"I´m afraid, I have to agree with Andrea's on this one."

Awww! How depressing is that....that you actually feel you have to apologize for agreeing with me. :tt2: LOL.

About what you wrote Tom...about not having enough confidence in alot of your photos to NOT allow comments. I don´t think anyone of us rely on the comments to reassure us if we should post the photo or not. At least none of us should. It´s been said a thousand times over: People basically trade comments here. And i think we all know that people are rarely 100% honest in their comments anyway. So why read more into them than you should? If you´re happy with the photo...then post it. Don´t hold back or delete it because you´re worried it wont appeal to the crowd. I´m not whining about that or anything...that´s just the way it is here and that´s how it´s always been...and always will be. I have always been soooo grateful for every comment i´ve ever gotten....but i have never allowed them to get to my head as unfortunatly it has for some who get plenty of comments. Probably because i have also uploaded the same photos to pure photosites where i would get max 3-4 comments...and all of them saying how i should improve this or that....compared to the 60-70 gushing and praising comments i got here. And that is something i´ve always said....people should post their photos elsewhere as well to stay grounded. Maybe then we wouldn´t have the same level of arrogance here as we´ve gotten lately.

 I once did an experiment to prove this point to someone who felt he didn´t get "enough" comments. I explained that in order to get alot of comments you gotta be willing to make that effort yourself. So i re-uploaded a photo that was one of the first photos i ever posted at this site. Back then it got 3 comments.....but this time it got 65. And about that...what is "enough" comments anyway? The average number an image at RR gets is 8. And i know people who have deleted their uploads because they felt it deserved more than the 40 (!!!!) comments it got. How´s that for a slap in the face on those who get below average on their every upload? Not to mention on those who wasted their time to begin with by actually commenting on someone that ungrateful. Unfortunatly it is more about the quantity than the quality here. People actually copy and paste comments for god´s sake. Can someone honestly tell me they rely on that kind of comments when deciding if they should post a photo or not?

I just started uploading some of my photos to this "model-site" where people get up to 3-4000 viewings on their photos....but rarely more than 10-15 comments. Still i have yet to see anyone there complain or wonder how come they´re not getting more comments. So i don´t think "not allowing comments" here is such a strong position to take after all. Like i said in my previous reply.....i don´t miss comments because they validated my upload in any way...but i miss them only because they meant you were interacting with fellow members....and that i do indeed miss.

Oh...and if you don´t mind Chris...i´m very fond of pasta. So if ya could hook me up with some macaronies at least 4 nights a week...that´d be super! :thumbupboth:

Ooops...it seems me rambled on again. Me better go grab me some dinner before i head off to work. Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Oh wow!!!! You sure do know how to take things the wrong way don´t you? I don´t think you could have misunderstood me more even if you had tried. :blink: Amazing.

And no of course it´s not a crime for you to express your feelings on a matter. So why would it be that when i do so as well? :tt2:

P.S. Not allowing comments used to be the only way you could escape the stress alot of us felt about spending too much time online. But now it seems you´re actually a bad guy for not allowing them...like that kind of behaviour now is offensive or something. :sad:

OH GOD!!! Will ya look at that!!! :blink: I don´t think i´ve typed that much in all the threads i´ve replied to this year...combined. Yeeesh...i sure do know how to ramble huh? :blushing:

Okay...so i´m one of those who doesn´t allow comments. And i just gotta ask what Tunde meant by this:

"Very offen I also feel the member who disable coment option doesn't realy want to hear what we think of his/hers picture. If we want to coment on those blocked pictures we always can do it on IM, so what is a point. Log in early in a morning and see " you have 36 new messages " ? what a trill!...grow up!"***

In my case i strongly disagree. Actually i take offense to that ignorant reply. Grow up??? Yeesh. :huh: I guess i need to grow up then because i rather wake up getting 36 new messages than getting 36 ebots saying i got a comment.

I didn´t disable comments because i don´t wanna hear what people think of my upload or anything. And it has nothing to do either with me worrying that people will expect of me to start back-commenting on theirs. It just has to do with my own concience. I can´t in good concience sit back and read all the generous feedback being left on my uploads when i don´t have the time nor the energy to do the same thing myself. I wouldn´t accept free dinners at my neighbours house every day without ever paying them back......i would never be able to let my other neighbours walk Eija if they wouldn´t let me walk their dog as well every now and then. I wouldn´t....you catch my drift don´t you? So that´s why i can´t allow comments on my uploads. It conflicts with my concience. And we´re all individuals so we all have different kind of conciences....and mine forbids me to "take" something without giving anything back. It´s as simple as that. There is no higher form of greed in my book, than people expecting comments when they don´t comment themselves.

And this isn´t an RR-phenomena in my case either. I don´t allow comments on any of the sites i belong to. And like Tunde bluntly said....if people really wishes to tell me how they feel about my photos...then they can actually send me an IM or email. It´s the same amount of typing in one of those as it is in a comment-box isn´t it? But people don´t do that here. Instead they are telling those artists to start allowing comment and they insists on doing that in public as well.....probably so that they themselves can look good. At least that´s how i interpretate it. Why is it otherwise that i keep being told i need to start allowing comments again here in the forum....but i never ever get an email telling me to? Yesterday i uploaded a photo to the gallery here that so far got 137 viewings...but no IMs telling me if it´s any good or bad. I also uploaded it to another site.....as my first upload there actually.....and i got 10 IMs within the first hour. And i don´t even know anyone there.

I think all artistic sites are basically the same in most ways. You only get comments if you comment yourself, there´s always popularity-votes being casted and so on. But i can in all honesty say...that i have never come across a site where people are more obsessed with comments. And i may come off as rather bitter or cynical now...but i assure you i´m not, i´m just being reasonable....but i keep seeing how people respond to these kind of threads saying how they are grateful for whatever amount of comments they get or how they don´t expect anyone to comment back on theirs. Sorry...but generally speaking....that´s bullshit. I got plenty of IMs (old ones...ever since i stopped commenting myself...that kind of communication also ended with most folks) from people telling me how they´re leaving RR because they´re not getting "enough attention and reckognition". And they´re always comparing their work to someone elses saying "I can´t belive that person became GOM"...or "how could that person get twice as many comments when he/she is only half as good as me". And how many of you haven´t followed an ebot to your favorite artists upload only to discover that that person has already pulled it because of lack of comments. And what a waste of time that was for those poor souls that had already commented on it.....but apparently their comments wasn´t worth more than that. Why would they otherwise delete those uploads? Well because those uploads bring down the average status for them. Then these artists turn around when they´re in public.....saying how comments don´t matter to them and that they´re grateful for whatever they may get....yada yada yaday (watched Seinfeld last night, LOL). Sorry...but i´m rather tired of this comment-obsessive behaviour that´s running through these RR-veines. Where else can you read as many topics in the forums about comments/commenting as in this place? They should actually open up an entirely new forum for that alone, lol. :tt2:

I looooove getting comments just as much as the next guy....or ga´l......i love the interaction between people. I really couldn´t care less about the quality of the comment. It don´t matter to me if it´s constructive or not. I valued the interaction between my fellow members a helluva lot more than any kind of advice i could ever have gotten from any comment.

And why don´t we perform an autopsy on that word as well while we´re at it shall we...."constructive critizism"..alot of people are asking for constructive critizism...but when they get it...they flip out. Personally i have delivered constructive critizism a bunch of times...mostly small stuff...like tilted horizons. :tt2: And once it ended with that person deleting that persons entire gallery. A few of the other times it has resulted in them deleting that particular upload. And alot of the times it has resulted in me getting nasty comments back from them as retaliation if you will. And funny enough....alot of those people have actually asked for constructive critizism. So i´m sorry....but commenting at this site...where most people claim they don´t expect any but get pissed as hell when they don´t get "enough".....and even more pissed if it´s the least negative....is just not something that´s very appealing to me. And it´s harder here than any place else....even though you see more and more people getting away with copying and pasting comments here.....which is just about the biggest insult i can think of. But lets not get into that now. :biggrin:

So in conclusion....of this really really loooooong rant...i shall say this: I miss getting comments. I really do. I don´t miss them because i´m hoping to learn something from them....but I really miss the interaction and friendships that came with them....but i discovered that you only have those friendships as long as you´re commenting though. So it makes you wonder what kind of friendship that really was to begin with. I´ve made a few close friends here that i stay in touch with. But all those other people who claimed to be my friends....they ceased to exist the very moment i stopped commenting on their uploads. And whenever i occassionaly leave a comment in their gallery, they immidiatly send me an IM as to recapture our lost friendship or whatever. I think that speaks volumes don´t you? So....if you´re feeling robbed by not being able to comment on certain images. Then please send that guy or girl an IM. Like i stated before...it doesn´t require all that much more typing. And I can assure you...they will appriciate that single IM more than 20 comments combined. ....unless they of course are hung up on numbers and statistics. :tt2:

Hey...we´re at page 22 now.....YAAAAAAAAAAAY FOR US!!!! :biggrin:

:b_stunned: My god! You took this last summer and you still haven´t posted it in your gallery???? What´s wrong with you??? It´s gorgeous!!!! Love the tranquility and the colors are simply amazing. Bravo Marlene!!!!

Thank you Sir.

I wish you were whiskey? Well that makes sense! LOL. :tt2:

I´ve been planning on going over in august sometime. Probably late august or early september. Taking the flight to London and then road-trip through UK.   I shall bring me golfclubs....if only i had any.

:b_stunned: .... ne'er be ag'in on the bonnie bonnie banks???? :blink:

LMAO! :biggrin: I guess that´s true....i reckon there´s really no need to go to Scotland this autumn after all. I just spend my money on that Bigma lens instead and climb up on the roof or something to have a look at Loch Lomond. :tt2:

And just a few more.....