It only takes a brief glance at this subforum to realise that this subforum has become a spec me forum rather than one dedicated to creative outlet. I've got a couple of ideas of how we can sort this out, short of paying all the old talents and contributors to come back:
1: Lock ALL of the Post your pictures here threads - they suck the life out of the forums as critiques no longer happen and advice is no longer given.
2: Create one Gear Discussion thread or a couple of Spec Me A:, Canon Lens Discussion, Nikon Body Discussion, Canon Body Discussion etc. threads so they don't clutter up the front page so much - usually these threads can be answered in one response and people clearly don't need much pushing to start talking about what gear is better than what.
3. (More hopeful than likely) Get rid of the no business interests rules as they pertain to photography. The way these forums work is that respect and potential custom is earned by being a helpful and talented member of the community. Professional photographers are not here to advertise, but then not allowing them to use watermarks of business names etc. is only hurting this community because it means once a photographer is good enough to make money, they are actively punished by the rulesets. We've lost too many really talented photographers to this rule, and I don't see how it hurts OcUK as a business to have these members of the community. Nobody will listen to some random joe coming in with post count:1 and saying "I'm the best wedding photographer in London, I have an HD camera with 22MP, hire me, I am le super cheap", whereas having photographers like Raymond around was an undeniable boon to the community.
I understand that obviously threads along the lines of "Hire me here" or "looking for a wedding photographer" might present legitimate problems, but people using their business watermark should have nothing to do with that. All the rule does is serve to present yet another barrier to entry for people posting photos and looking to get involved in the community.
It's almost undeniable that this community gets weaker and weaker as each month goes by (and that it's coincided with clamping down of pro photographers and all those shenanigans about watermarks), and we need to try and work out what's wrong, and sort it out. My ideas aren't the guaranteed fix-alls, but we do need to get a discussion going to get us back to our old standards - I don't want to have to rely on TalkPhotography and the 501 "look at my baby I took average photos of" threads that entails.
1: Lock ALL of the Post your pictures here threads - they suck the life out of the forums as critiques no longer happen and advice is no longer given.
2: Create one Gear Discussion thread or a couple of Spec Me A:, Canon Lens Discussion, Nikon Body Discussion, Canon Body Discussion etc. threads so they don't clutter up the front page so much - usually these threads can be answered in one response and people clearly don't need much pushing to start talking about what gear is better than what.
3. (More hopeful than likely) Get rid of the no business interests rules as they pertain to photography. The way these forums work is that respect and potential custom is earned by being a helpful and talented member of the community. Professional photographers are not here to advertise, but then not allowing them to use watermarks of business names etc. is only hurting this community because it means once a photographer is good enough to make money, they are actively punished by the rulesets. We've lost too many really talented photographers to this rule, and I don't see how it hurts OcUK as a business to have these members of the community. Nobody will listen to some random joe coming in with post count:1 and saying "I'm the best wedding photographer in London, I have an HD camera with 22MP, hire me, I am le super cheap", whereas having photographers like Raymond around was an undeniable boon to the community.
I understand that obviously threads along the lines of "Hire me here" or "looking for a wedding photographer" might present legitimate problems, but people using their business watermark should have nothing to do with that. All the rule does is serve to present yet another barrier to entry for people posting photos and looking to get involved in the community.
It's almost undeniable that this community gets weaker and weaker as each month goes by (and that it's coincided with clamping down of pro photographers and all those shenanigans about watermarks), and we need to try and work out what's wrong, and sort it out. My ideas aren't the guaranteed fix-alls, but we do need to get a discussion going to get us back to our old standards - I don't want to have to rely on TalkPhotography and the 501 "look at my baby I took average photos of" threads that entails.