Some interesting observations Bob. Thanks for sharing them.
The first noteworthy thing is that they are all male dominated. The beginner sites seem to have more ladies than the "serious" ones. I find that the more women that participate the more civil the forum. Men tend to have too much testosterone for their own good. Their strong opinions tend to clash with other males causing conflicts.
First of all, I would love to have more women on this site!
I think I agree with you in general that women are a civilizing force that balance out the testosterone charged world of the internet forums. However I run across many women on forums who can dish it out just as much as any man I've met. Secondly, the increased presence of women on forums - at least in my experience - tends to fuel even MORE aggressive male behaviour as some of these men are competing amongst each other for the female attention. This presents itself when male members get into the one-upmanship game with each other in an effort to try and become the dominant voice of a particular thread, etc. essentially showing off for the female members. That I've seen far too many times on the various forums I've frequented.
I'm not saying that members don't behave like jack-a$$e$ without any extra motivation other than they are your typical keyboard warriors but as I've said, I generally agree with the point you are making.
(of course the obvious reason why women are not as numerous on photography forums is that they're just too busy actually taking pictures!
)
My second observation involves a general difficulty in giving a decent critique. In my opinion if you can't say something positive why say anything? If someone uses a border treatment or displays a photo In a frame keep your comments on the photo, not the frame. If your comments don't educate, inform or improve the knowledge of the poster you need to rethink the need to say them.
Well this comes down to the difference between a critique and criticism. Both can be viewed as "negative" if one so chooses but the former is meant to be constructive and the later often can be what you've described above - gratuitous negativity.
I don't think that commenting on how a photo is presented is necessarily a negative thing (i.e. a border treatment) but it certainly shouldn't be the entire substance of the person's critique.
Personally, I'd don't mind getting comments on these more subjective areas. My opinion of what looks nice in terms of a watermark or border isn't going to be shared by everyone - I know that going in. However I'm always interested to hear how others perceive these areas in addition to the technical merits of a photo. If someone doesn't like my border, I'm not necessarily going to go and change it immediately but depending on who is offering the comment and how frequently I might hear the same comment, it would be food for thought.
In summary, I welcome all comments - both the more objective, technical merits of an image as well as the primarily subjective. As long as whatever is contributed is someone's honest opinion and they are genuinely trying to provide what they consider to be useful feedback.
Finally, there are forums that literally die out because the members are intimidated to post for fear of negative criticism. That should NEVER happen. We're all involved in this hobby and don't need to use the forums to puff up our egos. Right fighters always lose. Be open to the feelings and opinions of others.
I absolutely agree with you Bob. However quite a few people are far too thin skinned for their own good and no matter how someone contorts themselves when trying not to offend, certain people only want "wow! great picture!" as comment. Does a person have to put rainbows, hearts and smilies all over their posts to keep the overly-sensitive person at bay?
What drives me batty are people that ask for comments/critique (posting directly in the photo critique forum) and then when legitimate critique is offered (i.e. good points and suggestions for improvement) the original poster gets all defensive, starts equivocating about how it was just a quick snap shot type of thing (
why did they post it for critique?), they knew it wasn't really a great image (
then why did they post it?), how they like what they did regardless of what people think (a
gain, why did they post it for critique), etc. etc etc. Drives me mad! Just because a member becomes offended about a given critique doesn't mean the person who offered the critique is a "mean" person - it usually says far more about the person receiving the critique. You can have an honest difference of opinion - that's fine - but for heaven's sake I wish some people wouldn't sulk when we all don't drop to our knees and declare their image as the most divine, inspirational thing we've even been blessed to see!
I often find that the original poster of the image goes into things overly defensive and ends up misinterpreting well intentioned feedback. In fact I would argue that the greater danger to a forum are people with valuable critique to offer getting put off by hyper-sensitive members and their overly-emotional, misguided reactions to honest feedback. In that situation, what often happens is that the person offering the critique just comes to the conclusion that it's not worth the hassle and gives up trying to help. Now THAT is the larger problem in my opinion.
So it's a 2-way street Bob. This is a community and both groups of people (those asking for and those giving out critique) must know the expectations going in and act accordingly.
Finally, many people get worked up about "rules" and Lord forbid if anyone reminds them about having to follow them. For example, the Photo Critique forum has a thread with a set of posting guidelines "stuck" at the top of the forum (i.e. only 1 picture per thread, per day, provide the EXIF, etc.). Often people don't follow many or even any of these guidelines and post in this forum without consideration of those rules. I understand that people may not initially be aware of those guidelines/rules - fair enough - but once they are made aware, they should respect them. If a member doesn't wish to do so, then that is why we have a general photography sharing forum and galleries, etc.
Some people might call it "right flying" but I call those people unreasonable and inconsiderate of others.
Again, it's all in your perspective and as it is in life, so it is on this forum - it takes 2 to tango. Overall I think this forum gets it right more often that most places.
Thanks again for your feedback Bob.
(PS. Jack, I'm sure there are lots of typos in this long post so have at it my friend! LOL!)
