A New Change For Luminous-Landscape

[Kevin Raber]

Harsh, there will be an option at check out if you so desire.  It will be apreciated for sure.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I support the idea of having the ability to add more than $12. I also support the idea of only allowing paid members having signatures listing their websites/blogs/etc.

I too support both of these ideas.

For paying a bit extra it might be nice to have some options as to where the extra will be applied. The two I think of off hand are (1) the Endowment, or (2) Wherever most needed.

-Eric

[michael]

Any LuLa article accessed via an external search engine will be freely accessible. Membership is to required to read that specific article.

Michael

[David Mantripp]

Enough already. Please stick to the topic.

Oh, alright then. But Lord knows, I was tempted.....

[Krug]

I apologise for rejoining this discussion having already made my continuing support for what Michael, Chris and Kevin have been - and I trust will continue to do - very clear.

However I would add that for me without any doubt Lula provides the most mature and civilised photography resource on the web - both in terms of the information, opinion and entertainment in the original material - and, generally, in the debates and experience in the forums.

Some of the discussion about this impending change has been very worthwhile and a number of proposals have been responded to positively and promptly. However quite a lot of the comments would change the essential nature of the site, and certainly for me diminish the value and quality of the site - the very reasons I come to this site rather than the huge number of meretricious alternatives. The comments about selling the site or exploiting its full potential or employing a PR and Advertising Department totally misunderstand the essential nature of this site.
Such changes would fundamentally - and, I believe, destroy the reasons why it is valued by so many of us.

Please Michael, Chris and Kevin above all do not lower the standards, or fundamentally change the character, of Lula which have been developed over the years. "Unique" is nowadays a hugely overused word but  Lula comes pretty close to warranting its use .... and I for one will be ready to pay a lot more than $1 per month to enable you not to lose that standing. I very much hope that there are many who will take the same view.

[michael]

Krug,

Kevin, Chris and I love the web site. It's not now nor has it ever been a job for us, it's a passion.

We intend on making it better as time passes and lose none of what had made it unique these past 16 years.

Regards,

Michael

[JeanMichel]

Just adding my thanks to Michael, Kevin and Chris for all they do to keep L-L a valuable and resource, both the forum and the main site. Their decision to keep the forum 'free' is a nice gesture, as maintaining the forum is certainly not free: someone spends time and money to maintain it. Contributors (and I occasionally contribute something) are just as contributors to journals who must pay a subscription to the journal before being allowed to contribute; at L-L we get it all for free, it is time for us to pay or share of the cost of this amazing resource.
Jean-Michel

[haddadlf]

2 questions come up:
1- how can someone access the articles from a news feed  aggregator such as Digg?
2- I refer many of my friends to the site when they ask me questions that I know articles in the site address. That said, how will someone who is not a paying subscriber is to sample the site and browse in order to decide whether they want to become a member themselves. There has to be a way to allow people a peek.
Thanks


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[VidJa]

OK, I was a bit stunned when I first read the news. Then I thought. Am I willing to pay $12 for reviews of expensive gear I will NEVER be able to posess.... probably not. However, am I willing to pay for the video content and great 'skill' type articles....maybe.

The value of this site is in the exchange of knowledge, opinions on the end product of our profession/hobby and in great discussions, not in (sorry for the terms) gear fetish and show offs.

I guess I will give it a try....for a year ...and then decide later. So my expectation is that the first year will be great for LULA, but the true challenge will be in a years time, when people have to renew. Will LULA be able to attract a large reliable customer base? (larger than the usual incrowd?) I hope so, but it will be a big challenge.

[Internaut]

Sounds fine to me.  Hopefully, there will be a PayPal option. 

[Phil Indeblanc]

Personally, I would prefer if authorization and authentication of people to read articles was able to be separate to that of posting in forums.

The reason is more to do with back end book keeping - by joining the two there is a connection created between a name, address and credit card number with a username used to post here on LuLa forums.

So when (not if) someone hacks LuLa user anonymity is lost.

I understand that this might be painful for LuLa to implement but really, keeping the forums free and the articles paywalled is dividing the site in two so maybe that reality should be realised sooner rather than later.

I suppose what I see is a change in direction for LuLa to something more like what Sean Reid has done with "Reid's Reviews" however rather than build a separate site and try to get people go there instead, the goal is to try and capitalise on the existing user base to the fullest extent possible.

I don't think this is an issue...
Its not that hard to create a second screen name to contribute and pay for the site and read articles and continue to keep a different screen name for the forums....If you want to. Just do it from another computer/IP. Go to someone elses work computer and sign up :-)  But browsers and software have gotten very sophisticated, specially on mobile apps. Some cookies are tored in the same location and different sites gain access to that content.  Its really a major breach in privacy, but I guess privacy has gone out the window in most instances, yet hardly anyone is doing anything about it. You either use the browser or app with knowing what you do in other sites and the content is shared, or you don't use the app.

[MarkL]

Membership for articles is probably fine: Lloyd Chambers, Reid Reviews etc. already do that and it seems to work for them. Putting the forum behind a paywall where the content is user generated is a real mistake in killing a community not to mention a rather dubious practice.

A few questions:
Will the length, frequency and content of the articles change now people will be paying for them?
We've had many 'non-articles' published here in recent years which amount to barely more than self promotion by some contributors or promoting exorbitantly priced workshops - will this change? We've had many people complain to be silenced with the fact this site is free...
Will all the ads disappear?
Will we have less 'lazy content' like just posting chit-chat videos?

I think I'm in the camp of yes $12 a year is small but I visit during my lunch break and there are many places elsewhere that are free.

[seamus finn]

I wonder could we get off the niggling crap and just just pay a miserable few dollars or get off the site altogether and get out of the way. There's nothing more depressing than photographers arguing about money - it's worse then their art!

Pay up or ship out. Personally, I'm paying up.

[Dave Millier]

£1 a month (less actually) is clearly excellent value and cheaper than most paysites. Who could quibble with that?

Except...5 or 10 years ago Lula was an interesting site, these days I don't find it so. I browse the articles but rarely do I find anything interesting enough to bother reading, even for free. I don't know why that is - has Lula changed (there is less Michael), have I changed or is there just so much free competition?  I subscribed to Reid for a year - couldn't argue with the quality but it wasn't actually useful so I stopped. I subscribed to onlandscape.com - superb magazine that concentrates on photographs, not cameras but that got boring, too. I occasionally buy issues of lenswork (an amazing mag) but... There's just so much quality free stuff out there and my diet of read spans a wide range of sites. What does Lula really offer that isn't available from a mix of Dpreview, Thom Hogan, The Online Photographer, GetDpi.com, Brucepercy.com, Admiringlight.com, GuyTal, Oopoomoo, The Nimble Photographer, The Lightweight Photographer etc etc. 

[Jeff Griffin]

What does Lula really offer that isn't available from a mix of ........

It is all on one site  and therefore, for me, easier to follow on a daily basis 

[NashvilleMike]

(snip)

Except...5 or 10 years ago Lula was an interesting site, these days I don't find it so. I browse the articles but rarely do I find anything interesting enough to bother reading, even for free.

(snip)

I feel the same way. There hasn't been an article that I've found interesting in several years. I come just to entertain myself with the forum discussions. The price is certainly alright - if one is a fan of LL and gets something out of it, it's a no-brainer. But I only come, on occasion, to read the forums. And then I have to ask myself the questions:

1) Are the forums going to grow when they are locked down to the pay wall? I don't think they will, which means that it will continue to be what they are now: kind of a rich boys club arguing back and forth.

2) Do I really need more sony and canon fanboyism? I honestly get more (and better) information from other forums, including the much-despised dpreview, even if I have to wade through some serious metric f-tons of BS, than I ever get from here lately. I will, however, miss the writings of James Russell AKA "Bcooter" in the motion/video arena, who is one of the better posters I've read in the 12 years I've lurked here, and I guess if I ever got into motion/video (I have no skin in that game now) and he's around, I'll pony up the fee.

Ultimately I don't support pay-wall forums. I might support pay-wall sites if the article or review content is good enough, but after doing so with Chambers and getting tired of both his attitude and less-than-complete testing, and Reid, whom I will never support after his run in years ago with another "famous" site, and who reviews equipment I have no interest in, the odds of that happening again is slim. I might drop Ming Thien some coin if he pay-walled his site, but that's about it.

So I'm gone. I'll reply to one post I've been meaning to answer for a few weeks and then time to pull the plug here. LL was a nice site years ago, but both the articles and the forums are just a blip on the overall radar these days.

[John Hollenberg]

Ultimately I don't support pay-wall forums.

If you paid attention to this thread, you would know that the forums will remain free.

[YashK]

Totally understand this move and am wholly supportive. Will sign up as soon as the option is available.  This website has been an invaluable resource for knowledge as well as inspiration.  Keep up the terrific work.

[BobShaw]

I joined Lula a couple of years ago and found it very informative. However in the last year or so the forum has become a nasty place. There are a lot of high and mighty keyboard warriors who seem to have no purpose other to break down other peoples comments sentence by sentence and ridicule them. If people don't agree with someone else comment, then abuse is a gutless response.

I have no problem with the price but hope that there will be more moderation and a better atmosphere going forward.

[graeme]

I joined Lula a couple of years ago and found it very informative. However in the last year or so the forum has become a nasty place. There are a lot of high and mighty keyboard warriors who seem to have no purpose other to break down other peoples comments sentence by sentence and ridicule them. If people don't agree with someone else comment, then abuse is a gutless response.

I have no problem with the price but hope that there will be more moderation and a better atmosphere going forward.

I know what you mean.

Some otherwise sensible forum members ( and it's always guys ) seem all too ready to get involved interminable pedantic arguments & pissing contests.

Wish they'd grow up.