Artist at Work

[Patrick]

Any chance we could include a street photography section , no worries if not just thought i would ask 🙂

[Tersha]

Interesting shots Patrick, some good artwork going on there!
Not sure how many members do street photography …. Rob, @admin is the one to ask.

[Patrick]

Ah no problem Tersha , it’s not a big deal to be honest ill keep using my IG for sharing them 🙂

[Robert Apple]

That is some painting in that second one Patrick, I thought the girl was real at first until I focused on the painter, as apposed to the second one of which I see on pretty much every box car on every train that goes by, which is a bunch.

Like Diane Said,   Rob, @admin is the one to ask, but be warned chances are good you will be made the moderator of it.

[Patrick]

Thanks Robert , i think i asked because everything we post outside of the categories we do have just gets buried after a day or two when it goes in general chit chat , I have run my own forums and know how they work and moderating them was just part of the general admin and no work is really involved as long as people post stuff that is allowed ( no porn ) ( no drug  talk ) just the normal stuff people mostly know what is and what is not permitted 🙂

On a side note and i hope this is took the way i mean it no harm whatsoever from me , i have been a member from only 2019 but at times i felt like much more could be done to boost the numbers using the forum , we seem to have lots that join but once they join they are never seen again what is putting them off ? we have about a dozen regular posters and a portion of those are staff , also the weekly challenges seem to drag out a bit long ( at least for me ) .. posting what i have wrote is in no way trying to be negative i am only looking at ways to get more activity going on because sometimes it feels a bit stale ..

[Robert Apple]

I have wondered that over time as well and have mentioned it to
Rob, as You know I am quite dedicated to this forum.

These were Rob’s words of wisdom which I see quite a bit of wisdom in.

“It’s a journey. Some people pop in and out . Others get what they need and move on. Some prefer to stay for years. It’s kinda like a good pub. lol”

[Patrick]

I Can’t disagree with those words as well mate.

[Federico Alegria]

I support this idea!

[Patrick]

Thank you very much for looking in and hope i have not said the wrong things above mate but appreciate your thoughts , I say street photography but i also include documentary type of work of course 🙂

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Lovely photos Patrick and I love your idea 🙂

[Patrick]

Thank you very much Dahlia 🙂

[Rob Wood (Admin)]

What is that I head? @patrickw and @federicoalegria to be the mods of a new sub-forum and commit to get it active?

I once had this conversation with the much-missed @nikon-nut about the landscape forum. He did a pretty good job at getting it going, but it wasn’t a walk in the park for him.

😉

[Patrick]

Hi Rob , Can i ask what work is involved ? , I only ask because having run a forum for a number of years running an online Pc gaming group .. What i mean is once me and my brother set the forum up with the categories that we wanted there was NO work involved  people simply posted into those categories with relevant info to that category in our case here at Ls ( photos) the only work i can think of is having to delete inappropriate post / thread and this never happened for us at that time we run our forum , Thanks for any info .. Thanks for looking in as well mate

Looking below we have 2 sections to post – Macro -Landscape – Most photography forums have a section for each genre of photography and i know i don’t need to tell you that there far more to photography than those 2 topics , having a place to share specific genres might encourage more people to get active on the forum .. Like i said above its not a big deal if this is not on your radar mate it was just me voicing my thoughts on a place i have spent a lot of my time in the last few years and wanting to try help get more people using the place 🙂

@admin

[Rob Wood (Admin)]

The thing is we found that too many actually reduces participation, so we roll them out VERY deliberately when community members call for them and commit to helping them grow in their own right.

Basically modding it is asking questions to prompt interesting conversations, making sure people get replies (or tag people who are better positioned to reply) and that is about it. It isn’t a huge commitment but it’s not nothing either.

A few other notes – I closed the forum to free accounts cos we were just getting HAMMERED with spammers and none of the 294849 spam plugins work for a site of this size. Might be worth revisiting at some point but we would need all hands to deck to deal with a possible deluge.

The other thing is if we keep the concurrent conversations between 15 and 30 it seems to be a sort of sweet spot between action and quality.

Always happy to revisit assumptions, but remember my assumptions were gained from spending literal hours daily dealing with the problems.  😉

[Patrick]

Thank you kindly for the reply Rob i appreciate it very much 🙂

[Anonymous]

Love the art work, especially the 2nd one.

My 2 cents/pence worth on the issues related to a new category:

My impression is also that we have a number of regulars and few others. The posts are pretty sparse so stay on my first page for a while, changing position but not being buried before the commentary has been exhausted. I enter on Latest Posts, seeing all sub-forums and still can keep up pretty easily. The existence of the Street Photography sub might serve to give it more recognition and make it explicitly welcome.

I have said in other places that Facebook has been the great killer of real photography forums. When I started on this journey back in 2003 or so, the forums operated as online clubs. People were expected to give guidance and feedback and even to sort of mentor newbies. I got a lot of advice there, much of which I didn’t understand but still led me to figure things out. No “Like” or “Heart” or “Wow” buttons, and “Nice shot” was hardly every present without something substantive behind it. The substance provided benefit to the nascent photographer beyond the “I made you look” sense of self-importance of a Like button.

I joined this forum several years ago and then went missing for a while. My main negative with this forum is that the web site seems slow to respond and load content compared to other sites I visit. The 3 second wait seems a looong time and creates a bit of frustration for me. It’s a small price to pay though, once you begin to feel part of the community.

Finally, recognize that it is difficult for new people to feel themselves to be a part of a community, even when the members go out of their way to make the person feel welcome. I’m a member of a small group of writers associated with a social and educational group for old folks. We aren’t very good and that’s okay. We’re keeping our brains active, tapping into our creativity and exercising our sociability. Even those who are somewhat introverted need that. One new member joined and then dropped out of the group. He told others that he felt an outsider and not accepted. Others in the writing group heard about this claim and wondered what we had done to make him feel that way and the answer was “nothing at all.” His input was welcome and the group said so, appreciated his contributions, asked him about his family…actually got more attention than some other who had joined and stuck with us. It’s tough to be new and the person has to be ready to accept and eager to derive benefit and not be motivated to take first place among the group. That’s hard to accomplish when they can just go to FB or Instagram and accumulate Likes. BUT DON’T DARE INSTALL A LIKE BUTTON HERE. It’s the killer of the truly creative impulse.

Sorry. I do go on…

[Patrick]

Thank you Steve , i am no Martha copper but i enjoy seeing and capturing the street art of my time 🙂

The forums operated as online clubs , I remember those days much frustration at times but overall lovely memories and friendships that would never have happened without the forums , i agree the big social network groups killed the forum life as we knew it.

 

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