Ilfosol-3

I know I've said this before, but this all or nothing approach to analog or digital content (and the hybrid section is woefully inadequate) is incredibly frustrating and tedious. In a discussion about a particular developer, having to split the conversation into two separate forums with no crossover allowed, is a somewhat alienating for those of us who scan, and are quite happy to contribute to a discussion of a developer-- but we have to go sit in a roped-off section in the back of the restaurant lest we offend someone's delicate sensibilities.

Dividing a community into smaller and smaller pieces might have worked even in the early 2000's, but the film photography community is already small enough.

I grok the history of APUG, and I respect what you're trying to accomplish, but it remains my opinion that you are doing a good thing badly.

grat said:

this all or nothing approach to analog or digital content (and the hybrid section is woefully inadequate) is incredibly frustrating and tedious.

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+1 and, most importantly, I've been told a few times that this bizarre behavior keeps younger people away from this site, impeding its growth in users and revenue. This absurd catering to pure analog enthusiasts consists of treating digital as some kind of virus-like substance that needs to be contained/separated, and this sends out bad vibes.

@Sean ---> BAD VIBES!

P.S. It is also not even genuine. Color film is basically useless without scanning, I bet that less than 10 active users here wet-print RA4 on a regular basis, which means that all color discussions must now live in a hybrid section.

grat said:

I know I've said this before, but this all or nothing approach to analog or digital content (and the hybrid section is woefully inadequate) is incredibly frustrating and tedious. In a discussion about a particular developer, having to split the conversation into two separate forums with no crossover allowed, is a somewhat alienating for those of us who scan, and are quite happy to contribute to a discussion of a developer-- but we have to go sit in a roped-off section in the back of the restaurant lest we offend someone's delicate sensibilities.

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Complete agreement here. It's silly and accomplishes little.

There is a point of crossover that does not sit well with either side. So how do you please both sides or compromise? I sure haven't found anything other than the least bad solution. I'm open to suggestions, but each side will shake a fist in frustration at anything proposed (source, doing this for 20yrs).

I hate to be the guy who complains but doesn't offer a suggestion, so I've been thinking about this quite a bit since I made my post yesterday. I noticed in the revamp that the classified section now utilizes tags on posts, and those tags, from what I've seen, can be altered.

So in theory, posts (or threads) could be tagged as "analog" or "digital" by default, and altered to "hybrid" by a moderator. Then people's preference for analog/digital/hybrid visibility would manage whether they can see the thread.

Now-- there is a downside, and this thread is a good example. It started as "analog", and then some "digital" elements came in, making it a hybrid thread-- for a user who only wants analog content, this thread would essentially vanish.

In theory, the tags could be per message (if that's an option), and "digital" messages wouldn't show up, but that's going to leave some awkward holes, and frankly, require considerable management of individual messages.

In a perfect world, an analog or digital only user would receive a notice that a thread has changed status, and be given the opportunity to white-list the specific thread. But that would be a forum feature, and I don't know if XenForo supports this sort of thing. It seems extensible, but I'm not sure that would be a simple feature to extend.

So not a perfect solution, and perhaps it could be improved.

Sean said:

There is a point of crossover that does not sit well with either side. So how do you please both sides or compromise? I sure haven't found anything other than the least bad solution. I'm open to suggestions, but each side will shake a fist in frustration at anything proposed (source, doing this for 20yrs).

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Double posts?

FWIW, if the recent posts hadn't been so focused on how Ilfosol 3 developed films perform when scanned, and had referenced (compared and contrasted?) what was found in the earlier part of the thread, I probably wouldn't have done much about them - except perhaps merely suggested starting a new thread in the hybrid sub-forums to continue that part of the discussion.
But that wasn't the case. The new posts started a new subject that made no real reference to what was in the earlier parts of the thread, other than the name of the developer.
This instance wasn't the most clear example of the challenge faced by Photrio while attempting to provide specialized areas for those who want them. The clearest example would be a thread that, as an example, evaluates how a developer performs in a variety of workflows. As an example someone who posts that they like Ilfosol 3 when the negatives are being optically printed, but are unhappy with how those negatives perform when scanned. That is a discussion that would work in the hybrid area, but would be at least partially interesting to someone who has ticked the Analog area only.

Sean, this is not one of those film vs digital conversations. Looks like all folks here love film, but on one hand we have reasonable crowd that treats scanners and digital workflow as just yet another tool which can be selectively useful to produce a final image taken on film. This is the majority, these people are behind 20% film sales growth YoY. And then you have a small group of vocal purists that seem to treat digital as some kind of existential threat to their existence, who require this absurd separation. I haven't met any of them here BTW, maybe they already left the site?

Sean said:

There is a point of crossover that does not sit well with either side. So how do you please both sides or compromise?

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I would argue that for a business owner there's no need to seek compromise when one customer group is x100 more numerous (and growing) than another. By seeking compromise you've created a false sense of equivalency, because you're scaring away the more numerous (and growing) group of customers while attracting all the anti-digital purists. So it's a catch-22.

@MattKing to be clear, my comments above aren't about your fantastic job enforcing the rules, I am commenting on the rules. I suppose they made sense a while ago, but today the world has rediscovered film through the lens of a scanner, and fell in love with it. Every developer/film/printing/camera topic involves scanning for 99% of film shooters in 2022, and the rules are getting in the way of competing with Reddit, Dpreview, etc.

I've never thought that Photrio intended to compete with Reddit, Dpreview etc., and would probably not be here if it was changed in order to do so.
I'd be very happy if more people made more use of the hybrid part of the forum. And I'd like a better solution for discussions that overlap.

Dear lord, I hope this site doesn't compete with dpreview or Reddit. Everyone would have to be an egomaniacal self-centered @%%*(%@ to compete with dpreview, and reddit lacks any form of permanence.

@Sean, as someone who makes a living by building and maintaining ad-supported or subscription-based online properties you must be well aware of the obvious: photrio already competes with reddit, dpreview, youtube, network television and any other way for humans to spend free time. Just pointing out that photrio could have been more commercially successful here by not seeking harmful compromises. In fact, focusing on a well-defined target audience and not trying to be everything for everyone is one of the most important skills in business.

From a user perspective I do not find this separation painful. Yes, the list of "forums" is overly granular/outdated and doesn't match the size of the audience, as evidenced by a ridiculous form you see when you click on "new topic" button, but that can be ignored/tolerated. I think the only sane way to consume photrio is via the flat "new content" view which makes forums deservingly irrelevant. But the younger audience is less forgiving.

My only user concern is the guilt for generating pointless work for moderators, when they have to step in and move content around to clean up after careless posters like myself, who mentioned scanners in a chemical topic. I was simply unaware which "section" of the site the thread belongs. Sorry!

McDiesel said:

I think the only sane way to consume photrio is via the flat "new content" view which makes forums deservingly irrelevant.

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That's how I browse here, using the "New Posts" method which jumbles forums. I don't check to see if I'm on a 100% analog area before responding to a thread so I've made the mistake of adding scanning/digital related posts to 100% analog threads from time to time. It would be easier to avoid that mistake if there was a reminder in a yellow box or whatever, letting you know as you type that you're about to respond to a thread in a sensitive area of Photrio. With my browser responses are typed at the very bottom of the screen and the 100% stuff is visible only by scrolling back to the top of the page.

I'm guessing the digital and hybrid areas are less sensitive than analog and wouldn't need a yellow box approach but who knows.