What's going on??

klownshed · Mar 20, 2017

It isn't always easy to find an answer with search on the forum. The search tool isn't that great and you have to word things just right to get manageable results. And English isn't everyone's first language.

Some searches are easy if it involves a product name and number, but try searching for "when to use a red filter" for example. The (there was a url link here which no longer exists) is a thread titled "What has been your preferred Economical Paper?". Search is a skill in and of itself.

When you've been around for a while you see the threads come and go and remember them. But if you are new and search for something it's not necessarily easy to find those same threads.

... Just playing Devil's advocate.

pdeeh · Mar 20, 2017

Gerald C Koch said:
But that's not the point is it. APUG is by its very nature designed to answer specific technical questions not rehash basics. It is NOT a HOWTO site. There are several of those already on the web. Adding one more seems rather pointless.

I have the greatest respect for you Gerald, but I must point out that this is just your personal conception of what apug is or how apug should be.

There simply isn't a universally applicable a priori law of forums that says people must use them in a way that doesn't annoy you (or indeed me)

klownshed · Mar 20, 2017

.. Oh and the biggest problem with forums is that you don't know who you're talking to and more importantly don't necessarily understand the manner in which a comment is made. I often fall into that trap and make comments that I assume are understood in the manner they were intended whereas in forum-land it's apparently easy to read other meanings into anything you say and that you really didn't mean. ";-)" is not enough to let people know you're being 'tongue in cheek'.

But sometimes people are just plain rude and feel that the anonymity they feel by hiding behind a pseudonym entitles them to be a d1ck. ;-)

Gerald C Koch · Mar 20, 2017

Peter Schrager said:
Gerald...I always read your posts because you are well versed in chemistry etc...please remember you started somewhere too and it's important not to trivialize others questions
I've been doing this for 50 years and still am learning and asking questions..sometimes I do google but hearing it from someone like you clears it up quickly for me...

I started out by reading every book I could find. But people nowadays are not interested in reading. But, again, my point is that APUG is not a HOWTO site. There are the sites that have the long detailed videos. APUG is just not well oriented to do that. My advice would be to invest in the Ansel Adams series. Then sit down and READ IT THOUGH AND THROUGH. Then if there are specific questions ask them on APUG. It would be impossible to regurgitate all that is contained there on APUG.

Gerald C Koch · Mar 20, 2017

pdeeh said:
There simply isn't a universally applicable a priori law of forums that says people must use them in a way that doesn't annoy you (or indeed me)

To turn the question around a bit. Is it even possible to change APUG to be everything that everybody wants? There is some merit in having an entirely separate forum for beginners, a Beginners Photography Users Group or BPUG. However it might need judicious "weeding" from time to time.

Photo Engineer · Mar 20, 2017

Many people simply don't read long threads that contain the answer to their question. They prefer to start a new thread and ask the question again. Remember that there is often no one answer to their question and it often takes a long thread to express all points of view. So, the long existing thread would be useful, and yet is not read.

PE

AgX · Mar 20, 2017

The same people likely will not read a textbook either.

pdeeh · Mar 20, 2017

You know, i don't think it needs changing very much, except insofar as its members are able to adapt to the way the world changes and continues to change.

If sean thought it a good idea to have a beginne's forum it's fine by me. I'm less sure that there needs to be a separate bpug.

Apug is the home of photographic orthodoxy and conservatism. In its own way that's not necessarily a bad thing,but it perhaps also means that it tends to be populated by an older demographic who are more used to a model of learning where the respected expert directs the learning of the admiring student.

Forums, perhaps the Internet generally, or even education generally over the last few decades, encourages a flatter more dialogic model of learning, and younger newcomers to film may easily be deterred by an insistence that they learn in what might seem to them to be obsolete modes of learning.

By the same token, traditionalists may find themselves irritated and resistant to what might seem demanding or lazy requests for help that don't fit their own model of what people "should" do.

I'm from a pre-Internet age too. I make an effort to try and remember that I'm a dinosaur ...

BrianShaw · Mar 20, 2017

4season said:
Never trust an avatar

Never trust a user name either. [Edit] as "Julie" already pointed out.

Luckless · Mar 20, 2017

Searching the forums is an easy way to bring up a lot of info that probably isn't actually what you're looking for, or can lead you down useless rabbit holes.

- I spent some time poking around here and google the other day trying to find detailed listing of clear notch codes to compare to some mystery film that arrived in some used holders. Vague ASCII art was the closest I could come, with lots of threads on this site, and others, from years ago...

Totally found what I was looking for easily, right? Well, kind of. Found more than a half dozen threads that all confidently gave me the answer I was seeking, except it was in the form of a link to some webpage that appears to have long since vanished. A handful more seemed to hint that they had at one time contained exactly what I was looking for, but the embedded images were dead links as well.

mynewcolour · Mar 20, 2017

summicron1 said:
Geeze folks -- this is a hobby and a skill. It is the duty of people who have the skill to pass it on, lest it die out.

Passing on a skill takes patience and kindness. No matter how often you are asked the same question, you need to remember that, to the questioner, it is a new question and vital to know.
That's how I do things, anyway.

What a great attitude. I hope some of this gets passed on aswell.

Gerald C Koch · Mar 20, 2017

BrianShaw said:
Never trust a user name either. [Edit] as "Julie" already pointed out. [well some

Well some of us are right out there with our real names. Don't use a nomme de guerre.

pdeeh · Mar 20, 2017

Hmm I could call myself Patrick Donald Hunter and it would look like a real name but it still wouldn't be. Even if I said it was

winger · Mar 20, 2017

Gerald C Koch said:
I started out by reading every book I could find. But people nowadays are not interested in reading. But, again, my point is that APUG is not a HOWTO site.

And some of us have a really tough time trying to learn by reading. If I were to get a simple, condensed story of actual use of a principle from someone here, it would likely help me far more than a three page scientific explanation in the Adams books or somewhere else. It's also not always easy to get books. Those on the coasts seem to think it's a simple thing to order one on the web or pop over to the nearest bookstore. When I lived in a very rural area in the midwest, our web was satellite based and was practically traumatizing - pages didn't always load and anything large had a good chance of just not going through, so reading much online was mostly out. Even ordering from Amazon wasn't easy (their pages have so much graphic content it slows down). The closest bookstore was over an hour away. The libraries were ok, but anything on photography would have had to have been ordered and you have to know what you want first in order to do that.

I completely see Peter's original point - I've seen some fairly snarky comments lately, too. I think that most responses to newbies have good info in them, it just might be tough for them to know what to ignore and what to truly hear. I also agree with Truzi that this time of year seems to bring out the inner curmudgeon in many. Sometimes reading the posts in a different voice helps to pick up on the joking or sarcastic manner they were intended, but that sort of stuff really doesn't come through well in writing and many people don't quite "get" that.

In regards to a beginner page - I think something like that might be best as a section of mostly text, not links. Links get broken as companies change what's on their sites and where. Materials change. A reference section with photos of typical "bad" things (airbells, bromide drag, etc..) and how to tell if film's over developed vs overexposed, etc.. would likely be very helpful to many (not always newbies). Maybe APUG is a how-to site. Not everyone has a person to learn from or a class they can take. Many of us with experience were the lucky ones who grew up with film. Being gentle with those learning now might help us keep this stuff around longer.

(as for the avatar and name thing, yeah, people still seem to assume I'm a guy - nope)

klownshed · Mar 20, 2017

Am I imagining things or did a bunch of posts disappear?

Gerald C Koch · Mar 20, 2017

Forums are a bit like the elephant in the old story of the blind men and the elephant.

To those who want APUG to be everything to all people then perhaps for them the answer is 42.

Truzi · Mar 20, 2017

klownshed said:
Am I imagining things or did a bunch of posts disappear?

I'm used to it by now.
At least the old system left place-markers so we didn't have to question whether we were imagining things.

What bugs me the most, though, is a seeming lack of consistency (and a few correlations). Sometimes nasty posts/threads are removed, sometimes not, and sometimes innocuous posts/threads disappear. Some digital/scanning discussions disappear, some don't, etc.

Photo Engineer · Mar 20, 2017

"Snarky comments lately" is hardly the thing to say. They have been here forever and many have been deleted. This has been ongoing.

I am a professional in the field of building analog products and this experience goes from start to finish, color and B&W and includes processes. Think of how many times I have been jumped on by those who "know better". I don't pretend to be right all of the time, and have admitted to my errors when they take place. However, I have a hard time passing on information when I am constantly called to task by many members. And, it goes on over and over and over.

I don't pretend to criticize photos, except in a very few cases, because that is not my field of expertise. I am no expert in lighting nor am I an expert in esoteric points of camera collection or use. I have an RZ and an ETRSi but rarely comment on those relevant threads because I am no expert. I sometimes feel that commenting in my own field is useless here as people go on and on with little or no experience.

However, this is not a pressing issue to anyone unless analog really begins to die. Then, the work of those like Osterman and Brandreth at George Eastman Museum become worth gold to those who want to continue.

PE

Helios 1984 · Mar 20, 2017

summicron1 said:
Geeze folks -- this is a hobby and a skill. It is the duty of people who have the skill to pass it on, lest it die out.

Passing on a skill takes patience and kindness. No matter how often you are asked the same question, you need to remember that, to the questioner, it is a new question and vital to know.
That's how I do things, anyway.

+2
Amen to that.

There is a lot of things that I wouldn't know if someone had not taken the time to made a video or write it on the net, and that include how to do a cravat noose

pdeeh · Mar 20, 2017

Photo Engineer said:
Think of how many times I have been jumped on by those who "know better"

And yet you always seem to be able to respond with grace and dignity, and I've never seen you be rude however great the apparent provocation (although you've been appropriately sharp on some occasions).
This is an enviable way to go about things and there are a few people who could do worse than to emulate your example.

pbromaghin · Mar 20, 2017

klownshed said:
It isn't always easy to find an answer with search on the forum. The search tool isn't that great and you have to word things just right to get manageable results. And English isn't everyone's first language.

Some searches are easy if it involves a product name and number, but try searching for "when to use a red filter" for example. The (there was a url link here which no longer exists) is a thread titled "What has been your preferred Economical Paper?". Search is a skill in and of itself.

When you've been around for a while you see the threads come and go and remember them. But if you are new and search for something it's not necessarily easy to find those same threads.

... Just playing Devil's advocate.

+1 on the difficulty of finding what you are looking for in a search.

One can also find that 2 different threads on the same subject, a few months apart, will yield completely different answers.

winger · Mar 20, 2017

klownshed said:
Am I imagining things or did a bunch of posts disappear?

I believe they did, thankfully.

Photo Engineer · Mar 20, 2017

pdeeh said:
And yet you always seem to be able to respond with grace and dignity, and I've never seen you be rude however great the apparent provocation (although you've been appropriately sharp on some occasions).
This is an enviable way to go about things and there are a few people who could do worse than to emulate your example.

I've had my moments, but thanks.

PE

Photo Engineer · Mar 20, 2017

pbromaghin said:
+1 on the difficulty of finding what you are looking for in a search.

One can also find that 2 different threads on the same subject, a few months apart, will yield completely different answers.

And if they differ, it is due to the fact that there is often more than one way to answer a question.

PE

AgX · Mar 20, 2017

winger said:
It's also not always easy to get books. Those on the coasts seem to think it's a simple thing to order one on the web or pop over to the nearest bookstore. When I lived in a very rural area in the midwest, ... the closest bookstore was over an hour away. The libraries were ok, but anything on photography would have had to have been ordered and you have to know what you want first in order to do that.

Your argument is not valid to me as the some is true for each and every piece of photographic equipment too in such location.

bvy · Mar 20, 2017

AgX said:
Your argument is not valid to me as the some is true for each and every piece of photographic equipment too in such location.

Some of want to do new things with the same old equipment.

AgX · Mar 20, 2017

Where there is old equipment there often are old books too. And film and chemicals cannot be bought in a remote place anyway.

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