The Photography Staff has noted that Forum participation has been down for the past several weeks. We were wondering if there is anything you would like to see here to help make things more active. Any ideas? We are planning to have a new banner 'contest' so that we can have some fresh banners in the forum and gallery - not that there is anything wrong with the current crop. We are also working to get the Forum FAQs updated and reposted -- to answer any common questions people may have about the various Forum challenges and the like. Any input you may have would be appreciated, thanks!

I would think it's probably a cyclical thing...that, and the fact that this is a time of year when many members in the northern hemisphere, take some vacation time...

No for me I have too much work and way too many great photo's to look at something has to give! Plus it's holiday season.

I was thinking it's because it's summer time ....

I realize that it being Summer is part of the issue, yes.

Summer what summer lol Well if anybody has any good ideas just let us know

You're not gonna like this .

Lock the:   'Post ANYTHING'  thread. 
That seems to be a separate forum / gallery that has taken on a life of its own. 
People used  to post their 'anything' shots in the forum to share just for fun or to get feedback etc. etc.  This stopped for reasons which I am not going to go into because you know them well enough, the situation has changed now, time has moved on and it would be really nice if people felt confident and relaxed enough to again post 'anything' in the forum - shots just for fun, or to share, get feedback on etc etc etc. or just  news of what they are doing or their family etc etc.  

I know its a photography forum but we are people as well and we don't all live and breathe photography every minute,  let people post off topic threads - what's wrong with that ?  In the past scorn has been poured on this and I don't understand why.  Sorry Kort I guess I am saying lock the OT thread too.

Invite members to contribute to tips and techniques threads - there are loads of people here who are displaying a huge range of photographic and postwork skills. I'm guessing a lot of people would be willing to share their knowledge if they were invited to and I don't mean just invite the regular forum contributors.

Use the challenges to open up new threads for people to share skills and knowledge or just general anecdotes on the subject . EG if you have a challenge take a pic with  pinhole camera    ( I picked a subject you are unlikely to have  ) - open a thread on that subject for people to share tips and stories etc. ...........   Invite the winner at the end to perhaps say a bit about their image if they would like to etc........

OK I'm done for now

The idea for those threads was not to discourage people from posting but rather to give them a specific place TO post things off the topic of Photography yet perhaps not "important" enought to warrant a new thread (important might not be the best choice of words, but I hope you get my meaning). This is a Photography Forum, and we don't want to dilute that overmuch. People come here mainly for photography related reasons I am assuming. I don't think that locking those threads would do anything to encourage more posting in the other ones -- or the creation of new threads -- but let's see what other members say. I'm all for loosening things up a bit if we can maintain our focus. Good ideas about the tips and techniques threads and challenges, thanks Richard.

One thing i'd like to see has been suggested before in another thread....introduce a "Critiques" thread/gallery.....Personally I'd like some of my images critiqued harshly. I don't think thats going to happen in the main gallery. 

We have a "Gallery of the month" sticky...maybe introduce a sticky where a chosen person can upload 5 of the images in their gallery, and have people pick them apart....

Don't get me wrong, I like ( and prefer, thruth to tell) positive statements. But I feel that I also need to be told where I right royally stuffed up.

Just reiterating an idea.....

Well thats some great thoughts to get us started keep em coming guys

Member can always feel free to post their work in the Forum and ask for a critique. Perhaps we should make sure everyone is aware of this more often. ;']

Kort hit the nail on the head for me, when he said some people who post to the 'post anything' thread, don't think the images warrant starting an entire thread of it's own. At least that's why I contribute to that thread...I don't know....maybe I just am a bit shy to start my own threads, lol.

Anyway, in my view, I am doing exactly what Richard suggested, posting  "shots just for fun, or to share, get feedback on etc etc etc. or just  news of what they are doing or their family etc etc. ".

As to the other suggestions, I think they are all valuable . Great idea to have a thread like this, Kort. :^)

Yes also members can ask for critique I see that most people then are willing to offer critique more readily in the main gallery... The thread we had in the forum was a great idea and yet did not seem to get a lot of interest... So even if it is summer  with these ideas we get can take us in the long winter nights as well ..

Maybe you could  have an OPEN HOUSE kinda thang to get more member to come here and participate..  If possible, offer a small prize for the winners of the upcoming banner contest (hat, t-shirt or doo-rag)  might be just the thing to  inject some new blood and views around here!

Checkout some of the other photo-related sites and see what kinds of stuff they do....maybe borrow some of the ideas to use as a template here. 

If there are members who are looking for candid critique of their work, a consistent way of doing so should be implemented and advertised, so everyone is aware and expectations are set

Seems the POST ANYTHING thread has become more about QUANTITY and getting to the next page than sharing/ feeback to me as of late.  I don't have a problem with sharing stuff, but there needs to be some balance to it.  People also want to learn technique and whatnot ...y'know?

My wooden nickel

Joe

I don't have a problem with off topic threads...within reason..

If it is funny or helps us to get to know each other..sure why not?

Politics and religion...I would draw the line there..I still have the scars from working the old OT forum...

Critique..we tried that before it worked for a time..but very few members wanted to submit images..

Banners..

We were going to continue with the rotating thing...it gives everyone one a chance to be seen..

we just need to work out a few details

" Critique..we tried that before it worked for a time..but very few members wanted to submit images.."

It's funny. I've been here a while now...and this seems to come up over and over and over  again. There seems to always be people who 'want' critique, and yet they feel they don't actually get it. I don't know why, but that has never been a problem for me. Meaning, I do get critique...( more often than I'd probably like to, lol  )...but maybe it's all in the way you present your work......I've said this before, just clicking the 'critical comments wanted' box  isn't enough. If you upload something you are unsure about, or seriously want critique, you should explicitly say that, when you upload. I think it makes people feel more comfortable saying what they really think...And you, as the 'commenter' won't think that person will now get angry at you and/or do something really absurd, like delete their gallery.  :^/

Evidently, clicking that box isn't enough...because people who can't handle constructive criticism are still going to click it. I mean, seriously...who clicks the box that says they only want positive comments? Have you seen that? I haven't.

In other words, people who want hard critique should blatantly  say so, in their upload. Every time I've seen someone do that, they always get it.  At least, that's my experience.....Oh and also, a slightly self-effacing attitude doesn't hurt,  either. In other words, if someone uploads a pic and says, 'Enjoy!!!',  it doesn't exactly sound like that person thinks their pic needs work, lol.

Okay 'Margana' off her soapbox...and if I went OT, which I guess I did, then  I'm glad you guys are thinking that's okay once in a while, lol. ;^P

to margana...very true....i'll start asking for it.

back to topic...maybe increase the number of challenges with people voting to one a week instead of one a month.

Send out a newsletter reminding people that the forums are open to everyone. It is a presumption that they visit it in the first place, so lets tell everyone its here and free for all.

I don't know...personally I'm happy with it the way it is.

I would like to see challenges held much like on the site dpchallenge.com. Submitting photos and votes at the end of a week with no one knowing who posted and strike editing rules as to keep the field at an even level. With a comment box for people to give crit or suggestions when voting low as to why.

Honestly I think you see alot of the same ppl in the forums and that can lead to those ppl talking to eachother and totally ignoring other ppls posts/comments making them feel "Why bother".

Plus the forum has  A LOT of the same stuff, monitor calibration, lens, tripods, LCD choices. These need to have a section/link with in the forum and really good suggestions or comments to be highlighted so ppl don't have to read through 6 pages to find useful info.

Crit gallery, yes please. A genre with an automatically created link into the forum would be great.

No more challenges of the same genre OVER AND OVER AND OVER, come up with fresh, original and challenging ideas and advertise them in the gallery.

Honestly I feel the need for someone to be the bad cop on the team with strict and harsh technical advise and then someone with a good cop attitude seeing the artistic properties but seriously only on images with potential not just every pet/family outing picture.

But then again I'm used to saying stuff and it gets thrown against the wall to shatter, so please feel free to do some 'selective' hearing.

More good points here and every persons input is very much appreciated maybe we could have a great critique of the week!!

"No more challenges of the same genre OVER AND OVER AND OVER, come up with fresh, original and challenging ideas and advertise them in the gallery."

Have to strongly disagree here..We have never repeated a genre..

Critique...

i wonder if people know there is a choice when uploading an image?

There is a box you can check to ask for more "critical" type comments..

maybe people don't know this when they comment?

I know I probably pissed someone off the other day when i asked them to stop commenting on my gallery..

Why?  Didn't matter what the image was..they left the same comment..on mine, and the same comment on other peoples stuff too..

That stuff just drives me crazy..

Quote - "No more challenges of the same genre OVER AND OVER AND OVER, come up with fresh, original and challenging ideas and advertise them in the gallery."

Have to strongly disagree here..We have never repeated a genre..

CD covers has been done twice that's the first one that springs to mind, I remember as it's the first challenge I ever did and the there was one not so long ago and the fictisious (sp) band name was changed that's all.

Maybe I should've said topic not genre...

Quote - Critique...

i wonder if people know there is a choice when uploading an image?

There is a box you can check to ask for more "critical" type comments..

maybe people don't know this when they comment?

I know I probably pissed someone off the other day when i asked them to stop commenting on my gallery..

Why?  Didn't matter what the image was..they left the same comment..on mine, and the same comment on other peoples stuff too..

That stuff just drives me crazy..

The box is there and I use it and no one pays attention to it, I throw it in randomly on pics I want and don't want crit for but it NEVER works. Well for me anyway, and I'm sure I'm not the only one...

And the same comment ppl are in the buddy system... But that's a whole nuther issue that is never gonna go away no matter how much we talk about it. Plus don't wanna contaminate this thread :)

in The future the genre challnge may repeat it self..it's been about a year and we haven't yet..By my calcualtions..we shouldn't need to "start over" for at least a few months..

The forum challenge. I haven't done CD covers since I started running it.. I try to keep comming up with fresh ideas.. We had a thread a while back for member to make suggestions, we used almost all of them up.

I'd be more than happy to do that again..

If people are really interested in critique, we could start up our forum based critiques again..
Everyone seemed all "gung ho" when we started..We did it twice a week..
Then down to once a week..
Then no one wanted to submit any images.

It's a shame more folks don't use the "critique wanted" feature. IAs I said before, it may just be a case of they don't know it exists.

Comments, yep, that's a whole different subject..

Great feedback everyone, keept it coming. I am thinking the whole formality of posting the image in the gallery and here was offputting to some people. I don't think we need to have an official critique thread, rather just make it known that we are open to critiquing any photos that members want REAL feedback on. It is up to everyone as members to submit images, but I people don't think of it, which is why a thread like this is good, to help raise awareness.

i have only just started playing in the forums, but i like to read and see what everyone is doing and getting the news at the same time...speaking of time, that might be one reason why things have dropped off. The lack of time! Maybe we are all just too busy lately with our home life and trying to catch up on and comment to all the shots that get posted, the forum might be a luxury to us from time to time...just a thought!

Twopynts, for me, all what do you make in this forum, I'm go to support your idea, without problem, but, like Bruce has said, the summer is here and for me it's the hard weather and hard work.. .

hello :o)

first, i'm happy too see our coordinators are listening to us :o) it's not ironic !

yep, i think the same, this is holidays (in europe, don't know for the rest of the world sorry)..

About the critic : i want them all the time !!! i checked the box... and still the same, rare are the constructives critiques. Anyway, i appreciate really all the comments !! but i prefer constructive lol

About de the forum : why not create 'the interview of the month' ? it could be great to know better our artitic history & feeling of our members.
May be too 'the technic of the month' - where one of our members explain a technique of shooting, or he explain how he shoots this or this pics ? or the 'Scalpel of the month' lol where some of us explain and tell why the pics is good/excellent, and what could be a little better.

okay, that just ideas ;o)
hope this help :o)

seeyaaa :oD

I really like Oliver's ideas.

I just hope that if they are taken on, esp in the technical fields, the right ppl for the jobs are chosen. I can't stay the thought of someone doing a technical or how to shoot this review when they are only really just pulling facts out of a magazine...

I'll have to find that crit ox to tick...

For one there s a challenge in finding the forum in the first place.
On whatever page you look you have a oversaturation with redundant, repetitive and in many cases really misplaced links. While the backbone and technical functionality of Renderosity has improved, design and UI are still way back in the 20th century.
Not counting links on the forum content itself - the viewer is bombarded with (on this page) not 10 or 20 - not 50 or 75 but believe it or not 141 (one hundred and forty one)non distinctive links.
If you would remove 100 of them - I would still talk of an overcrowded interface.

My point is that Renderosity does not encourage users to discover - it buries users in an onslaught of mostly irrelevant links. So - at the end of the day - it is no wonder that the way into the forum isn't being found in a way it should be.

Which leads to an under average design, that does more things wrong, than it does do right.
Lessons learned from 15 years of internet? Nope - can't say the designers did.

Commerce and advertising is important - no doubt about. And I am happy for every penny that R'osity is earning from it. It is problematic however, when it interfers with the usability of the site - or is completely out of context, or even worse - annoying.
It is no secret that one of the major sources of income and the lifeline of Renderosity is the Marketplace, respectively the Poser, Bryce and to a lesser extent the rest of the 3D community - but predominately the marletplace.
But we're in a photographic community and the odds that we will ever take advantage of the marketplace is slim to none. And the one who says that is one who started out in 3D and will post a 3d image tomorrow... But - fact is - the marketing of the marketplace in the photography section is dead weight and a waste of real estate.

Going further in the review is the general layout. Besides utterly unappealing the usability is simply  not attractive. If you view the attached picture you see a screenshot of my screen taking from a standard or slightly larger than standard resolution. The grayed out area is the area, that is essentialy dead space for me as a user - and guess what. I get only 1 post on the screen and that not even completely. It is sad, not only because it's such a waste, but  because it's so easy to fix. An experienced designer /programmer could fix the whole enchilada sitewide in a few hours - and despite others and me having asked for improvements - nothing ever happened.
So the question why things don't work so well seems somewhat funny and reminds me of a joke.
"John is praying to God every night. "Please Lord - let me win the lottery! Just once - and I won't bother you anymore!" That prayer is made every night for 10 years. And then - one night, God has a enough! And he's answering John. "For crying out loud, John! Give me chance! At least buy a lottery ticket!"
With these words I close my litany and leave you to have a look over how attractive and easy you are effectivly making it to really participate.

Cheers
Klaus

i have a fun and novel idea for a monthly forum challenge ...RR midnight time for me is 3pm, 15 hours ahead of you guys...and i have always wondered what everyone elses times are when they upload their shots ....couldnt we have a fun thing and get everyone to take a photo of a clock in their house and post it straight after they  shoot it ?  with a quick comment on the day,  date and time and what time the RR clock says when they upload the shot....We could call it Timezones or something similiar.....just a thought!
cheers sue

Fun possibility Sue, though probably a little hard to implement. We would make an annoucement and set a date for it...just thinking out loud here. Klaus, the look of the upcoming new interface looks to be an improvement. I think someone has been listening to you after all. :)

Well Kort - surprise me!

Alright...this is just a germ of an idea. Actually it's more like the thought of a germ, lol...

I've learned a lot from the people that I've made friend's with at this site, not through commenting and critique, but mostly through e-mail, chatting and photosharing...So here's my idea...

Photo-buddies...

There could be a 'photo-buddy' list of people interested, here, in the forum, where each person briefly states their interests, types of photography they like focus on, what they would like to learn or what knowledge they feel they could share, etc.....and it could have a link to their homepage...

Then, if someone interested in having a photo-buddy, sees someone they think they might  like to be paired with, they could contact that person. Then those two would be removed from the list, unless they felt they would like more 'buddies'...

I don't know...it's just an idea...  :^ /  But I thought it had some interesting possibilities...They could collaborate and share it in the forum...Also, it may draw some people 'out'  of the background at RR, who may not really know anyone here at RR and are a bit shy...

 :^ )

@Klaus - I have nothing to do with it, they don't let me near their code. ;'] @Marlene - Thanks, we'll take all the ideas we can get. And that one has promise! :')

 :^ ) 

Thanks for saying it didn't stink, lol.  ;^)

I know, Kort.
I have one concern, though. That one morning I visit R'osity and I don't find my way at all anymore, because some ambitious programmer integrated some gimmicks, that he finds cool, but turn the general workflow up side down and thus disabling well knwn and liked features and procedures.
Happened with the conversion to php - and a couple of weeks later, after receiving massive flak from the members, overzealous features had to be removed and "lost" features re-integrated.
You can not go and make significant changes on a site like this, without being an active user, knowing the ins and outs and your way around the site - and equally important, not without an active involvement of users.
That means - before making changes, introduce them and poll users on them. Not only to see if you're on the right track, but equally to prevent alienation.
Quite frankly - if R'osity makes a stunt like last time again - I will be gone for good, and I know a lot of members, who feel the same.
 But - I hope for the best.
And here are the changes, that I wish for from a user point of view, as well as from a professional perspective:

• Give the user more control over what he wants to see in the preferences. Example: I only visit the Photography Gallerie, but each time I visit - I have to go through (based on the R'osity Homepage) 3 unpleasant steps to get to it.
• And for crying out loud - make everything look a little nicer, more compact and useful. I find the mainpage absolutely horrific, what design, presentation and content is concerned. If I would offer a layout like that to my clients, I would have to fear a lynch mob.
• (Make this Bulleted and numbered list feature work - it adds the bullet above instead below the last entry...just check the settings in FCK editor! Duh!)
• And make the editors sitewide consistent. Implement FCK Editor in the upload section, so that you don't have to code. That is so 1990's...
• Look over the entries that have to be made for an upload. A dropdownbox makes sense, when you have a lot of choices, it is inconvenient however, when you basically just select from 2-4 entries. Radio or checkboxes are much more efficient. (Faster, too)
• Format the notifications. I so often hit the wrong link, when in a hurry and end up in the preferences or the main Gallery. A 5 min job sitewide would do that.
• Make it easier to write an note to a member. Why not a contact link, instead of having to go through the members homepage. And while at it - why not use a popup window, when clicking the contact link, so that you don’t have to navigate away from the page you're on.
• Streamline the galleries. Meaning to combine galleries especially in the 3D area to a General 3D Gallerie, that are not being used in any significant manner. Get rid of Galleries, that are not being used or are redundant.
• unclutter the navigation - introduce dropdowns to get rid of endless rows of links

These are the things that always bug me. There are much more details that warrant improvement, but the ones mentioned would make the use of Renderosity much more comfortable.

Just wanted to add a quick revamp of the upload page, to visualize my suggestions

Thats looks superb Klaus very neat and tidy I  think that is ideal

While I was at it - here's the visualized version of the comment box suggestion.

An explanation.

• Added FCK Editor
• Suggestion for GOM. As a member I don't feel involved in the selection of the GOM
  but feel, members should be - no disrespect to Mods and Coords.
• Same goes for LWITG. Despite all the work that goes into it, it doesn't get the attention it should receive. Maybe a weekly feature is overkill and a monthly replacement, along  with the promotion it receives with the voting option, can help. Here as well I think it's the members, that should make the choices.
• For the comment itself a reply button and a report button (to fend off trolls) would be simple, useful and doable additions
• For the image header -a Send IM buttton would be nice, and some info - like that the Artist was voted GOM and that his images were voted to the IOM Top Ten (In case this feature would be introduced.

Of course there would be some finetuning needed on the procedures. Voting can be limited the same way uploads are. It shouldn't be too difficult to save these changes into the preferences, so that a member can go back and alter his selection during the month. Promoting the GOM and IOM by including them into the newsletter, as welll as informing about deadline and results in a (Gallery specific) Newsletter seems to be appropriate.

Here' s the image...

I really like the idea..However, i don't know if something like that could be done..I'm not a programmer..but we are the only ones who run these features..(poser might do something like this)..so my point is, i don't know if this could be done for a specific gallery..

We as a team will have to put our thinking caps on and see if we could come up with some solution to include the members more in some of this..

LWITG is done on a daily basis...because it works for Ilona to do it that way..

we can put our heads together and see what we can come up with..

While we're on the improvement thing, I'd like to be able to rate without commenting.

There are some shots I wanna rate 2's or 3's and not comment as I'm not sure who can take crit and who can't.

Sorry to jump in the last minute, but reading kjpweb's suggestions, I had to voice my complete support for his ideas-  and coming from a background in other applications first before Photography (where I am still a complete noob), I see these implementation ideas working perfectly in the other galleries as well. Just my honest opinion- these are some areas on Rosity that need a lot of work.

Sorry guys... i´m in peru so cant be on very much! :tt2:

Hehe... heads up for a shot upload today sometime... i just have to decide between the 20+ gallery worthy images i have taken so far and then "rosity" resize them to upload.

All is going well over here and have already been to machu picchu, just another 2 months and a few weeks left... hehehe!

Loving the redesign btw!

Hey Rich, good to see you lurking around. Hope everything is going as you planned, with a couple of (nice) suprises thrown in for good measure. ;']

The biz just rocketed up - I haven't had time to check in for a while - yeah, love the new style! There's a pleasant surprise!
Just played with a couple of DITIs and I dunno when I'll be back in --
@Inshaala - glad to hear all is well, and I look forward to seeing the images!
Take care all-
-Lew ;-)