Experience field added

Today we added a field called "Experience" to your profile. It is meant to help members communicate effectively and gain a better understanding of one another. It'll appear under your username in your posts and on your profile. You can change this setting under Edit Profile.

Please only choose "Student" if you are currently going to school for photography, "Pro" if your full time job is photography, and "Semi-pro" if you get paid for your work from time to time. Newbie and Hobbyist are self-explanatory.

Note this has nothing to do with what gear you own.

Between last night and now you may have been forced to fill out this field before continuing to use the site. If you do not wish to display this information in your profile, but selected it, please let me know and I will clear it for you. I apologize for the confusion this may have caused.

Please post any questions or suggestions here.

Yeah, here is my suggestion: get rid of it. It's nothing but a veiled cast system and has nothing to do with experience. Experience comes with time. I could consider myself a hobbyist, but have many more years experience than someone who makes a living at photography - and being retired, collecting a pension and doing photography as a hobby with most of your free time does not make one a pro. In this case, ones pension is ones main source of income. I don't see how this will get anyone to communicate any better. If someone asks a question, lets just get it answered. Catergorizing people is not necessary. This is nothing but an ego rub for certain folks. Uggggh

One of the primary reasons for this is for the student classification. This is for students that are in class to learn photography / Photoshop. I am hoping the people will not just tell them how to do something but to help them learn. This are sometimes brand new photographers and are here to learn.
You are free to classify yourself anyway to feel is appropriate. I made my living in photography in one way or another for 20 years but I consider myself a hobbyist. At this time I am not doing any of this for money. I am retired also.
The ones that are here for an "ego rub" are easy to spot even without this. But I think that the majority of people that are here and active are here because the love photography. Some want help and some want to help others.

AC016 said:

Yeah, here is my suggestion: get rid of it. It's nothing but a veiled cast system and has nothing to do with experience. Experience comes with time. I could consider myself a hobbyist, but have many more years experience than someone who makes a living at photography - and being retired, collecting a pension and doing photography as a hobby with most of your free time does not make one a pro. In this case, ones pension is ones main source of income. I don't see how this will get anyone to communicate any better. If someone asks a question, lets just get it answered. Catergorizing people is not necessary. This is nothing but an ego rub for certain folks. Uggggh

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Perhaps "Experience" is a bit misleading and the wrong word to use? There are certainly different levels of experience within each, but we didn't want to make it too complicated either. Certainly you can have tons of experience and be a Hobbyist, or be a new pro, etc. It doesn't really matter for our purposes. Most members here are hobbyists anyway.

Regardless, the goal here is to facilitate better communication by allowing members to choose the best word to describe themselves to others. Hopefully members are honest, but I'm sure there will be times when people are not. Unfortunately that's just the nature of the internet regardless of how many fields you have or don't have.

If you want I can remove the field from your profile. Shortly before I posted this I realized I had made an error with requiring it.

I choose Hobbyist because "out taking lots of shots and enjoying it" wasn't an option.

It doesn't worry me...It was a bit confusing when I tried to log in and wasn't able to....

I've got no problem with this and think it could be useful.

​WM

I like the idea. Mine was set accurately when I just went into my profile just now. The site knows me pretty well LOL

Just start uploading a running ton of photos in your gallery and you'll game the system. Your experience level will go through the roof!

Personally I do not think it is an accurate reflection of anything at least the experience points that is.

The pro, semi pro, and hobbyist stuff though is perhaps a good idea.

I think newbie is a great idea as this will allow folks to handle them kid gloves and may help to build up the membership.

Eye-level said:

I think newbie is a great idea as this will allow folks to handle them kid gloves and may help to build up the membership.

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Same thing with the students. I started class last week and I am hoping that many of the students will take advantage of the help available here. I hope people are nice to them. Getting students started right is a way to get a lifetime Nikon and Nikonites user.

AC016 said:

Yeah, here is my suggestion: get rid of it. It's nothing but a veiled cast system and has nothing to do with experience. Experience comes with time. I could consider myself a hobbyist, but have many more years experience than someone who makes a living at photography - and being retired, collecting a pension and doing photography as a hobby with most of your free time does not make one a pro. In this case, ones pension is ones main source of income. I don't see how this will get anyone to communicate any better. If someone asks a question, lets just get it answered. Catergorizing people is not necessary. This is nothing but an ego rub for certain folks. Uggggh

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I agree very closely with this. Hobbyist does mean "not earning income" (if that is the desired distinction), but it sounds very light in the experience area. I was doing dark room work in the late 1950s, bought my first original Nikon F in the 60s, and was a hobbyist then, so I know what that is like. But my own notion is that I've been there, done that.

Pro has different meanings too.

One case is the guy who says "I took a picture of my dog and it came out OK, so how do I get wedding jobs?"

But another was asking beginner questions, like how do I get this flash thingie turned on? Yet he was posting some of the most beautiful studio portrait shots that could be imagined.

The one word category really just does not get it done.

I don't know the forum owners intentions, and of course, they can do anything they like. But I fail to see any point of this distinction addition, we know beginner and/or student vs. knowledgeable by their forum posts. (and I was most especially peeved when it was required for any forum access).

Some people get worked up over the smallest forum additions.

carguy said:

Some people get worked up over the smallest forum additions.

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While I'm not worked up about the addition it does seem pointless to my way of thinking. I don't really care to be labeled, don't really feel the need to label others in this way and if I'm asking for critique I feel fully capable of vetting opinions on my own without these "tags". I dunno... I feel like we're all drawn here by a mutual interest and that's really all that matters to me. I think referring to it as a faux "caste" system is a bit over the top and I don't really care if the feature stays or goes, but I think it's a silly, needless distinction.

If you go back in this thread you will see that JDEG has said that he will remove the field from anyone that does not like it. It is not mandatory now. YOu will also see that I asked for it so that we could see the student classification so that people would know that they are learning photography/Photoshop from the beginning and hopefully people here on the forum would take that into consideration when responding. These student do not own their equipment so they can not go out and buy a different lens etc. They have to work with what the school issues.

what would you add to your field if this was left open and up to you to fill in?

this is not aimed at anyone, just curious!

Roy1961 said:

what would you add to your field if this was left open and up to you to fill in?

this is not aimed at anyone, just curious!

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Personally, i would not put anything. But, i will play along. Hobbyist is a good label to slap on me, amongst other labels. If i had choice though, i would prefer "professional amateur". In reality, i am someone who really enjoys going out with his Nikon and looking for photo ops. and taking the best photos i can.... what do you call that? Anyhow, as i said, i will play along and conform

Personally I think Hobbyist is a great label. WE do it for the pure love of it. WE spend tons of $$$ and tons of time pursuing what we love. I wear the title as a badge of honor.

I plan on shooting a small amount of events for pay but would not consider it pro or even semi pro because I will just be doing it for fun and the money I do make will just go back into supporting my habit.

so "Nikon Junkie" would be ok Don? getting there myself

How about Hobbyist in training

Who needs a title. I think of this site and these forums as an open source trade school. People with different visions and experience from different parts of the globe sharing. Sooner or later a light comes on and you realize you learned something new. I am just a photogaholic that needs his fix every day.