The "Other" Photo Website (Photo.Net)

[blee1996]

Sean needs a large donation to get the deal done...

 

[grahamp]

[...]

As several noted, it is a simple SSL certificate expiration issue. If it were my own site, I could have gotten it sorted out in 15 minutes. The main obstacle might be that today's admin might not be the one who did the certificate years ago, so there might be some ownership/access privilege issue.

When I was dealing with web servers and SSL, the biggest hurdle was clearing payment with the financial people!

The other fun bit was wanting to install the replacement ahead of the expiry of the previous one because it fell on a weekend

 

[gone]

In case of confusion, FADU is still there. Not the same high activity as Photrio, but no pointless squabbling either.

And why refer to it as a website. The correct term is a 'forum' which is a totally different concept.

This is quite funny!

 

[blee1996]

Not an advertisement, but the "other" photo forum is back online.

 

[koraks]

Oh good, they seem to have the SSL issue fixed! Nice.

 

[MattKing]

Thread title updated.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I'm connecting now to it.

 

[Papa Tango]

Although it’s been a year since this thread was active, I felt that an update was in order!

Photo.net was one of the great early websites for photographers. Virtually all of the classic forum based sites, photographic or otherwise owe a tribute to Phil Greenspun and his idea. However, times change along with technologies—and it was sold in 2007 to NameMedia.

In 2016, Creative Live bought PN, and promptly replaced the old Python-based custom platform it was based on with Xenforo. This is the same software used here! A great choice, and they got their act together quickly. Some things were lost, as certain functions were not available for any stock platform. But it worked and did so nicely.

Segue to mid-2022 when Fivver bought the entire Creative Live franchise. PN came along with that acquisition, sort of like the red-headed stepchild of a new midlife marriage. They did not really want it but recognized it as an asset. In the first misdirected plan, they decided to make some big changes in content delivery.

PN had always been ‘self hosted’, meaning it lived on a rented server somewhere. Fivver chose to shift the site to a ‘hosted’ solution by Invision Communities—a platform that competes with Xenforo. That however does not come with actual site administrators… They had little idea of what they were doing, except that the move would cut costs and administrative overhead.

It was a ‘plain vanilla’ install. The ‘admin’ they provided us with had little experience with forums. Everything was stock, permissions were not set or missing, so on and so forth. I began working with him and we saw some good changes beginning. Then Fivver ghosted us. That was November, 2022.

What saved the day was Roger Gonzalez, an admin left over from the Creative Live era. His credentials were still good and he promoted Sandy Vongries and myself to senior administrators. Of important note, he is also the one who snuck in and generated the new SSL certificates. Fivver had no idea the site was down.

A month later and over 400 documented development changes down the line, the site looked just as it does now. This calls out some facts about PN. Corporate has never communicated with any member of PN--administrators, volunteers, or members. They ignore any emails, and refuse to accept phone calls. Except for paying the hosting service, they have not injected any money into site development or features. The hopelessness of that situation led me to the creation of a new photo site in March 2022.

Sadly, PN is like the Titanic—steaming along and colliding with various icebergs along the way. It is regularly rescued by member volunteers who have no actual authority or legal rights to do so. Heck, I am the one who wrote the terms of service everyone agrees to. When admin intervention is necessary, Invision admins step in. But only for things that threaten the actual security of their server platform. The band plays on, and members continue to shovel coal into the beast.

As a safety net for possible doom, my response was to resign as admin there (TGOPS/The Ghost of Phil’s Society/Mudita) and launch a new site. Something more in line with what PN was from 2007-17. A place to talk about images, sponsor Picks and Contests. Featured content and recognition. Oh, and a return to Xenforo. And it was done.

Check it out at https://fotofora.photography , as new members are encouraged to join in.

Invision senior administrators just cleaned up a yearlong SPAM problem at PN, one that has raged on as a volunteer-led game of whack-a-mole to the tune of hundreds of spam postings daily. The simple fix was to update the platform (which had not been done since it was installed) and add some antispam plugin security features. A simple thing, ignored and neglected for over two years. How does this speak to the future of PN?

So there you have it. After 25 years at PN, I had Sandy delete my account a month ago. But there is still Photrio (I have been here since the APUG days), Camraderie, and my site, FotoFora.Photography.


And that’s the deal to date…

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I still check it. Had a lot of spam issues. Hope they fixed them. More digital rather than film oriented.

 

[bernard_L]

I've been a member of PN since 2007. Used to visit regularly the Classic Manual Film Cameras forum. Was especially fond of the postings of Gene M : found film from 2 generations ago and junk cameras. Old stuff now.

 

[blee1996]

I have always floated the idea that photo.net content be merged into photrio, since the contents match really well. But I guess the commercial owners of photo.net will not let that happen: they can probably still milk the cow with providing bare minimum subsistence.

 

[Papa Tango]

@blee1996 that cow ran dry years ago. The ability to offer paid subscriptions croaked in 2020. The only value is in the domain name and reputation. If you offer subscriber status, then like Sean does here, you must deliver on reliability and function. All the time.

Several of us made serious attempts to contact and negotiate with Fivver corporate in the US and Israel about purchasing the domain. We were real people, with real money, and real interest. Nada. So I went off and built my own site.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Although it’s been a year since this thread was active, I felt that an update was in order!

Photo.net was one of the great early websites for photographers. Virtually all of the classic forum based sites, photographic or otherwise owe a tribute to Phil Greenspun and his idea. However, times change along with technologies—and it was sold in 2007 to NameMedia.

In 2016, Creative Live bought PN, and promptly replaced the old Python-based custom platform it was based on with Xenforo. This is the same software used here! A great choice, and they got their act together quickly. Some things were lost, as certain functions were not available for any stock platform. But it worked and did so nicely.

Segue to mid-2022 when Fivver bought the entire Creative Live franchise. PN came along with that acquisition, sort of like the red-headed stepchild of a new midlife marriage. They did not really want it but recognized it as an asset. In the first misdirected plan, they decided to make some big changes in content delivery.

PN had always been ‘self hosted’, meaning it lived on a rented server somewhere. Fivver chose to shift the site to a ‘hosted’ solution by Invision Communities—a platform that competes with Xenforo. That however does not come with actual site administrators… They had little idea of what they were doing, except that the move would cut costs and administrative overhead.

It was a ‘plain vanilla’ install. The ‘admin’ they provided us with had little experience with forums. Everything was stock, permissions were not set or missing, so on and so forth. I began working with him and we saw some good changes beginning. Then Fivver ghosted us. That was November, 2022.

What saved the day was Roger Gonzalez, an admin left over from the Creative Live era. His credentials were still good and he promoted Sandy Vongries and myself to senior administrators. Of important note, he is also the one who snuck in and generated the new SSL certificates. Fivver had no idea the site was down.

A month later and over 400 documented development changes down the line, the site looked just as it does now. This calls out some facts about PN. Corporate has never communicated with any member of PN--administrators, volunteers, or members. They ignore any emails, and refuse to accept phone calls. Except for paying the hosting service, they have not injected any money into site development or features. The hopelessness of that situation led me to the creation of a new photo site in March 2022.

Sadly, PN is like the Titanic—steaming along and colliding with various icebergs along the way. It is regularly rescued by member volunteers who have no actual authority or legal rights to do so. Heck, I am the one who wrote the terms of service everyone agrees to. When admin intervention is necessary, Invision admins step in. But only for things that threaten the actual security of their server platform. The band plays on, and members continue to shovel coal into the beast.

As a safety net for possible doom, my response was to resign as admin there (TGOPS/The Ghost of Phil’s Society/Mudita) and launch a new site. Something more in line with what PN was from 2007-17. A place to talk about images, sponsor Picks and Contests. Featured content and recognition. Oh, and a return to Xenforo. And it was done.

Check it out at https://fotofora.photography , as new members are encouraged to join in.

Invision senior administrators just cleaned up a yearlong SPAM problem at PN, one that has raged on as a volunteer-led game of whack-a-mole to the tune of hundreds of spam postings daily. The simple fix was to update the platform (which had not been done since it was installed) and add some antispam plugin security features. A simple thing, ignored and neglected for over two years. How does this speak to the future of PN?

So there you have it. After 25 years at PN, I had Sandy delete my account a month ago. But there is still Photrio (I have been here since the APUG days), Camraderie, and my site, FotoFora.Photography.


And that’s the deal to date…

Thank you for the history which I did not know and the status with PN's random walk. Now you have reinforced my decision to expend my efforts to consult and add my knowledge to APUG ==> Photrio.

 

[blee1996]

@Papa Tango your new site is beautifully crafted, thanks for the initiative! There seems to be more digital than analog, but I will check back from time to time.

The main reason I stayed with photo.net is really nostalgia, since I learned building online community software from Philip Greenspun while in college. Apparently my college online community didn't become Facebook.

 

[koraks]

One thing I remember from Greenspun is his "Travels with Samantha". I really loved that series. It received some kind of online publication award - very much deserved as well, as far as I'm concerned. I think it was hosted on photo.net at some point - at least at the point when I found it, which must have been quite some time after it was originally published.

It's funny how the internet has been claiming a role in nostalgia. It's starting to age. And so are we, I suppose.

 

[koraks]

I have always floated the idea that photo.net content be merged into photrio, since the contents match really well.

Much of the commercial value in that content is inseparably linked to the existing URI structure (i.e. the 'address') that is indexed by Google & Co. A purchase price would by the seller be based on the sum of the ad revenue from present to eternity, and that ad revenue is linked to the URI structure. Any buyer who would merge this content into an existing platform like Photrio would either have to keep the photo.net domain and its URI structure in place to be able to effectively capture this ad revenue, or they'd have to accept that the only value is in the information itself. The latter of course is of interest to people like you and me, but only indirectly plays a role in determining the commercial value. After all, value of online 'real estate' is determined by the traffic it generates, not its quality, despite attempts by Google & Co to somehow try and make those align a little better.

The long and the short of it is that it would be disadvantageous for Photrio to purchase content from Photo.net, based on the expectation that (1) the price point would be very high and (2) the economic value of the content would effectively be reduced to near-zero as a result of the transfer. It would of course be nice if the present owner would be willing to sell off the forum content at an attractive price by the time they're prepared and willing to auction off the domain (the main valuable asset). But I don't anticipate they're imbued with such community-oriented, philanthropic motives.

 

[Ben Hutcherson]

Although it’s been a year since this thread was active, I felt that an update was in order!

Photo.net was one of the great early websites for photographers. Virtually all of the classic forum based sites, photographic or otherwise owe a tribute to Phil Greenspun and his idea. However, times change along with technologies—and it was sold in 2007 to NameMedia.

In 2016, Creative Live bought PN, and promptly replaced the old Python-based custom platform it was based on with Xenforo. This is the same software used here! A great choice, and they got their act together quickly. Some things were lost, as certain functions were not available for any stock platform. But it worked and did so nicely.

Segue to mid-2022 when Fivver bought the entire Creative Live franchise. PN came along with that acquisition, sort of like the red-headed stepchild of a new midlife marriage. They did not really want it but recognized it as an asset. In the first misdirected plan, they decided to make some big changes in content delivery.

PN had always been ‘self hosted’, meaning it lived on a rented server somewhere. Fivver chose to shift the site to a ‘hosted’ solution by Invision Communities—a platform that competes with Xenforo. That however does not come with actual site administrators… They had little idea of what they were doing, except that the move would cut costs and administrative overhead.

It was a ‘plain vanilla’ install. The ‘admin’ they provided us with had little experience with forums. Everything was stock, permissions were not set or missing, so on and so forth. I began working with him and we saw some good changes beginning. Then Fivver ghosted us. That was November, 2022.

What saved the day was Roger Gonzalez, an admin left over from the Creative Live era. His credentials were still good and he promoted Sandy Vongries and myself to senior administrators. Of important note, he is also the one who snuck in and generated the new SSL certificates. Fivver had no idea the site was down.

A month later and over 400 documented development changes down the line, the site looked just as it does now. This calls out some facts about PN. Corporate has never communicated with any member of PN--administrators, volunteers, or members. They ignore any emails, and refuse to accept phone calls. Except for paying the hosting service, they have not injected any money into site development or features. The hopelessness of that situation led me to the creation of a new photo site in March 2022.

Sadly, PN is like the Titanic—steaming along and colliding with various icebergs along the way. It is regularly rescued by member volunteers who have no actual authority or legal rights to do so. Heck, I am the one who wrote the terms of service everyone agrees to. When admin intervention is necessary, Invision admins step in. But only for things that threaten the actual security of their server platform. The band plays on, and members continue to shovel coal into the beast.

As a safety net for possible doom, my response was to resign as admin there (TGOPS/The Ghost of Phil’s Society/Mudita) and launch a new site. Something more in line with what PN was from 2007-17. A place to talk about images, sponsor Picks and Contests. Featured content and recognition. Oh, and a return to Xenforo. And it was done.

Check it out at https://fotofora.photography , as new members are encouraged to join in.

Invision senior administrators just cleaned up a yearlong SPAM problem at PN, one that has raged on as a volunteer-led game of whack-a-mole to the tune of hundreds of spam postings daily. The simple fix was to update the platform (which had not been done since it was installed) and add some antispam plugin security features. A simple thing, ignored and neglected for over two years. How does this speak to the future of PN?

So there you have it. After 25 years at PN, I had Sandy delete my account a month ago. But there is still Photrio (I have been here since the APUG days), Camraderie, and my site, FotoFora.Photography.


And that’s the deal to date…

Unfortunately too, the once great site has devolved into a place where even attempts at good discussion are dominated by snark by a few mal-contents, some of whom were banned years ago but managed to get back in during a platform transition and admin seems to have no inclination to get rid of them.

It's not helped too by Officer Sandy, who is frankly just a nasty indvidual and basically sees the site as a "good old boys club." Funny enough too, he considered me part of that based on some private discussions we had until, in a PM, I mentioned to him in passing that(at the time) I was in my late 20s. His attitude to me completely shifted from there, and he's treated me with nothing but contempt since then.

Neglect from the current owners has allowed the above environments to flourish, but getting rid of malcontents might have a positive effect(but then it might just kill what traffic is left).

 

[Dustin McAmera]

I think that must come under Forum Rules #1 ('1. Be civil, polite, and respectful. No personal attacks or intentional rudeness.').