I've always attempted to dose curmudgeonliness when symptoms call for it. Sometimes poison can exterminate pests. I prefer sharing useful large format photography information (and rebutting nonsense "information") as a steady diet, resorting to being a curmudgeon only on those occasions when annoying, irritating "topics" arise.Originally Posted by Oren Grad
With apologies to Paracelsus: "Sola dosis facit venenum".
The OP (it) spends more time on Photrio (formerly APUG/DPUG) where there's an open, friendly atmosphere and far less of the above.
So what?; who cares?; what’s the criteria to be a “valid” forum member?; who’s the judge of that?
Judge not lest...
... bla bla... throwing stones; glass houses...
Jonathon,
I would suggest that the above isn’t even an example of curmudgeonliness, let alone unfriendliness. It was simply pointing out a plain fact, and drawing a rather neutrally stated conclusion. If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.
I’m also a member of Photrio, though I’m not really active there. It’s a good forum with a little different flavor than this one (and a different objective). I could say the same for the Pentax forum, where I’m more active. And several non-photography forums. In all cases, the owners earn incomes from the forums, and they delete posts and ban people based on threats to the popularity of their forums. Popularity is what drives ad impressions, which is directly tied to income. I’m not at all suggesting they do so unfairly, but the attainment of their objective is easy to measure.
If curmudgeons’ posts are routinely deleted or their threads closed, those curmudgeons wander along. But that doesn’t mean the forum or its users really benefit from their departure. It seems clear to me that the majority seeking affirmation rather than (or at least more than) learning and truth may prefer a place with only positive reinforcement, but that makes beginners, not experts.
Since we don’t care about ad revenue, we don’t have to worry about popularity. Nobody here wants to be mean-spirited or insulting on a personal level. But they are interest in the development, not just the affirmation, of large-format photographers. Sometimes, that means coming to a point. And coming to a point implies the occasional tendency to be a bit sharp.
If those who think our curmudgeons are really being unfriendly would simply assume that they aren’t, and look for the truth and value in that sharp advice, they might find that some of those curmudgeons have learned some lessons that are less painful to learn by taking heed than through personal experience.
Obviously, we try to minimize mean-spiritedness, when we detect it, but maybe we give more benefit of the doubt than you expect. And there are topics that people inevitably take personally and that aren’t related to the topic here, such as partisan politics, and we disallow those.
But this I know: the people I have learned the most from in life were those unwilling to coddle me and instead delivered the unvarnished truth I needed to hear. Maybe I didn’t realize that at the time. And on occasion they misread my needs. But even then it didn’t do me any harm to hear it again, or any harm to silent readers who did need it.
Rick “for whom the mission here is the development of expert, independent large-format photographers through fellowship and advice” Denney
By the above, I was only referring to Dan Fromm's post.
Jonathan, if that's your name, I have no idea whether you're male or female. This because screen names aren't required to be their owners' real names. You could be male, you could be female, you could be confused, ... You're probably not a dog, you type better than the average dog.
Using the first person neuter pronoun seems better than assuming what your gender is. I once made the mistake of assuming a Trinidadian official whose given name is Lalla was female. Caution, person, caution.
Dan, I've browsed a decade of your comments on this site and I'd expect nothing less than the above.
Rick “So was I” Denney
I’ve learned a lot from Dan, in between being exasperated by him. But it’s fair to say I’ve annoyed him a time or two, also.
I’ve never thought he intended ill to me or anyone else.
But now who is making it personal?
Rick “this has probably run its course, but we’ll see” Denney
Good grief!
I used to enjoy the conversations about the items on sale because some of the items were unknown to me - almost always (almost!) learned something new. No big deal, I guess.
I have had a few FS posts deleted because they were considered bumps (i honestly did not think they were); no editing, no 'sale pending payment' posts - I finally got it!
My rule: post it, forget it, close the thread when it has sold. We have much bigger things to worry about.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks