DSLRUsers.com

Gidday,

I've just returned from a relaxing 8 days on Lord Howe Island. While there I chatted to other holiday makers (especially the ones with decent camera gear), as you do.

Even though the Lowepro was permanently on my back (1328 RAW images taken), I never had pen or paper to write down the URL for this site. It came to me that it might be useful if a PDF template was made that members can print/ cut out business card size http://www.dslrusers.com advert with logo etc.

What do you guys think? Would help spread the wealth on information on this site.

To what end?

Seriously, this site is far bigger than I ever intended or wanted.

I prefer that it grow slowly, with members who are interested in joining our community, rather than have every man and his dog join, and we end up with a zillion users, none of whom are all that active, or perhaps with the feel of DPR.

Warwick

I have the (old) D70 logo on my proloop neck strap and my grip strap (bought through birddog). I know he's working on new stuff with the new logo. Whenever I talk to people about it I point at the strap to imprint the address on them!

gstark wrote:I prefer that it grow slowly, with members who are interested in joining our community, rather than have every man and his dog join, and we end up with a zillion users, none of whom are all that active, or perhaps with the feel of DPR.

FWIW I agree!

I dread the thought that this forum may possibly one day go down the path of dpreview... I don't think it will happen as the powers-that-be here would not tolerate it.

There have been a couple of "dp-ish" threads here recently but I was very encouraged at how they were handled. I don't think widely advertising the existance of this forum is a good idea as anyone with a genuine interest will take the time to find this place. Putting it up in lights will only increase the VI percentage

Wocka,
I like your suggestion but agree with the cautious approach that Gary and others have mentioned. To head down a similar path that the yanky website has would be time to take anti-depressants. Now...get posting, lets see some of your thousand odd photos!!

I'm surprised we haven't received an influx of new registrations from the amount of times this site's been mentioned on OCAU and dpreview.

gstark wrote:To what end?

Seriously, this site is far bigger than I ever intended or wanted.

I prefer that it grow slowly, with members who are interested in joining our community, rather than have every man and his dog join, and we end up with a zillion users, none of whom are all that active, or perhaps with the feel of DPR.

Interestingly, to further Gary's comments, I noted earlier this evening that out of 1249 members (at around 6.30pm), a shade under 650 of them had never made a single post.

I don't think we need to spread the love too much further; IMHO we're already losing the close community feel we had in the early days. That was, of course, inevitable but I'm not keen on accelerating the process. I used to love viewing and replying to every new image that popped up - now I'm lucky if I even see 10% of them, let only have time to comment.

Warwick - I guess it is a positive indication of how you view the site that you want others to enjoy it too. That is good.

But the site has grown of it's own accord, and there is no particular benefit for us in having it get bigger. It will anyway without active promotion.

I do like what your suggestion means, however.

Any chance of pruning the members who have registered but not posted? I know that sounds a bit too strict, but just tossing up ideas.

Well, it's not our place to say that a member who joins and doesn't post doesn't belong here.

I was thinking the same thing as piro...


Maybe there should be a rule that if you have not posted for 3 months you get suspended and then if you have done nothing about it ie complained about your restricted membership after 6 months the membership is canceled...

Just a thought

Why?

It doesn't really serve a purpose.

In fact, if you look at a few of our original members who rarely make posts but still turn up to mini-meets and events, it really doesn't make much sense at all.

I am sure that some members have learned a great deal from this site and they may not have posted an image or even replied to a topic. Do we really want to discourage them? I have never posted a pic or replied to a topic on some of the other photo sites but I visit there often and mangae to pick up some good pointers....would hate to be singled out for not posting

... and in any case, we allow guests to browse without posting, so what's the difference.

olrac wrote:I was thinking the same thing as piro...


Maybe there should be a rule that if you have not posted for 3 months you get suspended and then if you have done nothing about it ie complained about your restricted membership after 6 months the membership is canceled...

Just a thought

And a valuable one, but one that we, for moment, shall not be acting upon.
As Leigh has correctly pointed out, there are many members who post rarely but do come to meets - or other events.

This community takes in membership of all types, and actiivity within the community takes many form. The posting count is but one measure of activity, but as most of you know, we use other means as well to determine a mamber's eligibility for full member's access.

Geez, I feel terrible now for my previous post regarding members who haven't posted. At no point was I advocating a cull of these memberships, just pointing out that there was a very large number of 'silent partners' and that they contribute greatly to the growth of our overall membership numbers.

I agree wholeheartedly with Gary and Leigh that suspending them would effectively achieve nothing and I also side with Greg B in his opinion that the forum is quite happily chugging along at it's own pace with no real need for an injection of notoriety.

I'm sure that many of our quieter members draw much from the experience of the more vocal ones and that transfer of information is what the forum is all about.

Manta, no need to feel terrible. We (ie the moderator group) have thought
about such possibilities, but decided there was nothing to be gained. The
issue of non-posting members has been raised a couple of times (I did a
tedious statistical analysis at one stage due to my nerdish love of
statistics)

Gary has taken the view - and one with which I wholeheartedly agree -
that we don't need to seek members, and we don't need to cull them.
(Occasional lunatic excepted)

At the same time, such issues are always open for reasonable comment.

Greg B wrote:Gary has taken the view - and one with which I wholeheartedly agree -
that we don't need to seek members, and we don't need to cull them.
(Occasional lunatic excepted)

I'm pleased to see you only cull the occasional lunatic. Be a boring place if you got rid of all of them.

Manta wrote:

Greg B wrote:Gary has taken the view - and one with which I wholeheartedly agree -
that we don't need to seek members, and we don't need to cull them.
(Occasional lunatic excepted)

I'm pleased to see you only cull the occasional lunatic. Be a boring place if you got rid of all of them.

Hey,

I'd be the first to go, under those sorts of rules.

As Greg says, no need to feel bad. This is a discussion forum, and without discussion, you would not have been able to have been made aware of our earlier discussions.

Further, there is no guarantee that any opinion that I (or others) might have is absolutely correct, and if you can come with an idea that we've not already considered (always a possibility) then all bets are off.

As Greg says, no need to feel bad. This is a discussion forum, and without discussion, you would not have been able to have been made aware of our earlier discussions.

Further, there is no guarantee that any opinion that I (or others) might have is absolutely correct, and if you can come with an idea that we've not already considered (always a possibility) then all bets are off.
_________________
g.

Nicely put Gary....and others it also has another name..DEMOCRACY..

NeoN

NeoN wrote:Nicely put Gary....and others it also has another name..DEMOCRACY..

But you do need to understand that this board is not a democracy. never has been, and never will be.

We, the Site Admins, and to a lesser extent, the Mods, could possibly be seen more or leass as a benevolent dictatorship. We certainly don't bite heads off when suggestions are made, and often the suggestions, if deemed worthwhile, are implemented.

Often We may seek to gain an insight into how the users base feels about something that we might be contemplating, but the bottom line is that, as far as anything to with our web presence is concerned, the decision rests with me, and me alone.

And any similarity between that and democracy is entirely coincidental..