Speaking as someone who used to frequent this forum on a semi-regular basis and enjoyed it for what it was, there are clearly a number of issues with the forum which are slowly killing it off and I think the main problem is that the overwhelming majority of people simply don't care enough about it.
From someone who now reads rather than posts, I feel a real sense of people being 'it it for themselves' and wanting to show off rather than being willing and able to help and nurture others with the same passion they have. Sure, show your own work off, but stop being so bloody self-serving and actually talk about your work rather than post a load of photos and wait for the plaudits to roll in.
Nobody's going to take your living away from you, if that's even what it is, so share your knowledge and passion and get others enthused about taking photos in the way that you are.
Anyway, my suggestions for changes would be as follows:
1. Split the gear talk out from the main forum.
Gear threads seem to always attract the same five or six people and usually devolve into bickering, which serves no purpose whatsoever and just ends up alienating people from joining in. And while some of this discussion has a place, it needs to be kept well away from the photos themselves so as to encourage photography to be the main attraction again.
Failing that, stronger moderation is needed when the usual suspects start taking topics off-subject and bickering between themselves. It's harmed the forum enough and needs to stop before it kills the place off completely.
2. The 'Post your' thread.
I didn't like it when the idea was tabled and I hate it now. All the thread has done has sucked photography away from the main forum and kept it all wrapped up in its own little cliquey thread where it's nigh-on impossible to keep track of things or talk about individual photos.
If someone has photos to share, then create a thread and tell us all about them. And if nobody is interested, it'll sink off the first page - so you'd better make sure it is worth talking about and promote some discussion.
3. A serious lack of critique.
If people want to improve their photography, the first thing they ought to learn to do is self-critique their own work. All too often you see a whole load of photos dumped into a thread with someone asking for an opinion on them. Well, what do you think about your own work? What were you trying for, and why did you do what you did? Are you happy with the results or is there something you wished you could have done better? And so on, and so forth.
Posting a load of photos and asking for an opinion without proffering one yourself is akin to creating a thread in another part of the forum and pasting a link without any accompanying text. Poor form at the best of times and it shouldn't be tolerated in here.
And on the same subject, there should be more people posting their opinions of work, regardless of whether it's been asked of or not. Strong but helpful critique should be the order of the day - not just the limp-wristed 'gr8 pix m8' stuff that you see time and time again.
4. The competition.
Why bother with a competition at this precise moment in time when there's not enough healthy discussion and sharing of photos to be worth it? Until the forum is teeming with life and there's a steady group of people demanding a good-natured competition, leave it to people to challenge themselves and forget about the time and effort that would be needed to run something half-decent to the standard it used to be.
And whatever you do end up with, please make it anonymous and not wholly reliant on one single person to run the whole bloody thing. It could easily be handled by a half-decent website that someone with an ounce of skill could knock up for the benefit of the forum at large.
5. The watermark debate.
There was a perfectly good reason for the ban to be imposed and as it's since been relaxed people really need to get over it and concentrate their efforts on making the forum great again. If you're that bothered about your work being misappropriated, stick a whopping great © through the middle of it and be done with it.
6. Getting people involved.
Short of handing out a fiver for every newcomer to the forum, you've got to find ways to attract new blood and stop this place being so cliquey. It's far too self-referential in places and even I find it off-putting, so I hate to think what newcomers make of it.
People need to make the forum what they want it to be and stop waiting around for it to fix itself. Start by sharing some photographs and talking about them in-depth, as that's what it really ought to be all about, and then follow that up with some in-depth and well-natured critique for someone who's deserving of it.
ultimately a photography forum is all about CONTENT.
