Question for Kerry Thalmann

Large Format Photography Forum

Question for Kerry Thalmann

Large Format development Forum : Ditto : Large format photography : One Thread

Category: Announcements

Hello Kerry,

I just thought that I might post a question here to test and see if the email notification is working. Perhaps you could respond to this question as verification that it is working.

Also wondering as to how many others like yourself have choosen to not actively participate on the phot.net forum?

Anybody care to offer up a guess on that question.

Lastly I went searching on photo.net last week for the previous post that was made many months ago about "How old are we? " and was unable to find it. Anybody know where that might have gone?

I also have not been able to contact Doug Paramore of late. Perhaps somebody might point him here.

As a last comment I REALLY like the feature that you can see your message in HTML format before your final posting. This has already helped me on numerous occasions to pick up mispellings and grammer errors. (although probably not all of them) :>))

Thanks

GreyWolf, 2002-09-08

Answers

I never did really post a large number of responses on LUSENET, and only a very few questions. Since the move to photo.net I've continued to monitor but rarely post an answer. The "topics of discussion" have degenerated to a point where there isn't much reason for participation, all other considerations aside. One of the most annoying aspects over there is an unwillingness to check archives before posting, more so than was ever evident on LUSENET. Pretty much what I expected.

Sal Santamaura, 2002-09-08

Hi James,

Yes, I received the email notification. If Bjorn and Tuan don't mind, I'd be willing to participate in a few temporary discussions here as a sort of real world beta test of the new forum software.

I've actually been following the photo.net forum discussions, just not actively participating. It does seem like a lot of the old lusenet regulars are not posting. My decision to not actively participate was a personal one made for several reasons. Seeing what is going on there reaffirms my decision (last week I saw more "F bombs" dropped in one thread than I remember seeing the entire time I participated in the lusenet forum). In any case, I have no idea as to the percentage of former lusenet regulars not participating in the photo.net LF forum. I'd guess it to be somewhere around 30 - 40%, but that's just an observation - not an actual tally. Some of the old regulars are still there (Ellis Vener, Dan Smith, Jorge Gasteazoro, Sal Santamaura, both Chris Jordans, Michael Mutmansky, etc.). There also seem to be a LOT of new participants (probably due to photo.net's huge user base). In all fairness, many of these new participants seem like worthwhile contributors. Hopefully many of them will follow us to the new forum.

Unfortunately, there also seems to be several new participants who never learned to play nice with others (probably run with scissors, too). I'm sure a few of them will migrate as well. I think the best way to deal with them is to establish up front that the new forum is a friendly, sharing community, and that any counterproductive activity (name calling, flame wars, etc.) will not be tolerated. The best way to do that is to refuse to fall for their bait. Ignore it and let the moderators deal with them (when necessary). Responding in anger only makes more work for the moderators. Retaliating in kind to those looking for a fight only gives them what they want and encourages them to continue such behavior.

I'm not talking about a disagreement of opinion. Where more than one side to an issue exists, all with an opinion should be encouraged to participate. These diverse opinions are actually a strength of any online forum. As intelligent adults, we should be able to share divergent opinions without resulting to name calling and personal attacks. When the discussion starts to get personal, that's when restraint (or moderation) is called for. I know I'm preaching to the choir here. I just want to reiterate that after all of the effort that has gone into developing and hosting the new forum, ultimately, the success of the forum will depend on the behavior of the members of the community. That's true of any online community regardless of whether it's on photo.net, AOL, or a non-commercial server. Let's all do our best to re-establish the tone and sense of community we used to have on lusenet.

I have also head trouble searching for old threads on photo.net. I think there might be a bug in their search engine, or perhaps all the old lusenet threads are not indexed.

I'm really looking forward to the public unveiling of this forum. I miss the community that was built over the years on the lusenet site and look forward to the resumption of a sharing, caring non-commercial online LF forum. Thanks to Bjorn, Josh, Tuan, Jenn and everyone else that are putting in the effort to make sure this happens. I'm not a programmer, but if there is anything else I can do to help, just let me know.

Kerry

Kerry Thalmann, 2002-09-08

Kerry, would you like to see the LF forum on photo.net be more moderated? I had been kind of assuming that Tuan (and now also Bjorn) were moderating it. But if that isn't so, perhaps we need to expand the list of moderators. BM

Brian Mottershead, 2002-09-17

Brian I know this was for Kerry, but I figure I respond also since I was the guy being insulted along with another person. Björn did a great job of handling it, and deleting the offensive messages. IMO the forum is going ok, I do wish it was away from photo.net, but in the meantime I dont think it needs any more intervetion.

Jorge Gasteazoro, 2002-09-17

Well, I think that it's time for me to fill in here. I do check all of the messages, even though I don't participate in the discussions at photo.net at the moment. It's not that I don't want to participate, I just don't have the time for discussion at the moment.
But I do check the 50-150 messages that comes into the forum every day. The only time when messages started to stack up was unfortunenately when there was something to moderate. (A guy refering to everyone else in the discussion as MF, and I don't mean medium format.)
As for the possible move, I'm not the one to say whether to move or not. Mostly because I'm too involved in the process as such. (As you all may know, I've developed the software for this very forum. There are still a few bugs and functions to take care of, but I'm almost there.) But I've noticed that the photo.net version of the LF forum does have a slight taste of usenet, i.e. people who just want to obstruct and interfer. Nothing much, but it's there. On the other hand there are a few new participants, who really does contribute, so it's probably easier to find the forum now.

Björn Nilsson, 2002-09-17

I would like to jump in here as an observer. I also watch photo.net but have elected to not participate in any big way. The flavour for this topic (LF Photography) just seems to be a poor fit at photo.net. I have noticed that many of the old regulars are sitting on the sidelines in eager anticipation of this site officially starting. I think that photo.net is great for certain topics like 35mm and darkroom questions but without quite being able to put my finger on it... it is just not right for a LF forum.

I also do not think that it is proper of you to haved asked Kerry to comment on the way photo.net (LF) is being moderated. He has already spoken his piece and that says it all for at least myself.

Brian... I have no malice or ill will to photo.net but am praying that Bjorn is 100% sucessful in getting this software working soon. I heartily believe that when that happens all of the old crowd will come faithfully back and perhaps some new folks as well.

May God speed your journey Bjorn !

GreyWolf, 2002-09-18

Brian,

The question of moderation is a sticky one. It's one of those thankless jobs where half will scream "Too Much!" and the other half will cry "Too Little!". Other than the obvious ad hominem personal attacks, the recent flury of f-bombs and anything blatantly illegal or completely unrelated to large format photography, I'm personally inclined to side with the less is better camp om this issue. However, that's just my personal opinion. Even a heated discussion can be informative as long as the participants devote their energies to vigorously arguing the merits of their side of the issue - and not the physical, mental or genetic shortcomings of their adversaries. Many people are passionate about their photography, and I think that is good. There is no absolute right or wrong when it comes to art, or even techinque. Diverse and divergent opinions are great. It's what makes any forum worthwhile. So, let them share their passion - as long as it stays on topic and doesn't degenerate into profanity, name calling and mud slinging.

My original comments had nothing to do with the role of the moderators. In fact, I only occasionally visit the actual photo.net LF forum. Since I don't actively participate, it is easier and more efficient to get the messages via email. I've set my email client filters to sort the emails and file them in appropriate folders that I can peruse when convenient. What this means is I get EVERY message via email before the moderators get a chance to do their job. That's fine. When a thread turns ugly, I can easily ignore and delete any subsequent posts on the topic (and I just assume the moderators are doing their best to delete the f-bobms and other nonsense). Sort of self-moderation on my part.

My comments were directed more at the overall "tone" of the forum as it currently exists. Although the moderators can remove the more blatant offenses, they would be fighting a loosing battle if they were to try to force good manners and common courtesy on all mebers at all times (see comments above about "Too Much" vs. "Too Little"). I think it's impossible and not really the job of the moderators. So, whose job is it? Everyone's - any forum is a community and it is the members of that community that make that forum what it is - good, bad, worthwhile, useless, passionate, indifferent, dynamic, static, etc. For whatever reasons, since the move to photo.net the general tone of the forum seems to be more hostile and confrontational. This is just a personal observation, but in one recent thread over a period of about 48 hours, I saw more f-bombs than I recall seeing in all the years I followed the old lusenet LF forum. I'm not blaming anyone at photo.net for this. Like I said, it is up to the community to set the standards of acceptable behavior and tolerance. I have a few ideas why the tone is different now that what it used to be, but I won't bore you with my personal insights. I have chosen not to participate actively in the photo.net LF forum. As a non-participant, I have no right to complain about what goes on there or try to influence those who do chose to participate. I accept the postings that show up in my email folders as is and chose to read or ignore them as I see fit. That's where my involvement with the photo.net LF forum ends. The forum there will be what it will be based on the actions of those who participate - regardless of any opinion I may have on the subject. It's their community, not mine. It will be what they make it.

Will a new forum be any better? Only time will tell. The overall make-up of the community changed when the forum moved from lusenet to photo.net, and it will doubtless change (even if only slightly) when Bjorn and Tuan go live with this forum. I hope it will have a similar tone to the old lusenet forum and will do my best to encourage passionate, informative discourse without hostility, anger and the belittlement of other participants. Of course, I will be but one of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of participants. It will be up to all the participants to collectively make or break the new forum.

Ultimately, I am rooting ONLY for this forum to succeed - NOT for the photo.net forum to fail. I would take no pleasure in that. The internet is a BIG place and I certainly think it's capable of supporting more than one vibrant active online LF community.

Brian - since you are particpating here, I do have a few questions of a practical nature about the co-existance of the two forums once this one officially goes public. What will happen to the old lusenet archives. Will they be moved here? Will they stay on photo.net? Will they co-exist in both places? What ever happended to the lusenets posts between 6/2 and the time the plug was pulled on the lusenet LF forum (not sure of the exact date, but it was sometime on or after 6/12)? I did a search on the photo.net site today, and those posts seem to be missing from the archives currently at photo.net. I did find a post from you dated 6/14 stating that the remaining lusenet posts would be added shortly, but I can't seem to find the actual posts anywhere on photo.net. Do you still have these posts, or are they lost forever? It's only about 10 days worth of activity, but I know there was a worthwhile discussion about Cooke lenses, and I'm sure a few other tidbits worthy of inclusion in the archives. Just wondering where they went.

Kerry

Kerry Thalmann, 2002-09-18

Hi Brian,

I was just checking back and reading through this again. Kerry posted the following questions.

Brian - since you are particpating here, I do have a few questions of a practical nature about the co-existance of the two forums once this one officially goes public. What will happen to the old lusenet archives. Will they be moved here? Will they stay on photo.net? Will they co-exist in both places? What ever happended to the lusenets posts between 6/2 and the time the plug was pulled on the lusenet LF forum (not sure of the exact date, but it was sometime on or after 6/12)? I did a search on the photo.net site today, and those posts seem to be missing from the archives currently at photo.net. I did find a post from you dated 6/14 stating that the remaining lusenet posts would be added shortly, but I can't seem to find the actual posts anywhere on photo.net. Do you still have these posts, or are they lost forever?

I am wondering if you would be able to answer these as I am also interested and suspect that other silent readers may be awaiting the answers.
Hopefully you will be able to let us all know soon. Thanks in advance,

GreyWolf, 2002-09-23

Just curious, re: the question/answer traffic in this thread, has Philip Greenspun returned from his summer sabatical yet? If so, has Tuan discussed those issues with him?

Sal Santamaura, 2002-09-27

Concerning questions related to the archives:

First, it was originally my intention to move the last week of posts (June 2 on) from greenspun.com, but with all the talk of yet another move, I lost the heart to do it, especially since I have been very, very busy. At this point, unless there was demand for it from the forum members, I probably won't move those last few posts after all.

Regarding the archives, we aren't planning on deleting them from photo.net. photo.net's permission would be legally required to spider the archives off photo.net -- not because we own the copyright to those posts, but simply because that is a use of our server and bandwidth which requires our permission. I would imagine that anybody copying the posts would also need the permission of the original posters, who arguably own the copyright to the posts. Our theory of the sitution is that those posters gave Philip Greenspun the right to serve their writings, and that he transferred that right to photo.net when the forum was moved. Anybody who posted since June has directly given photo.net permission to serve the posts.

If we were asked for permission by the operators of a prospective new LF forum for a copy of the archives, I don't know what our answer would be at this point. It would probably depend in part on how many of the forum members said they were in favor (or opposed) to facilitating the forking of the forum.

If somebody spidered the archives off LUSENET before the forum was moved, and felt he needed to have permission from somebody to use that copy, he would need to take that up with Philip Greenspun, since the copy would have been made from his server. Up until December, there was a feature on LUSENET which allowed a moderator to make a copy of the forum posts; so arguably Philip implicitly gave his permission for copies to be made by a moderator using that feature. There would still be the issue of permission from the posters to use their writings.

I think I read that Tuan had made such a copy last December, probably shortly before that particular feature was disabled. I am assuming that this is where the test archives in this prototype forum came from, although it seems that this site's developers are proceeding either on the assumption that the posters' permission is not needed, or that they are planning on getting it if the site goes "live".

Incidentally, Philip is one of three directors at photo.net, and is no longer involved in day-to-day management of photo.net. Of course, LUSENET is on the greenspun.com server, for which he pays, and he makes all the decisions about it; but that is not the same as photo.net. Practically speaking, the people who make decisions now at photo.net are Rajeev Surati (the Chairman of the Board), and me.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-01

Well, that leaves us all to ponder how we might proceed if a vote says to move the LF forum from photo.net.

In other threads Brian has mentioned that, should a poster request it, their posts would be deleted from the photo.net archives. Since Brian now states that photo.net would not delete the LF archive after a permanent version of this forum went "live," what would be the best course of action for anyone who wished to make the non-photo.net forum stronger? Should each of us send individual requests to photo.net asking that our LF posts be deleted? Is photo.net capable of making those deletions, i.e. by contributor by forum? Or would there be an administrative obstacle that could impact a contributor's other posts to things like the General Photography, Black and White (film and printing), Medium Format and Pentax 67 forums? Wouldn't the remaining photo.net LF archived threads look like with swiss-cheese if a large number of heritage posters directed that their posts be deleted? Would that be a good or bad thing?

I think it's important that we explore these questions *before* putting the move to a vote, since any definitive answers might have great impact on the outcome.

Sal Santamaura, 2002-10-01

I think Philip won't be back until the end of October, and Brian seems to indicate that he is now on longer in control.
The best course for anyone to make the non-photo.net forum stronger is just to vote for it. Brian seems to doubt that many participants would prefer an independent forum, and his position in based on this belief. He even think that we would be the ones "forking" the forum ! Maybe he is right, but if he is proven wrong, his attitude would probably change. This is why I don't think that all those issue could be resolved before the vote.
After a hypothetical positive vote, I would think it would be preferable to work an arrangement with photo.net, and keep the option of individual requests for deletion a last resort. This would make a hash of the archives and make them look very bad, and I have no particular interest in having photo.net look bad.

Q.-Tuan Luong, 2002-10-02

Our theory of the sitution is that those posters gave Philip Greenspun the right to serve their writings, and that he transferred that right to photo.net when the forum was moved.

Brian,

I disagree 100% with your "theory", and although I have no plans to sue anybody over this issue, I seriously doubt you would have a leg to stand on if someone did. There was no such license statement regarding contributions to greenspun.com, and even if there was why would it be transferrable to photo.net (see next paragraph)?

Incidentally, Philip is one of three directors at photo.net, and is no longer involved in day-to-day management of photo.net. Of course, LUSENET is on the greenspun.com server, for which he pays, and he makes all the decisions about it; but that is not the same as photo.net.

EXACTLY! Philip Greenspun does NOT = photo.net. Just because he owns greenspun.com and is on the board at photo.net does not mean he has the right to do whatever he wants with the content that was contributed to the non-profit forum formerly hosted on the greenspun.com servers. There is a BIG difference between the two entities: greenspun.com and photo.net. The obvious difference is that greenspun.com was run as a non-profit and photo.net is structured as a for-profit corporation that Philip happens to be affiliated with. It doesn't matter how much or how little profit photo.net makes now or in the future - that doesn't change the fundamental fact that it is a for-profit corporation (Luminal Path, Inc.).

Here's an analogy. Say I donate something to a non-profit organization. Doesn't matter what or to whom, but let's just say I donate a vehicle to my local Goodwill Industries. And then, I find out someone on the board of directors at Goodwill has taken that vehicle and is using it - without my consent or payment to Goodwill - for his own for-profit business. Yeah, that would be illegal and would result in quite a scandal if uncovered. And when it comes right down to it, it would make me very disappointed that my contribution was "re-directed" from it's intended charitable use to be used as an asset by a for-profit corporation. The fact that a certain individual was affiliated with both would not make it "OK". That's exactly how I feel about the for-profit photo.net seizing the contributions that I donated to the non-profit greenspun.com.

Yeah, in the greater scheme of things there are more important issues to discuss. However, when you accuse Tuan of potentially "forking" the archives, please remember THIS forum will be a rebirth of the non-profit large format discussion forum. Any "forking" ocurred back in June.

At that time you offered to remove all of my contributions from the archives. I have not taken you up on this offer because, I am also against further trashing the archives. In an ideal world, I would prefer you would give back the complete pre-June 12 archives to the non-profit forum, but it doesn't sound like you are willing to do so. At the very least, I would like to see the archives (pre-June 12) co-exist on both photo.net and the new non-commercial forum. That seems like a reasonable compromise. You get to keep the booty that was seized back in June and used to jump-start the photo.net large format forum - thus keeping the photo.net archives "unforked". And, the contributions that were donated to a non-profit would once again be available without commercial ties.

I do agree with Tuan, the goal here is not to make photo.net look bad, but to enable the new forum a chance to succeed. Without access to the archived posts, that were originally donated to a non-profit, the newly re-ornagized non-profit forum has little chance to thrive. Eventually a new community could possibly attract enough users and traffic to succeed, but the easiest way to make sure that happens is to have an extensive archive of knowledge to draw new users - a handicap the photo.netforum did not have to overcome due to the re-direction of the archives from greenspun.com. Do you really think you could have hit the ground running back in June, and would be getting the traffic you are today without the lusenet archives. Especially if there had been competition from another forum that HAD those archives. Unless you are willing to provide the pre-June 12 archives to the new non-profit forum, you are severely handicapping the chances of that forum to succeed. I will make no accusations regarding your intentions, but it certainly appears that there is a conflict of interest here.

Kerry

Kerry Thalmann, 2002-10-02

Kerry, although the last time I was able to make a dump in table
form of Forum was indeed in Dec 2001, I (and also Bjorn and Josh
I believe) have spidered copies of the Lusenet forum until almost
the last days. Not as nice to reintegrate into a database as a table
dup, but feasible with a bit of extra work. So the compromise we would
reach with photo.net would have to go at least beyond what you
outlined, as such a situation would be quite divisive, and in my
opinion, not desirable.
If the vote goes clearly againt photo.net and
if Brian is an honorable person, I do not see why he would keep acting in a way which would be that detrimental to this community.

Q.-Tuan Luong, 2002-10-02

Kerry, there are two problems with your theory. Philip Greenspun wasn't a non-profit organization, and never said he was.

The second problem is that if Philip didn't have the right to transfer the forum where he thought it would continue, on what basis would you or the developers of this forum have that right? You all claim to be the legal successors to the LUSENET LF forum. What is the basis for that claim?

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-02

Kerry, there are two problems with your theory. Philip Greenspun wasn't a non-profit organization, and never said he was.

Brian,

I never said Philip Greenspun, the person, was a non-profit organization. I was referring to the lf forum formerly residing on the greenspun.com servers. That service was clearly run as non-profit. There were no commercial postings, no paid advertising, etc. It was totally free from commercial influence. If it was a for-profit corporation, what was the legal name of that corporation. When and in what state was it incorportated? Who are the company officers and who sits on the board of directors?

The second problem is that if Philip didn't have the right to transfer the forum where he thought it would continue, on what basis would you or the developers of this forum have that right? You all claim to be the legal successors to the LUSENET LF forum. What is the basis for that claim?

There are two separate issue here. First, did Philip Greensun have any legal copyright to the materlials posted by assorted contributors to the former greenspun.com large format discussion forum? I maintain he did not. There was never any such transfer of copyright spelled out in any terms of useage agreement on greenspun.com. Just because Philip hosted that service does not give him legal ownership to the copyrights of the indididuals who posted on that forum. With no legally binding transfer of copyright, all rights are reatined by the originators - the original posters. Assuming that Philip owns these copyrights does not make it so. No legally binding agreement = no transfer of copyright.

The second question is why would Tuan and Bjorn then have the right to those copyrighted materials. In fact, they probably would not. It is probably a lot less likely that any original posters would object to their posts returning to a non-commercial venue - as that was how they were originally hosted. Again, this is a lot different, in spirit, than the siezing of those copyrighted materials by a commercial enterprise without the consent of the copyright holders. Legally, Tuan and Bjorn may be faced with the same situation you are in - copyright holders could ask that their posts be removed from the archives. I just think that is a lot less likely to happen if the posts are returned to a non-commercial venue.

Kerry

Kerry Thalmann, 2002-10-02

The reason why Philip had all the pages on Lusenet signed with
the moderator's email is that he meant them to read as if they
were part of the moderator's website (I think he stated that
explicitly somewhere). Personnally, I never saw myself owning
any of the postings, and my TOS makes it clear, but I must say
that if someone can claim to continue any Lusenet Forum, it
is his (ex) moderator. Philip was just acting as a provider of free services. And let's not get into "legal" discussions, please. This, like the early internet I was used to
ten years ago, is based on common decency.

Q.-Tuan Luong, 2002-10-02

If the vote goes clearly againt photo.net and
if Brian is an honorable person, I do not see why he would keep acting in a way which would be that detrimental to this community.

Tuan,

Which community? Photo.net, or this forum, or the general online LF community?

I am not questioning Brian's honor. That's not the issue. There is, however a definite conflict of interest. Brian is the editor-in-chief of photo.net. He obviously has an interest in seeing photo.net be as successful as possible.

He has no such interest in seeing this forum - an alternative (competitor) to the photo.net large format forum - succeed. In fact, it could be said it would be in his best interest for this forum to fail miserably - or to never even "go live". Problem is, IF he controls the archives of the previous LF forum from greenspun.com, he could have the ability to cripple this forum before it even gets a chance to become a serious competitor to his commercial photo.net large format forum.

However, if you already possess those archives, that doesn't seem to be an issue. What may be an issue would be the legal status of the archives, and I don't think that's something either party wants to make some lawyers rich arguing about in court. After all, as Brain previously pointed out, neither party holds a legal "slam dunk" on the copyrights of the posts prior to the move to photo.net. In which case, those copyrights are still the property of the original posters. I really don't think it would be to anyone's benefit to fragment the archives on a poster-by-poster basis between photo.net and this forum (not to mention a heck of a lot of non-productive energy spent). Hopefully, a reasonable compromise can be reached without it getting totally out of hand.

BTW, you may want to get a "terms of service" statement posted on this forum to make sure this doesn't become an issue again in the future.

Kerry

Kerry Thalmann, 2002-10-02

Kerry, the community I was refering to is the former Lusenet-LF
community, which could come out fragmented by the fork. The move of last June was presented
as a way to generously lend us a hand (and quite a few seem to have bought the argument) when our situation was so precarious, but last
hour, when I checked, greenspun's lusenet was working just fine.
It is clear to me that without (a) copying the archives (b) shutting down the lusenet forum, photo.net would not have been successful in creating a LF forum. The LF section of photo.net accumulated less
then 300 threads in six years. That's less than one thread/week.

Q.-Tuan Luong, 2002-10-02

We aren't claiming that we hold any copyrights. We are only claiming that by posting their writings to Philip's server, the forum participants were implicitly granting him the right to disseminate those writings on the web, as the record of the communications between a shifting group of people interested in LF photography who came to his web site to communicate with one another. I don't believe the intent of the posters should be construed so narrowly that Philip was obliged to maintain that record only on a particular server in order not to lose whatever rights had been granted him.

It seems obvious to me that it was Philip's choice as to which server to use for the purpose of hosting the forum, and that it was his right to ask photo.net to do it, as long as we maintain whatever unwritten compact there was with that shifting group of people. This is rather difficult. Since it was unwritten, anybody can now claim that conditions were part of that compact.

For example, you repeatedly state that it was part of this compact that the server be non-commercial, but I believe you have invented that very much after the fact. Indeed, one of the options put forward by Tuan when the "where do we go?" question was being debated was Yahoo, a much more commercial venue than photo.net. Other "commercial" options were put forward.

No, this isn't an issue of commercial or non-commercial. It is basically an issue of control. As a Yahoo "community", Tuan would have maintained control of the forum, whereas for some reason he is not certain of that on photo.net, even though after all his threats to move it, he is still the moderator on photo.net, and we have even added Bjorn as a moderator.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-02

Tuan, the reason LUSENET is still running is that various friends of Philip (including me) keeping bringing it back up. I don't know what Philip is doing about paying the ISP bills. Perhaps I should just leave it down next time.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-02

Brian, I have repeatedly stated that after this crisis is resolved
one way or the other, I will step down from moderating the LF
Forum.
I wish that before trying to second guess my motives, you
could be as detached about yours. Thanks for taking care of
greenspun.com (I mean it, sincerely)
but if this appears feasible despite your work at
photo.net, why was there such an urgency in June in the first place ?

Q.-Tuan Luong, 2002-10-02

I don't know. Ask Philip. Maybe the ISP hasn't gotten around to pulling the plug yet. Maybe now that the server is hardly using any bandwidth, Philip is paying the bills again. It more or less runs on its own now until something goes wrong.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-02

I don't know. Ask Philip.

Brian, does that mean that you take no responsability for the present
situation, and were just executing Philip's (a bit hasty, to say the
least) orders ?

Q.-Tuan Luong, 2002-10-02

You know the history of how the move happened because I previously sent you a very long mail narrating it in detail. The move was in progress when I got involved, because the person doing it on Philip's instructions had to abandon it in mid-stream. I took the need for it at face value, and invested over a week to complete it because I thought the LUSENET photography forums would be an asset to photo.net.

Do I take responsibility? If I hadn't done the move it wouldn't have happened. It was not my decision to start the move, but it was my decision to complete it. Philip initiated the move for his own reasons, which were explained to me as greenspun.com was being shut down. I find it slightly embarassing that LUSENET is still up, but I took the information that its end was near at at face value, and I still think that it won't be around much longer. I completed the move because I wanted the forums on photo.net. All of this I have said before.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-02

You guys need to implement the filter that prevents the same thing from being posted twice.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-02

For example, you repeatedly state that it was part of this compact that the server be non-commercial, but I believe you have invented that very much after the fact.

This is simply not true. Lusenet was operated from day one as a non-profit, non-commercial, advertising-free entity. This is not something I made up well after the fact. The point is I NEVER agreed to any licensing arrangement that would permit Philip, or anyone acting on his behalf, to move my contributions to photo.net, AOL, Yahoo or any other commercial service.

Here's another analogy that avoids the whole non-profit/for-profit issue. As a photographer, I own the copyright to any images I create at the time of creation. For someone to publish one of my images, they need to secure a license from me to do so. That license will spell out in very exact terms what rights are granted. So, if I send my images off to a publisher and license specific rights of an image to one of that publisher's periodicals, does that also give them the right to publish that same image in another one of their magazines? No, it does not. If they did so, they would be in violation of my copyright. Just because the same publisher owns both magazines does not give them any rights to reuse the image in a second publication. Same thing with greenspun.com and photo.net - they are two separate entities with the only common link being Philip Greenspun (and as you admit, Philip does NOT = photo.net).

As you say, none of the licensing rights on the lusenet forum were done "in writing", which makes my case even stronger. As a potential infringer, the burden of proof lies with the publisher. Unless the publisher can prove they were granted specific rights, they own none.

Indeed, one of the options put forward by Tuan when the "where do we go?" question was being debated was Yahoo, a much more commercial venue than photo.net.

And if you go back and re-read the ensuing discussion, you'll see how resoundingly that option was shouted down. Seems the consensus did NOT want a advertising-supported commercial site to host the lusenet large format forum.

And yes, Yahoogroups is "worse" than photo.net, but it's all a question of degrees. And you can bet if someone would have moved the lusenet archives to Yahoo without the moderator's consent there would have been a much more vocal protest than the similar involuntary move to photo.net generated. Again, a question of degrees.

Obviously we are never going to see eye-to-eye on this issue, especially when it comes to copyright ownership, non-profit vs. for-profit entities, etc. What it all ultimately comes down to is:

I completed the move because I wanted the forums on photo.net.

You wanted the content for photo.net and you took it. Plain and simple. Tuan was unreachable at the time. The situation was proported to be at crisis stage (give the fact that the greenspun.com servers are still up and running four months later, I'd say that the "urgency" of the move back in June was rather exaggerated). Ultimately, crisis or not, you wanted it and you took it - without the consent of the long-time forum moderator or the members of the lusenet LF community. And that's why we are where we are today.

For the good of the online LF community, I hope that if the consensus wants the forum to once again be hosted on a non-commercial site that you will not stand in the way of allowing that to happen. If you did, you would further divide and fragment the community and neither photo.net nor this forum would benefit from such actions.

Kerry

Kerry Thalmann, 2002-10-02

Kerry, I'm not going to stop anyone from starting a forum on the Internet, nor could I. Nor could I stop photo.net members from using it, even if I wanted to. And I can't stop you from declaring it to be the "new home of the LF Forum". Because of its association with Tuan, you will probably convince quite a few people to accept this description.

But Tuan (not you) is apparently demanding that I delete the LF archives from LUSENET on photo.net. Although I can clearly see how it would be convenient for the new forum, I don't see what obligation I have to do that, and it is certainly not something that I would see as in the interest of photo.net or most of its members.

If you have a copy of the archives from LUSENET, you are accountable for those to Philip Greenspun and the people who original posted them.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-02

"This, like the early internet I was used to ten years ago, is based on common decency."

"But Tuan (not you) is apparently demanding that I delete the LF archives from LUSENET on photo.net. Although I can clearly see how it would be convenient for the new forum, I don't see what obligation I have to do that..."

Law alone governs operation of commercial enterprises like photo.net. A requirement to practice common decency is not likely included in the Uniform Commercial Code.

Sal Santamaura, 2002-10-02

If you have a copy of the archives from LUSENET, you are accountable for those to Philip Greenspun and the people who original posted them.

How is this different than photo.net being accountable to Tuan and the people who originally posted to lusenet? You seem to want to play both sides of the issue on this argument. It was OK for photo.net to sieze the archives without consent of the long-time forum moderator and the original posters, but should that same long-time forum moderator attempt to host those same archives on another non-photo.net server he will be held accountable. Sure seems like a double standard. Keep in mind the VAST majority of the large format archives now residing on the photo.net servers were created on lusenet.

Although I can clearly see how it would be convenient for the new forum, I don't see what obligation I have to do that, and it is certainly not something that I would see as in the interest of photo.net or most of its members.

I see, the old possession is 9/10 of the law argument. You have the archives (whether or not you actually OWN them). So, you plan to keep them whether or not you have any right to do so, whether or not the consenus of the LF community wants you to, and without regard to the wishes of the original posters or forum moderator.

Kerry

Kerry Thalmann, 2002-10-02

Look, guys, we are apparently not going to agree. We have fundamentally different ideas about what was going on on LUSENET. You see the "forum" as Tuan's, and Philip was just providing free hosting services, like some kind of free web hosting service or ISP. Therefore, Philip moving the forum to photo.net, and photo.net being glad to have it, and cooperating to move it, is seen by you as theft, as if your web hosting provider suddenly claimed your web site.

I see LUSENET as a discussion site that Philip was operating and paying for, whose users could define topics and moderate the threads on those topics. QTL was one of thousands of people who defined a topic and moderated it, and the topic he defined was one of the more actively discussed ones. My view is that to the extent that anyone had the right to maintain the records of the various forum discussions and serve those on the web, it was Philip. Philip apparently also saw it this way. When he was in the process of winding LUSENET up, I doubt he would have objected to any of the participants copying the posts elsewhere. Indeed, up until December he provided a feature that facilitated the copying of the posts, and he invited people to do so. But when it didn't happen with some photography-related topics, he didn't question his right to move those to photo.net.

We could pay lawyers and court fees in order to have the legal system decide the issue. It would probably be a fascinating and precedent-setting case, although I imagine the interest of it would be lost on the participants, who would be paying the bills.

Several outcomes might be possible: I am correct, and Philip had the right to move the archives to photo.net, and we now have the right to serve them. You are correct: only the LUSENET moderator (Tuan) had that right, and his consent was required to move the discussion records someplace else. We are both wrong: everybody (including you and me) who was permitted to make a copy can use that copy now, because the posters were actually putting their writings into the public domain. Or nobody has the right without getting a license first from all the posters and since that is impossible, the archives must legally remain on LUSENET and die when it is unplugged. There are probably some other possiblities that lawyers and judges could dream up.

I have a theory about which of these is correct. It is suspect because it happens to favor my interests. You have a theory too; it is also suspect, for the same reason. But in the absence of some clear indication as to who is correct, I don't see what is going to make anybody yield.

As for the issue of commercialism, Kerry, I don't doubt that this was important to you, but I doubt that it was an issue for everyone or even the majority. In the various discussions of where should the forum go, there was a group of people actively advocating an independent site, but the majority of people favored photo.net, which was a commercial site. And while "independent site" was the second choice, many of the other leading options were "commercial" sites also. Even a year before, when there was no particular reason to move to photo.net, a sizeable minority of people favored it.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-02

Look, guys, we are apparently not going to agree.

Now THAT we can agree on.

You see the "forum" as Tuan's, and Philip was just providing free hosting services,

No, actually, I see the lusenet forum as belonging to the community that created it - not to any one individual (be it Tuan or Philip). Although Philip did create lusenet and provide the servers at greenspun.com (a contribution that I truly do appreciate), it was Tuan was the creative impetus behind the large format forum at lusenet, it was Tuan who served as the moderator for all those years the large format forum was part of lusenet, and it was through Tuan's efforts and guidance that the lusenet large format forum grew to become THE place on the internet for discussions related to large format photography. So yeah, when the entire archives are moved and the plug is pulled on the lusenet LF forum without Tuan's consent (or even knowledge), I view that as a slight to all the work he put in to make the lusenet forum what it was. That was all done under the guise of urgency that if you did not move the forum to photo.net IMMEDIATELY back in June the valuable archives would be lost forever. We now know that was simply not true.

As far as the legal issues go, I agree the only ones who would be happy to see this slugged out in court would be the highly paid lawyers. In the end, no matter what the courts would rule (you have your theory, I have mine), I don't think either photo.net or the non-commerial interests would come out ahead. It would cost far, far more in legal fees than any benefit the "winner" would receive. In the end, the legal fees could very well put both parties out of business.

So, if legal recourse is not the answer, we are back to common decency.

When he was in the process of winding LUSENET up, I doubt he would have objected to any of the participants copying the posts elsewhere. Indeed, up until December he provided a feature that facilitated the copying of the posts, and he invited people to do so.

If you are correct in assuming Philip would not have objected to "to any of the participants copying the posts elsewhere.", why do you object now? Tuan says he has a table version of the archives up through December and non-table back-ups up until the June move to photo.net. So, if the community wants it, why would you object to Tuan copying the archives that he has in his possession (no spidering of the photo.net servers) to a non-commercial server.

As for the issue of commercialism, Kerry, I don't doubt that this was important to you, but I doubt that it was an issue for everyone or even the majority.

That's a big assumption on your part. You may want to go back and read the thread: Poll: Should LF Forum stay with Photo.net? I just did, and to my count it was pretty much a dead heat (with a few "maybes" and a lot of heated discussion). About 50/50 for staying on photo.net vs. an independent non-commercial server. And keep in mind this "poll" was initiated on photo.net AFTER the move and at a time when many former lusenet contributors had either not found the new forum on photo.net or had vowed not to participate. In other words, the audience for that poll was highly biased in photo.net's favor (you had to be a photo.net member to participate), and the results were still a dead heat. Rather than try to guesstimate, I think the only clear way to guage the feeling of the majority of the participants is to ask them - all of them - and tally the results. Unlike the "poll" posted on photo.net after the move back in June, a true poll would not be a discussion, but a simple vote (yes, no or abstain would be the only choices).

So how does one accomplish such a poll. It would have to be done through email - to make sure all members, both photo.net and lusenet, have a chance to respond. Each voter would be limited to a single yes or no vote. Any non-response would be considered an "abstain" vote. In order to avoid any charges of ballot stuffing, the vote should be conducted in co-operation with both photo.net and Tuan tallying all votes. If conducted via email, it could be as simple as setting "reply-to" to both parties email adresses (and only counting votes that are received by both). The wording of the issue should be agreed to in a advance by both parties, and each party should be allowed to include a brief summary (of similar length - say 500 words or less) to state their case (similar to the voter's pamphlet's some states mail to all registered voters two weeks before an upcoming election). In order to avoid undue influence, those included statements should be the ONLY discussion between the parties and the voters prior to tallying the votes - no separate mass or private mailings to influence voter opinion. It sounds like Tuan is willing to initiate and abide by such a democratic vote. Are you?

In the poll cited above you specifically stated:

"I should add that the photo.net decision-makers have been trying to have a meaningful sounding of opinion on this issue, and if we can come up with a way that will have representative input and not be subject to the charge of being rigged, we will conduct one and abide by the results."

So, how about it? Are you willing to put this issue to a fair and impartial vote of the members of the community? Are you willing to abide by the results of such a vote?

Even a year before, when there was no particular reason to move to photo.net, a sizeable minority of people favored it.

Just like even after the move to photo.net, 1/2 the people there still would have preferred the forum to be hosted on an independent site - even when no such site existed at that time. The only fair way to see what they would prefer would be a democratic vote as described above. We can debate this issue til the cows come home. We already have, but have not reached any agreement and even if we did, we (none of us) has been appointed as spokesman for the entire online LF community. Let's put it to the vote and carry out the wishes of the majority. Fair enough?

Kerry

Kerry Thalmann, 2002-10-02

Another point that I'd like to make is that Brian refers constantly to
the authority of Philip Greenspun, but can he confirm to us that
Philip would approve what he does at photo.net ?

As far as commercialization is concerned, photo.net today is worse
then it was back in Dec 2001 because back then there was the possibility, wanted by Philip, to transform it into a non-profit,
while it seems that the present management has ruled out this
possibility and cannot confirm that their goal is not to go towards
an acquisition.

Q.-Tuan Luong, 2002-10-02

There really isn't anything to vote about. If you make this forum live some place, people will vote with their feet, probably going back and forth between the two places for quite a long time until they find themselves participating in LF discussions mostly in one place or the other.

As long as there is a significant interest in the LF forum on photo.net, I don't think we would delete the archives and say to the photo.net participants "We don't care what you want, the "LF Forum" (whatever that is) has decided that YOU belong someplace else. See ya.

If you already have the LUSENET archives through June, then the only thing to argue about is whether photo.net ought to delete its copy of the archives. The only way we would do that is that the LF forum on photo.net had become a ghost town, at which point our deletion or non-deletion of the archives is a moot point.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-03

I must say that this discussion thread is becoming quite amusing to some of us who are outside of the USA. Are we now starting to see somebody “waffling” here? As a foreigner of the USA it will be interesting to see in the American principles towards each and every person shall have an equal vote and whether the democratic process actually works.

Stay tuned folks and lets see if the “proof is in the pudding’ so to speak.

GreyWolf, 2002-10-03

There really isn't anything to vote about.

So you have no intention of following through on the statement you posted on photo.net on 6/15/02:

"I should add that the photo.net decision-makers have been trying to have a meaningful sounding of opinion on this issue, and if we can come up with a way that will have representative input and not be subject to the charge of being rigged, we will conduct one and abide by the results."

Three and a half months ago you were willing to take a vote and abide by the wishes of the majority - why not now?

"We don't care what you want, the "LF Forum" (whatever that is) has decided that YOU belong someplace else. See ya."

Gee, if you replace "LF Forum" with "photo.net" you have EXACTLY what happened back in June. Of course, the difference this time is that we are proposing a democratic vote including ALL members of the effected LF community - not a unilateral grab and move of the forum while the moderator is incommunicado.

Kerry

Kerry Thalmann, 2002-10-03

What I said was a "meaningful sounding of opinion". At the time, I thought a poll would be reasonable, after people had the opportunity to see the alternatives.

However, four months have passed, probably another couple of months will be required before the alternatives can be compared. During that time, people have settled in at photo.net, especially the people who were photo.net members all along anyway. (A lot of photo.net members were never very clear on the difference between LUSENET and photo.net anyway.) It now seems to me now that the most meaningful sounding of opinion is just to let people vote with their feet. If you like, I changed my mind.

I would like to add one thing: it exasperates me in the extreme that the fact that LUSENET is still running keeps being thrown in my face as evidence of obvious bad faith in June. That system is up still only because we haven't brought it down, which would have been easier than having it continue. It has been argued that we should switch it off now, especially since we keep being taken to task for it being still up. I have been among those saying, "no, let's not do that until Philip gets back".

The argument in June for moving the forums was not that LUSENET was going to be switched off on July 1. It was that Philip intended to switch it off before much longer, was going on vacation for months, that the availability of other people to support the system was very iffy, and that Philip thought he had a volunteer to move the LUSENET forums at the beginning of June. The volunteer dematerialized in the middle of doing it, and I finished the work, stopping what I was doing at the time for a week.

It turns out that during the Summer LUSENET hasn't gone down that many times, and that people to do support have generally been found. In fact, it turns out the summer was less eventful than the Spring, when LUSENET was down for days, and one time for almost a week. This might have to do with the fact that the system is hardly used anymore. It seems like we would have been better off if we had just turned it off.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-03

Incidentally, GrayWolf, regarding your sarcastic little comment about whether "American principles" will be applied here, implying that this is some kind of "American" hypocrisy: I'm British.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-03

Brian,

I stand corrected and apologize for my error. In light of this new information you are now excused from any democratic obligations towards a free vote from the LF community at large.

Regards,

James Phillips, 2002-10-03

Whatever I may have said before, I don't see how a vote is useful here. The "community" is probably divided. There will be some people who prefer photo.net; and some will prefer the new forum. No doubt the people who developed it will prefer the new forum, and apparently there are people waiting on the sidelines for the new forum to start. Many others will prefer photo.net -- if only because they already hang out there and LF is only one of their photographic interests.

What would be achieved by a vote? If photo.net "wins" (whatever that is defined to mean), all the people who despise photo.net are not going to love it, suddenly. They will still want a new forum, and why shouldn't they have it? If the new forum "wins", will the minority who preferred photo.net be served by being compelled to go the new forum? Some of them perhaps, will move anyway, if they feel the "community" has moved. Others may feel that photo.net is their "community".

Talk of "democracy" in this context is silly. Democratic societies use voting when it is necessary to choose from mutually exclusive courses of action. The cost is that if you are in the minority you must then conform to the wishes of the majority.

In other contexts, though, democracies value other principles, such as "freedom", "liberty", and "choice". While it is nice that many LF participants feel that it is a "community", I think it is carrying this metaphor to the extreme when individual participants are compelled to act in one way or another because of a vote of the "community". People should be free to choose.

Forget about a "vote". Put up your forum, if that is what you want to do. Announce it, on photo.net if you want, See who comes. Good luck.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-03

In other contexts, though, democracies value other principles, such as "freedom", "liberty", and "choice". While it is nice that many LF participants feel that it is a "community", I think it is carrying this metaphor to the extreme when individual participants are compelled to act in one way or another because of a vote of the "community". People should be free to choose.

So, where was that freedom to choose back in June? All the mom and apple pie rhetoric is nice when it favors your current situation, but there was certainly no "freedom", "liberty" and "choice" back in June.

The only time you favored offering the members of the community a choice was when there was NO other viable alternative. Now that such an alternative exits and a democratic vote has been proposed, you have completely backpedaled on your earlier commitment to: "we will conduct one and abide by the results."

Kerry

Kerry Thalmann, 2002-10-03

That statement was made in the week following the move. You guys supposedly had software ready to roll and an alternate site almost up, at least you kept saying that you did back then. In that context, I was willing to have people vote. We didn't want to have the forum on photo.net if it was going to be constant bickering, and the forum was not going to take hold.

But you weren't ready, and there was no vote. It is now four months later and the forum is established on photo.net. People have joined that were not participants when it was on LUSENET. Many of the former LUSENET participants have wandered off and QTL has been minimally involved, but this has not prevented the photo.net forum from being successful, from my point of view. It will be even more established by the time you get this forum up somewhere else and running well enough for people to be able to make any decisions as to which is better.

Many people have voted with their feet and are participating on photo.net. Suddenly you are ready and would like me to agree to a "vote" that legitimizes your new forum as the "true" LF forum. People will come out of the woodwork who haven't been heard from in months and be counted (by you) as votes against photo.net. Then I am expected to wrap up the LF forum on photo.net, and pull the rug out from under people who *have* been participating there. I can't stop you from sending emails to people and holding a vote. And you can interpret the results any way you want. I've seen how you've interpreted previous polls. But don't expect me to consider it as binding on photo.net in any way.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-03

Brian, there is nothing sudden in what we are doing, as the plan was announced long ago, and back then I don't remember that we claimed to be "almost up". As for participation to photo.net, I have myself encouraged it as a temporary solution until a consensus could be reached, because, yes, while the new forum was not ready the alternatives were worse than photo.net.
Whether you agree on the idea of a vote, or on the idea of letting it influence your stance is entirely your own, but what won't cut it is to cast doubt on the legitimacy of such a vote with sentences like "People will come out of the woodwork who haven't been heard from in months and be counted (by you) as votes against photo.net" or " And you can interpret the results any way you want. I've seen how you've interpreted previous polls". The question will be unambiguous, and a copy of each email will be forwarded to services@photo.net. I've repeatedly asked you to prepare a statement.

Q.-Tuan Luong, 2002-10-03

"People will come out of the woodwork who haven't been heard from in months and be counted (by you) as votes against photo.net."

Didn't those people make the LUSENET archive (now copied to photo.net) what it is? Why shouldn't their votes count?

Sal Santamaura, 2002-10-03

Would not the honorable thing be to give back to Tuan the content that was originally created on his forum and let him decide? Also to let Brian retain any current postings at photo.net that has occurred since he moved the forum. After Tuan has taken any steps he would like with the content we could then let the LF community decide which and perhaps where they might elect to participate in LF discussions.

Does anybody really want to be the villain here? Common respect for those that have contributed to the creation of the content and managed said content should be remembered.

Kind regards,

GreyWolf, 2002-10-03

Brian, I have contribuited to the forum both before and after the move. Having said this, I think the move would be a good one for the LF at least. SInce I have been in the photo.net forum I have been insulted and cursed at many times. Things that never happend before. The continued smooth operation of the forum is still mainly due to Björn and QTL. WHo have put the time to moderate as well as develop the new software. So what is your problem? You were given a forum which was developed, with a somewhat faithfull following and you knew it was expected to move somewhere else once it was deemed feasible. NOw you are upset because the creators and developers of this forum want to move it? WHat have you done to contribute and expand the forum. WHere were you when the forum was started? I think you are just whining too much. Look if people want to move, they will move, regardless of what you want, I certainly will do so! I am sick of endless waits at photo.net. The incredible and sometimes rude and discourteous behavior of some of your members, to make a long story short I look forward to the time the LF moves and I am sure most of the "regulars" do so also!

Jorge Gasteazoro, 2002-10-03

Jorge, concerning the rude behaviour you allege on photo.net: you have been guilty of somewhat harsh behaviour several times yourself, and at least some of the rude comments you received were responses to this. I know this because when neither Bjorn or QTL seemed to be around, I moderated several threads in which you were involved. Indeed, I vaguely recall deleting some of your posts, although I could be mistaken.

As for whether it was a given that the participants would move en masse to an alternate forum: that has never been definite or "expected". Obviously, QTL expected it, although he has said it would not be his decision alone, only that it was what he wanted.

And while obviously the alternative forum was not a reality in the first weeks of June, I remember it being something that was supposedly just around the corner. When I agreed to a vote, I didn't imagine that you would disappear for 4 months, (or 5 or 6 -- when are you actually going to be ready with this, anyway?). Then reappear and act all surprised and affronted that the offer of a "vote" is no longer on the table.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-03

I have contributed to the forum both pre and post move. I was hesitant to post, but missed the give and take and exchange of information. So I started joining the discussions once again.

Post move, I have missed the quality that many of the contributors that dropped out brought to the forum. I have also been disappointed by the tone that some of the threads have taken post move. (This happened before, but not as frequently. These unfortunate outbursts seem to have fallen off somewhat lately.) Bottom line, no matter how you look at it things were better pre move.

Legalities aside, who is responsible for the success of this forum? Certainly not photo.net. Had the original site not been available, might not the forum have started somewhere else? If the information on the old forum was freely moveable before, why not now? Let the forums stand side by side with the same information available to everyone. Let the photographers decide where they want to go to access it. If it is all really about community, let the communities coexist.

This thread is certainly quite disturbing. I am sure a complete outsider would be amazed by it. After reading it I have decided to stop contributing to the large format and other photo.net forums. I will vote for a move to the new forum.

Dave Karp, 2002-10-04

Jorge, concerning the rude behaviour you allege on photo.net: you have been guilty of somewhat harsh behaviour several times yourself, and at least some of the rude comments you received were responses to this. I know this because when neither Bjorn or QTL seemed to be around, I moderated several threads in which you were involved. Indeed, I vaguely recall deleting some of your posts, although I could be mistaken.
No, no, I have had arguments with people, even with Kerry whom I respect very much. But I certainly have not told people to go f*** themselves, or that I would like to meet them to kick their ass. As some of your members are fond to do! As to you having deleted my post I am sure you never had.
As for whether it was a given that the participants would move en masse to an alternate forum: that has never been definite or "expected". Obviously, QTL expected it, although he has said it would not be his decision alone, only that it was what he wanted.
What? as I understood this, it was clear the LF would move out of photo.net when it was ready to do so and the only concern was the archives and what would happen to those posts that were done after the move. I agree, you want to keep the posts in archives that we have done since the move, fine. Those of us who posted there knew you were the "owners" of the posted material and it is your choice. But I certainly never thought you would refuse to move the old archives that were posted previous to the move. You or photo.net do not own those posts, we posted them on a non profit forum which hd agreed to leave the copy right with the author, as opposed to photo. net. Had I known this was going to be the behavior of people in charge of photo.net I would have never posted on photo.net and would have asked to have all my posts removed since I dont want them photo.net to own them. Let me remind you that the continued success of the LF forum and others moved to photo.net is because of the history and people who post in it before. Not because of something you have done!
In the end is obvious you are not going to permit the move of the archives, fine, I will make sure not to contribute to them any more. When the time comes that the real LF forum is ready I will do anything I can to make it a success and gladly forget about photo.net!

Jorge Gasteazoro, 2002-10-04

Dave, to be fair, the success of the LF Forum has to be credited largely to
Philip Greenspun. Earlier in the thread, Brian often refered to his
authority, however it would appear that Philip and Brian are at odds on some critical topics like the commercialization of photo.net.

Q.-Tuan Luong, 2002-10-04

Dave, to be fair, the success of the LF Forum has to be credited largely to Philip Greenspun.

I think that was directed to me, but in any case I agree the sucess is due in grand part to Philip. But the forum would not have gone any where had it not been for the very knowledgeable and informative contributions of many of the participants. This "fame" was brought to photo.net. Certainly photo.net did not have anything to do with it. It does not matter anyway, I think if someone had said this was going to occur right at the beguining and alterntive solution might have been found. Heck I would have rather us go to usefilm.com or any of the other "critique" sites.
Sure Philip provided a great environment for the forum to evolve, but that was Philip! how come Brian is the one now deciding what is to be done? If he has been in control of photo.net from the beguining then I think he should have warned us about his intentions. How come Philip has no say now?
If the desicion is still up to Philip, I think we are wasting our time arguing now. If it is not, then I suppose an agreement might be reached, but I seriously doubt it. I hope you have copies of the archives, lets keep those and continue on a brand new page.

Jorge Gasteazoro, 2002-10-04

Jorge, you apparently didn't read the rest of this thread before jumping in. If you had, you would know that the issue is not whether photo.net should make the LUSENET archives available to the guys running this new forum. QTL and Josh already have copies; so that is a moot issue.

The real issue is that Tuan implies here (although I admit that he does not say it directly) that he wants photo.net to delete its copy of the archives.

I have made it clear that we don't intend to do this. While photo.net does not claim a copyright in the posts, we consider that Philip Greenspun has transferred to us the license he had to serve those posts on the Web.

Tuan believes, apparently, that Philip never had such a license; that the posters were giving him the license to serve those posts on the Web; that he was simply taking advantage of Philip Greenspun's server, bandwidth, and forum software (which Philip provided him for free); and that it is therefore exclusively Tuan's right to move the posts to a different server if he wishes. To be quite accurate in this summary, it may be that Tuan doesn't believe he holds such a license, but rather that the "LF community" (whatever that might be) does collectively.

It is agreed that we won't agree on this, and it is also agreed that a lawsuit to decide the matter would only enrich the lawyers, neither side believing that a legal victory would be worth the expense.

Kerry and Tuan propose to settle the dispute of who should have the archives by an election, presumably with anyone who can be found who ever contributed even one post to those archives having a vote. They cite my willingness to have such a vote four months ago as reason why I should agree to this now.

I say that my offer to have a vote, which was not taken up at the time, is no longer on the table, and my proposal is that since we both have copies of the archives and neither side is interested in legally contesting the other's right to them, we simply agree to maintain the two copies of the archives and let people vote with their feet as to which server/forum they prefer. Probably some will prefer the one and some will prefer the other, and therefore we will end up with two LF forums holding the archives, which does not seem to be such a bad thing.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-04

Tuan,

Obviously, I cannot argue with you over the history. Thank you for correcting me.

It does not, however, change my view of the overall nature of the discussion in this thread. My question remains: If the contents of the old forum were moveable before, why not now?

There has been a lot of discussion of legalities in this thread. In my opinion, the law sets a minimum standard of behavior. For example: The civil law says you cannot batter me, and if you do, you must pay damages. It does not say that you must be nice to me, or hold a door open for me, or help me if I am in trouble. Different standards of behavior, or civility, come into play. The minimum standards of the law protect us against specified behaviors. The higher standards help communities to thrive.

I would hope that a higher standard could come into play here, and that there could (and should) be a reasonable compromise here, without resort to what one party or the other thinks is "legal."

Dave Karp, 2002-10-04

Tuan, it is true that before he departed on his vacation Philip had a different view on the future of photo.net than practically everybody else involved. He decided to make it a business in 1999 but as of four months ago his opinion was that it should become a non-profit, since in his view, it had failed as a business. He said as much in his "Ask Philip" forum on philip.greenspun.com. None of the people who are actually involved in operating photo.net as a business, nor the investors, agree with this view.

This disagreement is not actually very relevant to the topic under discussion. The decision to move LUSENET photography forums to photo.net was a decision that Philip made and the photo.net management more or less acquiesced because Philip was going to arrange to have the work done by volunteers, various friends of his.

Several attempts were made in the Spring and the final one in June would have failed also, except that by then I was involved in running photo.net. As someone who had participated in several of the LUSENET forums, I thought they would be an asset to photo.net, and taking it at face value that LUSENET was being wound down, I stepped in to complete the migration when the volunteer had to abandon the effort.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-04

The real issue is that Tuan implies here (although I admit that he does not say it directly) that he wants photo.net to delete its copy of the archive
Brian I have read the entire thread and it is very clear what Tuan wants. It is obvious to anybody who has followed this forum since before the move. As I see it is this....Once the forum has "moved" the old posts belonging to the LF forum are to be placed at the new forum and removed from photo.net. It is a clear and from the beguining understood position. I, like many others did not think photo.net should benefit from archives that were not to be "owned" by anybody. Why is this position so hard for you to understand?
In any case, I beleive this point is mute..since you have clearly indicated you have made up your mind, you obviously realized this archives had value....so in the end I think the position and the promises photo.net made were less than honest. In any case what is done is done, I think Tuan trusted Philip and thought Philip understood and agreed with him. Since you are now apparently making the desicions...well what is to be done?..nothing.....although I would love to have all my posts removed from your site, you already have indicated you will not do so....so why keep beating a dead horse?....
Tuan, buddy...forget it and move on!...no sense wasting more time and energy on photo.net and these people...barring any legal action, (which would be a dumb move) you are not going to get your way....so forget it...let them have the archives and keep the photo.net members posting on the photo.net LF forum...I know I and many others will be at your site....

Jorge Gasteazoro, 2002-10-04

Brian,

my proposal is that since we both have copies of the archives and neither side is interested in legally contesting the other's right to them, we simply agree to maintain the two copies of the archives and let people vote with their feet as to which server/forum they prefer. Probably some will prefer the one and some will prefer the other, and therefore we will end up with two LF forums holding the archives, which does not seem to be such a bad thing.

On face value I agree with you on this one. However, it's not that simple. Having duplicate archives would confuse the search engines, and more importantly those searching for information about large format photography. I really don't know who would get higher placement in the search engines, but if I had to bet on it, I'd say photo.net (of course it will vary from seach engine to search engine depending on their placement algorithm - still I think 99% of the world useses Google these days). I'm not arguing for or against duplicate archives just, pointing out there may be practical issues resulting from such a compromise.

Jorge,

although I would love to have all my posts removed from your site, you already have indicated you will not do so

Actually, Brian has stated on several occassions he would remove posts from individual contributors if requested. For example:

As a practical matter, notwithstanding what our said above about making hash of discussions, if anyone insists on their pre-photo.net forum content being deleted, and can demonstrate that they posted it, we will delete it, since we don't want to be in the position of hosting content over the objections of its original author when the legal status of the content is so clouded.

Just as photo.net will have to answer to anyone who wants his LUSENET postings to be deleted from photo.net.

First of all, I have said we will delete any LUSENET content whose contributor objects to its being here, provided the person
making the request can establish that he is indeed the contributor.

I have more quotes to the same effect that were posted by Brian on the lusenet forum between the 6/2 move and the 6/12 shut down, but those listed above were all posted on photo.net and are there in the archives for anyone to verify.

Unlike the clouded ownership of an entire archive with thousdands of contibutors, this one is pretty clear cut - the original poster, as the creator holds the copyright to their original works. And as clearly stated in the photo.net terms of usage:

"Submitting material that is the property of another, without the consent of its owner, is not only a violation of this agreement, but may also subject You to legal liability for infringement of copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property rights."

Since none of the lusenet posts were submitted to photo.net by their owners (they were moved en masse by Brian from lusenet to photo.net - without the permission of their owners), keeping those posts on photo.net against the wishes of their owners is clearly a violation of photo.net's own terms of usage agreement - let alone copyright law.

So, if you as an individual contributor, and undisputable copyright holder to any works you created, should request a deletion of any, or all, of your lusenet posts from the photo.net archives, I don't see how Brain could refuse. He has stated repeatedly he would honor such requests and to not do so would be in direct violarion of both the photo.net terms of usage and copyright law.

BTW, I am not recommending anyone take Brain up on this offer. That is for each and every individual to decide on their own. I'm just pointing out that Brian has made such an offer for those individual contributors who wish to have their lusenet-contributed content removed from archives now residing on photo.net.

Kerry

Kerry Thalmann, 2002-10-04

Kerry you are correct and if I thought in any way it would help the argument I would request to have them removed. In the end the posts are only opinions and/or information and if in some way they help someone get started in LF well then, who cares where they read it? Besides I think it would be a petty request...Should I or anybody else request to have the posts removed just to spite Brian? I dont think this is the solution and I really think he will not remove them. it would take way too much work etc, and the risk he is running by leaving them there is minimal. I care what happens to the LF forum, but as I see things shaping up I think if it was my desicion I would just leave it alone and move on. Judging from the many times I have seen the "what LF camera should I buy?" posts in photo.net people are not reading the archives...so why fight over them!

Jorge Gasteazoro, 2002-10-04

Kerry, yes we are agreed on the requirement to delete posts if requested.

In the absence of written terms concerning the LUSENET posts, I am inferring that Greenspun had a license to serve the posts that was transferrable (and actually transferred) to photo.net. I am certainly not prepared to claim that it was an irrevocable license, and if somebody wishes to revoke it for his or her posts, we will delete the posts.

This would apply also to your copy of the archives, I would presume, but that is something for you all to decide.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-04

I should probably add that we have looked into the technical issues of removing an individual's posts, and if anybody does want his removed, they shouldn't expect it to happen instantly.

We actually don't have any software to delete en-masse all the posts of an individual. And it isn't just a simple database command, since if a post is the "question" (i.e. first post) in a thread, deleting it would effectively delete the entire thread. Also, when we migrated the posts, many users ended up with several different user-ids because of all the changes and misspellings of their email address over the years. We don't have any systematic way to find all of those different ids for one person. If we did, we would have merged them.

All of this means that if people do request us to delete posts, it won't be done right away and it might not eliminate all the posts. We will probably wait for a batch of such requests and do them all at one time.

Brian Mottershead, 2002-10-04

Sorry for coming into this thread so late in the discussion - I have only just realised it was here. Having read the thread completely, I have a couple of comments and some questions to ask.
It seems to me that the quality of the LUSENET forum was in the contributors and their knowledgable answers, not the archives per se. Ask a question and receive good advice at all levels of knowledge, or be directed to such knowledge. Get those same people contributing again and you'll get a quality forum.
The archives were not easily searchable in any event. They were only of real use when someone remembered that they had read (or written) an answer to a question and directed the new asker to the thread. Sure, it was valuable to browse the archives, and still would be, but how much time would an experienced LF operator spend browsing? I contend that it is not much. The newbie will devour the archives because it is the best resource of LF info out there. Why would it matter if those archives are held in two sites? Forget about the 9 months of lost threads and get on with it!
People will contribute to the forum on which they can get the best information, whether by asking or browsing. It is apparent to me that if the archives are essentially the same on both sites, the difference between the sites will be the current contributors. The most knowledgable LF users aren't contributing to photo.net, but would probably do so here.
I suggest that this forum should be opened with the old archives attached, whether or not they are still available on photo.net. Get the "old crew" back online and I will spend much more time here than on photo.net.
A good forum is about interaction more than archives.
My (late) 2 cents worth.
Graeme

Graeme Hird, 2002-10-24

Graeme, I always found it relatively easy to find information in the LF archives of LUSENET using a Google Advanced Search. Limiting things to the domain greenspun.com typically resulted in a significant number of useful matches. I suspect that approach will work even better at a venue like the one envisioned for this forum, where large format photography, and only large format photography, is served.

The matter of how a forum gets used is not always easy to obtain consensus on. Philip Greenspun was quite clear that he intended LUSENET to be an archival resource, not a chat room. I agree with his approach, and find many photo.net posters' unwillingness to research the archives most annoying. In the LUSENET days I occasionally succumbed to temptation and posted a redundant answer to a redundant question, or even referred folks to the archives, but mostly ignored such questions. Since the move to photo.net, failure to check archives has become much more frequent, with some folks not even reading prior answers in the same thread! For the most part I just stay out of it now.

This doesn't mean I disagree with you about contributor quality. People do have questions not covered in the archives that require good, informed answers and, in my opinion, those responses will once again be posted when the LF Forum moves (or "forks") to an appropriate home.

Sal Santamaura, 2002-10-28

This thread is certainly quite disturbing. I am sure a complete outsider would be amazed by it.

---

Heck, I'm an old-timer whose been away for a few months and I'm thoroughly alarmed by it. Is this still going on? Just thought I'd pop in and its like I never left. :-)

Well y'all know my vote, in case I'm not here to vote it. I also scarfed a copy of the archives just before the move, in the event that should be needed for a move (though I have no idea if its in a useable form for that purpose).

the above email wont get to me but I didnt feel like re-registering for one post.

"stef0077 at umn dot edu" will get to me, at least for now. adios!

Wayne, 2002-11-01

I had been a frequent visitor and occasional participant in the pre-photo net forum and was not optimistic about the move.

Like others I am missing the quality of the old forum and view this whole thing with regret. Like others I have not posted to the new forum, but check on it maybe once every three weeks. Like others, I'd like this post to be read by more than six people but it probably wont be.

This situation has a bad smell to it, most coming from the greenspun / photonet side. First QTL tells us that the server will no longer be available and we should be preparing for an urgent move .... an informal voicing of opinions is heard, and suddenly we all end up in the photo net boat. Spin doctoring aside, photo net is a for profit entity and they are using archived comments from the old forum as a means to enhance that profit. I don't recall the possibility of any of this being pointed out to me when joining the old forum.

What was presented as a lifeline is in reality a hijacking ... although I respect and sincerely thank QTL for his efforts with the old forum, I feel he was ill prepared for this situation and allowed photonet to take advantage of him and by extension the old forum contributors.

This so-called new prototype forum has minimal activity and what appears to be zero pro active contact with the old forum members. Brian M. must smile everytime he visits .... it's a lesson in how not to do a site or forum.

Don't tell me I should be thankful that someone is at least trying. I was but I'm not anymore ... either do the job or give it to someone else to do. This has been three or four months of " prototyping ". It's time to get the real thing.

So either do it or get off the pot .... finalize server and software, contact the old forum members for permission to use their postings and archives and get things back to the way they were, even better with some additional features. The longer you wait the more difficult it will be to fill in the time gap.

And please don't tell me it's not as simple as all that. I work for an isp / web development company and have some sense of what's involved. Sorry for the vent, if I can help, please e-mail me.

Michael Mahoney, 2002-11-03

Hi Michael,

I believe it is pretty obvious by now to everyone that this forum idea has come to an end and Brian from photo.net was correct.

Now it is time to accept the facts and move on.

GreyWolf, 2002-11-09

I believe it is pretty obvious by now to everyone that this forum idea has come to an end and Brian from photo.net was correct.

Now it is time to accept the facts and move on.

James,

I too wish things were happening faster and that the new forum was live and up and running at its new permanent home. But it's not, so I continue to be patient.

Nothing has changed with respect to my concerns about the forum on photo.net. Therefore, I have no plans to start posting on the photo.net forum. In fact, even if this forum never goes live, I have no intention of ever becoming a regular contributor to the large format forum on photo.net.

As I've stated before, the reasons I don't post there are based on my own personal circumstances and my own personal concerns. I do not try to discourage others from participating in the photo.net large format forum. It's a personal choice. I've made my choice and am content to wait for Tuan and Bjorn to do what they have to do to get this forum officially online.

Since there hasn't been any kind of a status update lately, some have taken this as a sign that there has been no progress over the last month or two. So, Tuan and Bjorn, could you please give us a quick update on the status and plans for this forum?

At this point, the software seems to be reasonably bug free and quite usable. Regardless of whether or not photo.net is willing to "give back" the pre-June 2 archives they took from the old lusenet large format forum on greenspun.com, I think we should go ahead and proceed to get our own version of those archives online, move this forum to an appropriate server, and "go live" ASAP. Brian has made it very clear that he has no intention of removing the greenspun.com content from the photo.net servers. Whether or not we (collectively or individually) agree with the ethics or legality of that position, I see little point in further delaying the activation of this forum. It will probably cause a fair amount of confusion to have two forums and two sets of archives, but that would be the case whether we went live tomorrow or six months from now.

Kerry

Kerry Thalmann, 2002-11-11

Ditto Kerry.

Sal Santamaura, 2002-11-11

Micheal and James, I do not agree with your accessment that
the alternative forum is unsuccessful. In fact, we have not even
announced it anywhere because it is a prototype. When we are ready
to go live be sure that we will contact personally all the former participants of the lusenet forum, as well as announce it repeatedly
on photo.net. Kerry and Sal, I think Bjorn was on vacation for a while
and then myself just returned from another trip.
BTW, Kerry, I saw
your image of the Court of Patriarchs in winter in the official Zion
calendar. Nice !

Q.-Tuan Luong, 2002-11-11

I stand corrected.

Now I wait to see the "proof in the pudding" so to speak.

Regards,

James

GreyWolf, 2002-11-12