend APUG's bandwidth chatting, and if Sean is OK with that, well, that's fine, but I don't consider those posts to be relevant to the primary directive of APUG, and would be pleased to see all the chatter and OT posts removed so we can stay on-topic.

Also, RESTRAINT is needed. I don't mean holding back on a troll, although restraint is required there, too. I mean restrain from posting to a thread unless there is a legitimate and relevant thought or fact that you can contribute. There is no reason to be (once again) adding chatter to a discussion. It denigrates the level of the discussion, and this hurts the community.

That's it. I'll go back to posting in areas where I can contribute something worthwhile.


---Michael

[bmac]

Since we're quoting from that oh so fun thread, I'll repost my comment here too.

Sinking ship? A little dramatic don't you think? As far as I'm concerned, there is a strong community here on APUG. It's not the same community as Tuan's site, Photonet, etc, and that is a good thing. Its one of the many things that make APUG special& different.

I don't believe that any of the people involved in the recent turbulence were hiding behind aliases. And don't think that is would have made a difference if in fact they were.

Speaking for myself, and those who know me personally can attest to this, in the 1000+ posts, 100's of PMs and emails, I have not said one word that I wouldn't say to someone sitting across the table from me.

Sean has created a great thing here, he has given the power to moderate to the users. Lets not try to change everything over a rough couple of days.

Now everyone, back to photography!

Brian


Now everyone, back to photography!
Brian aka bmac aka grumpy aka... you get the point...

[Jorge]

No I need Sean to give me a "ignore list for my ignore list" so I can ignore Jorge before he gets one to ignore me

Too late I am ignoring you and using your jug of Rodinal........so there!

[TPPhotog]

Too late I am ignoring you and using your jug of Rodinal........so there!

Awwwwww Jorge NOOOOOOO don't take the Rodinal away !!!!!!!!!!!!! Sob

[roteague]

I agree, some of the posts are getting quite personal. However, I think everyone needs to realize that this past election was very ugly and bitter, and a lot of people are upset and frustrated at the results, and may say things that they later regret. It's best not to harbor resentment about remarks made in the "heat of the moment." We will all get over this.

Let's get back to photography!!!

[Jorge]

I agree, but there comes a time when folks start spouting the time honored "you've made my ignore list." and other such phrases. These happen, most often during non-photo topics. I personally do want to see topics banned either. Refereed maybe but not banned.

If they do, so what? you were in my ignore list for a while. That did not dimish your enjoyment of this site, even if I had told you so. I am happy to be in some ignore lists, it only adds to my enjoyment of this site.
I see no big deal if someone decides to place someone else in an ignore list and says so. IMO that is preferable to having "taboo" topics.
Hell I dont even know why we are talking about this, nor who was offended or what remark offended them so much.

I dont know, maybe someone should pm me and tell me how all this ends up and what topics are taboo, me I am going back to printing...you all let me know what was decided.

[Jorge]

Awwwwww Jorge NOOOOOOO don't take the Rodinal away !!!!!!!!!!!!! Sob

Only if you say pretty please....

[TPPhotog]

Only if you say pretty please....

MMMMMMMM I promise not to take any more pictures of your Otter errrrrrrrrrm DOG

[Glenn Mathison]

As a new member to the site, I find that it is often the comments that people post that are NOT specifically related to photography that helps me to get a small sense of "Who is this person?, What do they think about, what are they passionate about, what are they pig-headed about etc etc."

In effect, in this virtual meeting space, it helps me to figure out who is important to me, and who I should ignore. And "important to me" can be on many different levels and mean many differtn things.

I do not favour too many strict rules as it tends, in my opinion, to sterilise the environment too much. We would all hope and like that the conversations here are respectful, civil and polite. We also would acknowldge that this is sometimes not the case. So, my personal strategy is to simply ignore that posts that are not important to me. I never use the ignore list as a tool to replace the mental ignore list I have

I see evidence that Sean does a good job of restricting gross violators of the "norms" of this community, and I wonder if more is needed??

my $0.02
ymmv

Glenn

[joeyk49]

I believe that religion and polictics are good and necessary topics in photography. Discussing them amoung adults should not become offensive. Nor should disagreements about photo subject, technique or style ever become personal.

Now the problem seems to be more about comments posted as personal attacks rather than offensive material. I have to say that I haven't read one post or viewed one photo that I perceived as "offensive".

On the other hand, I have seen some threads deteriorate into less than civil conversations. This should not be tolerated. But I disagree that certain topics should be avoided because of one or more contributors can not control their passion or their egos. The errant behavior should be addressed, not the topic itself. If an individual continually conducts himself in an unacceptable manner, then the individual should be excluded, not the topic or forum.

I value the OPINIONS found on this site. However, I keep in mind that they are individual opinions and do not always coincide with my own. The variety of personalities here makes it great. If we impose too many limits on contributions, then the site will become stale...none of us want that.

Recommendation: An occational reality check like this thread should be intiated on a regular basis.