Photography: Between questions and confusion and answeres

nicksan wrote in post #9483191
One of the reason that makes this place great is the patience and understanding from most of its members. We don't have too many of the snappy members that plague other forums. Oh yes, we do have some, but we aren't littered with them.

Tareq, you have to take the good with the bad. We've all been there. I certainly have. I try to use the search function as much as possible, but sometimes there's just no substitute for a quick answer.

Though I like your idea about Sticky's, there's nothing stopping members from ignoring them too.

What I don't want happen is more policing to a point where you are afraid to express your opinion in a reasonably free fashion.

What to do mate, i think it will still go on!!!

In all cases, this thread is much better than many "Dead" threads, some sections there the last post is maybe 1 week ago, 1 month, 5 months,...etc.

I have to agree with nicksan - the true value of this forum is the many nice, helpful
people who populate it. The new members should feel free to ask the "obvious" questions,
so they may learn from the collective experience of the group. I've been shooting for 35+
years and still find new and useful info on this forum regularly - none of us knows all,
but collectively we have a huge knowledge base to draw from.

Regards,
Eric

Tareq wrote in post #9482863
Perfect, i started this thread to have some solutions or suggestions as you did already, so why not making this with an effort to make it?!!!

Thanks!

I don't really agree with you though...

From your first post it seems as though you want to have lots of stickies and FAQs covering just about anything and everything. I don't believe this would work good, and is really not the purpose of a forum aka message board. FAQs with general information on lenses and cameras is fine, but for beginners there is SO MUCH to understand with DSLRs, they really do need help from real people. It's the same with buying a vehicle, or buying a house. There are car salesmen and real estate agents to guide in finding the right product.

The current FAQs are great, but as with anything they can be improved and have stuff added as long as they do not become any more cluttered and confusing then they already may be.

Adding more FAQs and stickies to this forum is the wrong answer. It doesn't work well here and I've never seen it work well anywhere else.

If you want an encyclopedia then create a wikipedia-type site about Canon SLRs. I've considered doing exactly that but simply do not have the time to set up and manage something like that. If anybody wants to take that idea and run with it then more power to you.

Hundreds of questions get asked here every day where the answers are already in the stickies and the general policy is to limit the number of stickies to a minimum - so more stickies aren't the answer. Most new members don't read them anyway based on what I've seen in my years on the forum.

Mark_Cohran wrote in post #9486255
Hundreds of questions get asked here every day where the answers are already in the stickies and the general policy is to limit the number of stickies to a minimum - so more stickies aren't the answer. Most new members don't read them anyway based on what I've seen in my years on the forum.

I agree with that, the stickies seem to be ignored by new members and old, I'll confess to ignoring a lot of them myself. What I was suggesting was moving representative threads such as RAW vs JPEG, 24-70 vs 24-105, etc. and possibly the existing stickies to the FAQ section. It probably won't help either but it would clean up the first page of every sub forum.

I didn't say you should fill the forum with stickies or FAQ's but we should try to find a way to minimize those growing up rapidly and scary questions which is like people can see the answers but they like to ask again and again mostly from new members, encyclopedia or a reference is a solution and i like this idea but i know it is not a final or only solution, and it will take time as well, so if many members give opinions and suggestions and so, we may end up with something to help this forum, we shouldn't think about one solution and there is no one only solution anyway, but we try to clean up a bit many threads that are unnecessary even mine, i ask many questions sometimes because others did and no control.

at least if we want to have less stickies, then we can create a sticky forum or thread putting all links about popular gear in it, each in its section, for example, in lens section, we put one sticky with links about 24-70, 70-200 versions, EF and EF-s performances, crop bodies lenses list vs. FF/1.3x bodies lenses list,...etc. So by this any question about those lenses one can go to this sticky and choose a link to a lens to read about it, and this sticky is updated regularly, we can keep some threads out of this sticky and not necessary to move all the threads to this sticky, at least this will make it less repeated threads and maybe better something.

I saw in one forum that they have a special section they called "Oldies or Archive", and there we an find many old and some popular answered threads, they do that to clean up a bit the forum.

I've been here awhile and I don't read the stickies.
I'm also in the club that thinks the "Search" function sucks, besides a newbie doesn't know what to look for most the time anyway.
If someone asks, What is an F-stop, why not tell them instead of telling them to do a search.
Sooner or later, they'll get it figured out and then they can repeat the mantra..."Do A Search"

Tareq,
Great thought... the real problem? People (mostly those who don't shoot professionally) like to answer the questions... that's right... they love telling people what equipment they should buy because it gives them a chance to sound important and exonerates their own gear purchases/preferences.

I tried bringing up a similar topic in the wedding forum only to be ridiculed by a good percentage of the resident hacks. I was just wanting to make POTN a better place but the sad reality is that the reason POTN is so good is because of the moderators... not the common posters.

I have come to see the light that the vast majority here are just enthusiasts... sorta like the guys who build their own cars in their garage... they just love talking about the gear and recommending this and that...

It is the gear on this forum that makes people feel special... not the pictures they create with them. With the excellent moderators here it makes this all run pretty smoothly but trying to step outside of this paradigm I don't think is possible without a concentrated effort to become more professionally orientated and then it would not be POTN I guess.

pcunite wrote in post #9521201
Tareq,
Great thought... the real problem? People (mostly those who don't shoot professionally) like to answer the questions... that's right... they love telling people what equipment they should buy because it gives them a chance to sound important and exonerates their own gear purchases/preferences.

So someone who may have 20+ years experience in photography but never earned any money from it cannot have a say because he is not a "pro"? Is that what you are saying?

POTN is a very good place because of the common posters. If it was all mods and no members it would be pretty dull (no offence to the mods!)

This is a forum for photographers of all ages and experience levels and that is why it has become such a good community. I don't discount or discredit anyone's opinions or advice just because they have few posts or only just got their camera last week but I don't much care for elitist attitudes.

Do you ever look at the share forums? There are a lot of excellent images in there that I am very grateful for people spending their time to share. The gear forums are but a small part of this community and yes, people like to talk about what they might be buying - but that's part of the fun of it.

Mike,
Your totally right, I was just speaking about a very specific issue. The enthusiast members here on POTN make it fun. Take care.

Enjoy all, whether it is about photos or about gear no problem, let all feel free to do whatever and share and have fun!!!

wait... so WHAT is best for sports photography and WHAT's the best lens for portraiture? As for my budget, it's enough, but not too much...

If you really want to inform the POTN users without having countless threads of the same subject, you should create a study list and have a quiz that unlocks 'reply' or 'post new thread' button on the POTN page once s/he has passed.
That way everyone will have the 'same' foundational understanding before they start using this forum.

Sounds like a lot of work? Well then... you can just choose to ignore the ones you feel have been beaten to death before.

btw, love your landscape photos in the 16-35L sample photo thread!

[Hyuni wrote:
='[Hyuni];9547655']wai​t... so WHAT is best for sports photography and WHAT's the best lens for portraiture? As for my budget, it's enough, but not too much...

If you really want to inform the POTN users without having countless threads of the same subject, you should create a study list and have a quiz that unlocks 'reply' or 'post new thread' button on the POTN page once s/he has passed.
That way everyone will have the 'same' foundational understanding before they start using this forum.

Sounds like a lot of work? Well then... you can just choose to ignore the ones you feel have been beaten to death before.

btw, love your landscape photos in the 16-35L sample photo thread!

Not sure that last sentence is about me, if so then thank you very much.

Blame the internet for feeding people's want for instant gratification: In this case, an answer to their questions. In the "old" days, you had to really make an effort to search for answers. Now, just ask a question in a forum and you'll get many answers. Your only task is to decided which answer is "good". Eventually, you get to know who to trust.

Do I like this forum as is? You bet!! The controlled chaos is great. Although many questions are repeated (as are many answers), coming from different people both questions and answers are slightly different and, probably, also changes with time. Questions/answers about the 85/1.8 were probably slightly different before and after the 135/2L came on the scene. My answer to a question like, "Is it the camera or the photographer" changes the more I get into photography.

The controlled chaos of this forum supports this evolution of questions and answers. Newbies with the "same" questions are great because they remind me of the same combination of enthusiasm and fear I had when I first started looking into POTN.