ADMIN: Ask LF questions here or on photo.net?

[Alan Gibson]

I raised a question over the 'copyright 2000,2001 photo.net' that they put on all the forum pages. The question was never answered. Their 'terms of use' now include the dreaded words "All material You submit to any of our chat rooms, forums, and other public posting areas becomes the property of photo.net and may be reproduced, modified, and distributed as we see fit in any medium and for any purpose."

I won't put anything significant into a site that claims copyright over _my_ words.

As far as I can see, the LF forum wouldn't gain anything from further integration with photo.net. It might get slightly wider visibility, which would be fine, but I doubt there would be much difference. It doesn't need wider visibility; it has a large pool of experts and novices, with many new people posting.

The real downside of 'joining up' with photo.net includes a loss of control, particularly over the appearance and functionality of the forum.

Post LF questions here of photo.net? Here, of course. This is where the people who really care about LF hang out.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I think the MFD forum is evidence that the forum won't be contaminated by the unwashed 35mm users, and that it would probably be good for them to be exposed to other kinds of photography (how's *that* for elitism!), but I'm somewhat dismayed by the increasingly commercialism of photo.net, though I understand why it must do it to support itself, and I recognize that it is not nearly as bad as many other such sites (e.g., the various digicam sites). The relief from advertisement is an attraction of the LF forum. I don't see any good reason to change it at this point.

[Marc]

You mention elitist and exclusivist reasons for maintaining our seperate identity here, I preferr to look at the reasons more as a matter of pride. Pride in the fact that the base or core users of this site havent't required a password to enter; the site hasn't been shut down because of racial, ethnic and other offensive material; there are very few un-related posts and those that do appear are given a polite and accurate response, not yelled at and told they are stupid or worse just deleted.

We have one of the very few sites that is productive, civil, interesting and at times even amusing. If others want to find this site, it is here, we all found it. If it is a lack of traffic, I see days when there are actually more posts on this site than photo.net, of course who knows how many are deleted over there or never make it because of a spelling check they have.

Elitist, no just concerned that we don't get "acquired" by the big fish; ask Chrysler how they feel about thier merger of "equals".