Deleted View Camera Thread?

[Kerry L. Thalmann]

As I don't get the discrimination between commercial and not-for-profit status. What's the big deal? Where does this come from?

Bob,

It's historic. I won't go into every detail, but this forum was originally hosted on donated hardware and software provided by Phillip Greenspun. Since the HW and SW were both donated, comercial postings were banned. It didn't seem fair that someone could come in and turn a profit of the hard work and resources donated by others. For years, everything was fine

At one point a few years ago, without Tuan's consent, the contents of the large format forum at greenspun.com were appropriated and transferred to the commercial photo.net service. This rubbed a lot of people here the wrong way (you can read Tuan's feelings about this here and here).

Through a tremendous effort, new forum software was written from scratch by volunteers and this site was once again hosted on a non-commercial, donated server. The forum now uses commercial software, but the site is still hosted on donated HW and the forums are maintained and moderated by volunteers.

Over time, the absolute ban on commercial posts has softened. Keep in mind, people involved in commercial enterprises have never been banned from posting here. They have always been free to participate in discussions, as long as their posts were not promoting their commercial ventures. About a year ago, the guidelines were ammended to permit one time announcements about LF related conferences and workshops. While those are definitely commercial ventures, it was felt the benefit to the community (call it the greater good), was more important than maintaining an outright ban on all commercial posts. These type of posts are now allowed, but there are restrictions and limitations.

The question here is why was Steve's post singled out and deleted for violating these restrictions while other commercial enterprises are allowed to post repeatedly without having their posted deleted by the moderators.

Kerry

[QT Luong]

We are paying attention to the discussion, but at that time have not reached a consensus. Also Ralph is away, and so will I in the next few days. In the while, a few questions to fuel the discussion:

What is the difference between sending out a flyer to your mailbox describing the contents of a new book, and posting a table of contents for a paying magazine in the forum ? Is one an advertisement, and the other just informational ? Is it relevant that the price of the magazine (which anyways is expected to be in the $4-$10 range) is not mentioned ?

Let assume that I write every two months technical articles or reviews that are posted on my website. Each time a new article is available, I post an abstract to the forum. To read, you have to pay $25/article. Are my announcements acceptable ? What if they require no payment, but just registration (possibly with a free yahoo or hotmail address) ? What if the articles do not even require registration ? What if on my website, I sell photos, which allow me to make a living ? What if all of a sudden I win the lottery, and no longer have them for sale, but just exhibit them as a hobby ?

If there is a periodical that has new material about large format photography every quarter, would it be acceptable for the owner to announce the contents of every new entry ? What about every month ? What about weekly ? What about daily (such as some blogs) ?

Do you want dealers to come on the forum and announce any new product they have ? What about any new inventory they have, so that you don't have to go to their website and check ?

[steve simmons]

As an interested party I think periodic updates should be allowed. As I have explained in my long post Magnachrome is not truly free. Neither was the T-Max film that John and Michael Kadillak promoted activley on this forum. I do not announce the contents of View Camera daily, weekly, or even monthly. I have announced the contents only a few times and no ore often than Magnachrome which makes his money at the backend rather than partially at the front as I do. His model is to mine this list to get contact info for future solicitations which is a violation of the guidleines - there is no other reason to have this verified contact info. To ignore this is either naive or just biased as so many people have said the policy seems to be. This is not just me but many people who have no ties to me at all.

If you are going to ban commercial posts - posts where the poster has any financial interest then ban all of them across the board, not just some. That would mean any product or service that is not truly free - no strings or registration requirement - no conferences, gatherings, workshops, solicitations for selling of film, magazines which cost money or have hidden strings, etc.But I think the forum would lose some of its value which is where people can find out about relevant activities and products related to lf photography.

steve simmons

[QT Luong]

Many forums, including photo.net, enforce a strict non commercial policy in the discussion areas. What's unique about this forum is that we, site operators, have decided not to make money from the site. However, one of the reasons why we switched to the new software (not without effort) was to satisfy a demand for a venue for some commercial announcements as well as classifieds.

The postings that Kerry pointed to were not allowed, and should they have come to the attention of a moderator earlier, they would have been already removed. When someone in the past had a long history of not abiding to forum policy, his posts are more likely to catch the attention of a moderator than someone who doesn't have a problem history.

Differences between VC postings and other recent magazine announcements:

Magnachrom postings: (a) access to contents is free,
(b) Magnachrom is a new magazine without (yet) predictable publication times, (c) the only Magnachrom-related posts are those announcements. (d) the issue is available at the time of posting

Rangefinder posting: (a) poster is not affiliated with magazine, (b) access to contents is free, (c) likely a one-time announcement. (d) the issue is available at the time of posting

As for revising the policy with respect to periodicals, I am open to finding a compromise, and I appreciate any input, including from parties with special interests. It would help, though, if the questions I asked were answered sincerely.

[AlaBill]

First of all I'm new here and my have a slightly different viewpoint than some.

I'm back in large format after shooting digital only for the past 5 years and I have some learning to do and this site is great for that.

I've bought equipment from the classifieds, I found out about Magnachrome from this site, read about Satin Snow here, ordered a 2 year subscription to View Camera, and I read most of the anouncements about workshops although I have not yet taken one. All of this from this website.

THANK YOU QT for this forum and all the information on large format photography. It is really invaluable.

I actually hate the new commercial photo.net site with all the ads popping up everywhere and I don't want to go there, but some of this information is helpful to newbies like me.

Mostly I don't want this discussion to affect the great information shared on this site.

Bill

[al olson]

In my view, a thread listing the contents of the upcoming issue of View Camera falls within the guidelines. Each issue is a one-time event just the same as each annual View Camera Conference is a one-time event.

The table of contents of View Camera provides a list of articles that the large format photographer may find of interest. It is informational. The listing of seminars and workshops for the View Camera Conference serves the same purpose.

The only difference is the frequency of occurrence ... one is bimonthly and the other is annual.

I applaud the purpose of keeping the annoyance of the commercial hucksters from contaminating the content of this forum. However, I presume that Steve's email (haven't seen it, of course) was intended to be informational. As a subscriber (my declaration of conflict of interest) I would look forward to seeing a preview of what will appear in the next issue.

As mentioned earlier, critiquing the articles and policies of View Camera becomes fair game in these threads. Members are free to comment on any aspect of View Camera. If another member of this forum had presented the table of contents, would it have been different?

Steve is making a significant contribution in promoting and supporting the art of large format photography. I view his efforts as being within the context of the forum.

[al olson]

Addendum ...

And now I discover a Fuji promotion called

http://choose-film.com/

This feels much more like a commercial announcement than View Camera's table of contents.

[BrianShaw]

Rangefinder posting: (a) poster is not affiliated with magazine, [snip], (c) likely a one-time announcement.

Ahh, here's the loophole. Steve... for your next issue send me an e-mail with the new VC TOC and I'll post a message for you - something like "Hey folks, I heard through the grapevine that the new VC is being printed and will have articles including: How long is my beard; My format is bigger than yours; The largest collection of seldom used LF lenses; The demise of online photo forums."

DISCLAIMERS:
(1). THIS IS A JOKE
(2). I DON'T KNOW STEVE SIMMONS, NOR DO I RITE FOR HIS MAGAZINE
(3). I SUPPORT THE POSTING OF VC TOC ON A ONCE EVERY SEMI-MONTHLY BASIS AS A PUBLIC SERVICE
(4). THIS IS A JOKE

[MJSfoto1956]

As I have explained in my long post Magnachrome [sic] is not truly free.

Actually Steve, it really and truly is free by any normal person's defintion.

I do not announce the contents of View Camera daily, weekly, or even monthly. I have announced the contents only a few times and no ore often than Magnachrome [sic] which makes his money at the backend rather than partially at the front as I do.

Actually, part of the problem Steve is the annoying and persistent habit that you (and your team) have of posting "something" about ViewCamera within hours of any post I attempt to make. For example: how many times did you "announce" the View Camera conference, dude?

His model is to mine this list to get contact info for future solicitations which is a violation of the guidleines - there is no other reason to have this verified contact info.

This is a gross exaggeration Steve. Shame of you. We need verification only to prevent spoofing of our website. Our contract with readers stipulates that we will never sell or rent their email address to anyone. OTOH if anyone has been "mining" this forum it has been you.

To ignore this is either naive or just biased as so many people have said the policy seems to be. This is not just me but many people who have no ties to me at all.

..or perhaps a better explanation is that this statement is nothing more than a thinly-guised attempt at trashing the competition?

*** BEGIN RANT ***

After years of questionable future, the large format community is showing healthy signs of growth. It's time for people to realize that the "pie" is growing too and that there is plenty of room at the table for websites, forums, blogs, online journals, and print journals to CONTRIBUTE in a collaborative way to this growth. There is no reason to trash MC Steve. In spite of your 19 years in the business, the large format world is not yours alone. You need to chill a bit. Go take a long ride on your horse. Likewise, I think posting a table of contents of an EXISTING resource (as opposed to opportunistically posting it weeks before it will ship) should be allowed.

*** END RANT ***

[tim atherton]

Addendum ...

And now I discover a Fuji promotion called

http://choose-film.com/

This feels much more like a commercial announcement than View Camera's table of contents.

I don't know - does baxter work for Fuji?