Suggestion Photography - Critique Forum

[HowardE]

Hi.

I know some other forums (who shall remain nameless) have a critique section, where people can post their pictures, and get honest feedback and perhaps some pointers on how to improve their shots.

Most of the time - on SB when people post photos, it's mostly a praisefest. Not that there's anything wrong with that... but some people may want to hear what they can do better, etc. At the moment, there isn't really an appropriate place to post photos that people are wanting critique, and it's hard to ask for that under the UW Photography forum, where it's mostly just a place for people to SHARE photos (which is also fine)

I would expect that the rules for the sub-forum would include politeness as a key factor, since on some other forums, people just overly criticize, without being constructive.

So - in conclusion... a sub-forum for UW Photo Critique - constructive and polite critique or praise whatever the case may be...

What do you guys think?

 

[Dr. Doug Ebersole]

Sounds like a great idea, Howard.

Doug

 

[Darnold9999]

Great idea. Suggest that in its forum sticky that a suggestion be made that if you post that you think twice before responding to criticism of your picture other than to say thank you for your input.

 

[archman]

I usually press to consolidate existing forums. ScubaBoard is pretty much sub-forumed to death. I use this Board during my data management workshops as an existing example of detrimental overcomplexity, or "when good intentions go awry."

If one has photos and desires constructive feedback, the most obvious solution is to make that clear in the subject heading of the thread, and further explained in the first post. I've seen this work quite well with past users.

When the photo gallery gets up and running again, there will be much less demand for photo sharing on the UW photography forums.

Politeness to one another is part and parcel of SB's Terms of Service, and applies fairly equally to all forums. A lot of that depends on moderator supervision and the personality demographic of the forum viewers, however. Some forums (and posts!) just attract more full-blooded people than others.

 

[HowardE]

I usually press to consolidate existing forums. ScubaBoard is pretty much sub-forumed to death. I use this Board during my data management workshops as an existing example of detrimental overcomplexity, or "when good intentions go awry."

If one has photos and desires constructive feedback, the most obvious solution is to make that clear in the subject heading of the thread, and further explained in the first post. I've seen this work quite well with past users.

When the photo gallery gets up and running again, there will be much less demand for photo sharing on the UW photography forums.

Politeness to one another is part and parcel of SB's Terms of Service, and applies fairly equally to all forums. A lot of that depends on moderator supervision and the personality demographic of the forum viewers, however. Some forums (and posts!) just attract more full-blooded people than others.

Sure there are lots of sub-forums... but are you suggesting that the title of a thread should be "Please critique my underwater photos from ________ on _____ " instead of just having a place where people can expect critique, and give honest opinions, instead of just "oh that's really good" - right now... it's not very clear, and even when the gallery was up... people still posted threads with their pictures under the photography general forum...

 

[archman]

Sure there are lots of sub-forums... but are you suggesting that the title of a thread should be "Please critique my underwater photos from ________ on _____ " instead of just having a place where people can expect critique, and give honest opinions, instead of just "oh that's really good" - right now... it's not very clear, and even when the gallery was up... people still posted threads with their pictures under the photography general forum...

Yes, that's exactly right howarde. However, the thread title would resemble something much simpler, more like this:

Constructive feedback of my UW pics

And that's it. All the rest of the details go into the first post. You don't need an overly lengthy title to attract the savvy photographers on SB... they tend to browse the general UW photo forums regularly.

User posts that significantly go off topic (i.e. non-constructive critiques) can be referred to a moderator for removal, just as in any other thread.

 

[HowardE]

Well.. to be honest... I was against several of the new sub-forums that have been added, like the splitting of the Florida conch section (but have since realized, that it's not a big deal, and really doesn't make a difference)... however, many people like myself browse the new posts, rather than browse the forums in a traditional sense making any sub-forum merely a redundancy anyway...

It really seems like new sub-forums aren't that much of a hassle for admin, and for people to navigate through the board. This would just expand the photography section of ScubaBoard to have a place for honesty without flaming as far as critique goes (I know this is already part of the TOS). For example... If you look on some of the photography internet forums... many people are always grouchy, and find inordinate amounts of fault... almost making a new photographer immensely intimidated against posting in some of those places. ScubaBoard has it's share of experienced photographers who have a lot to share. It seems only appropriate that a place be made...

If it doesn't get use... it can always be removed

You are welcome to your opposition... This is just a suggestion.

 

[stu_in_fl]

i like the idea of a sub-forum under the u/w section - we are more likely to get feedback from some of the great photograhers on the board if there is a single location they can occasional check out (rather than searching the whole site)

 

[Diver Dennis]

I like it howarde.

 

[_Bella_]

I like the idea.