RG Forum-New Format

[alba63]

They are working photographers that spend their time shooting and improving their art and business skills and have little time for the one hand clapping style of self promotion that seems to have permeated not only the profession of photography, but life in general.

The fact that they were willing to share openly and freely was a more a testament to their character than to any form of ego or financial self interest.
(...)
I personally know many of these people and I can assure you their character, humor, talent, accomplishments and unselfish attitude is something that is rare in our society and it is a shame that it was under appreciated.
JR
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Hello James, hello all, this (quotoation above) is very much the way I alway perceived the RG MF forum.
Myself - a passionate  but non- professional shooter from Germany - have been a silent reader for a pretty long time of the old RG MF forum, and I can say that I appreciated this attitude described above very much.
I litterally spent hours on the RG archives to read certain "monster threads".
 
It was truly educating and helpful for me, both in a technical sense and also in respect to general professional attitude. The very specific mixture of professional expertise and seriousness, the relaxed atmosphere, humour, decency and absence of personal agendas other than finding/ fighting out the best possible way in MF photography made this place quite special for me (and probably for a lot of other readers, silent like me or actively participating).

I can only thank again James (one from RG who participates in this thread here) for all the useful information and insights, and I really hope very much - I am almost waiting - that eventually there will be a similar place that will create a similar atmosphere in the future. Here, on Uwe Steinmullers place or the new created "Open photography forums".

I read a lot about a "closed non- public list" where a number of former RG members now discuss. I can understand, but it is nevertheless a pity that this goes on invisible to the many who would like just to follow and maybe learn a thing or two....

Well, enough from my part,

greetings,

Bernhard, from Berlin

[RicAgu]

Well,

I guess I'll chime in.  I also feel bad for the new owners of the RG forum.  I hope they did not pay too much or that all was disclosed before the sale.  Because they were told they were buying an SL600 with a V12 and got a Chrysler LeBaron with a body kit and a 4 cylinder engine in it.

Most of the posters like MT, JR, Melvin and Troy had either been banned or left because of the BS that MS was pulling.  The saddest part is we were chatting about photogs we like and JR had mentioned how much he loved Salgado's work likening him to be the God of photography.  Well RG and MS got in a big stink about it.  That really floored me and that is when many people jumped ship.  There were some great shooters on there.  There was Ton from Singapore's endless knowledge of Leaf digital backs and software. A lady from London who had endless knoweledge of interior/architecture shooting with digital and wide angle.  Countless advice on traveling with your gear from guys from Austrailia, JR and others.

I remeber a lady complained that her 14 year old boy would read the forum and was aoffended at some of the remarks.  You have got to be kidding me!

MR seems like a pretty cool guy and i don't think he would ever shut us down.   He understands we are adults and need a place to vent and diasagree.   I also hope that many of the posters will return and post on LL's boards.  I learned so much in my transition to digital when I discovered the RG boards.

look forward to the lively banter.

RA  

[n1x0n]

When someone complains about his forums running at loss - thats always funny. That's how you know that someone could use a good marketing advice.

Look at DPReview, FredMiranda, old RG site etc. - none of them is making money on their forums. Actually i'm willing to bet - they all run their forums at total loss. Still forums are good for any website created with profit on mind. Why so?

They are the most powerfull visitor magnet that is known to web marketing, thats why.
We like to read news, reviews and stuff but we LOVE to tell others what we're thinking about these news and reviews. We just can't help it :-). While you may visit some photo-news site once or twice a day - you may visit it more than 10 times if something interesting's going on in the site's forum. That's how RG site used to work. I was going through their homepage about 5-6 times a day - to get to the forums. RG made big mistake, thinking that forum is useless, because it's not generating directly "ad-clicks". Forums were there for them, channeling users back and forth through main page - where "ad-clicks" occur.
Well... now im visiting RG once in 3-4 days, since they are publishing same news everyone else has published the day before.

Forums are excellent promotion tool. Tool, not a product itself - mind that! You can use it to sell, but can't sell it. Pro-photo-bla-bla forums /they are changing names too fast to remember/ will fail, because they have no understanding of this simple web-marketing principle. RG will suffer severe "frequent visitor loss", because of this decision, i'm pretty sure they are already feeling this.

I'm just wandering about the selling price... was it worth it?!

[William_Good]

Well,

snip.........
Most of the posters like MT, JR, Melvin and Troy had either been banned or left because of the BS that MS was pulling.  The saddest part is we were chatting about photogs we like and JR had mentioned how much he loved Salgado's work likening him to be the God of photography.  Well RG and MS got in a big stink about it.  That really floored me and that is when many people jumped ship.  There were some great shooters on there....snip

RA   
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I hadn't heard the details before, thanks for posting.
A forum is not a "club", and by very definition demands openess & transperency.

I found it more than odd that RG effectively devalued the forums by banning some of the best photogs right before the sale  .


The new owner seemed a bit clueless
about the real value of the forums:  the active participation of very knowledgeable and innovative persons as mentioned above .

LL  is run by a photographer who loves the craft, and it shows.

It's good to see JR posting, I look forward to any of the "banned four"s   posts.

William

[RicAgu]

Wonderful Point!  

That is what I said months ago and many people shot me down.  I would go to RG 5-10 times a day to go to the forums.  I discovered and bought Think Tank photo bags through the site and subsequent accesories.  About $1,500.00 worth of stuff.  Now I go to RG maybe twice a month if that.  I really try to avoid it all together if I can, because of what they did.  MS was just too way up on his morality high horse.

I guess he doesn't have much control of anything in his life so he felt the little power he had there.  Like most bully's in life.

Hope there surviving financially on their own shooting.  Because I can bet that site is over by summer 07'.  I wrote PDN about starting a forum.  Hopefully they will do so.

When someone complains about his forums running at loss - thats always funny. That's how you know that someone could use a good marketing advice.

Look at DPReview, FredMiranda, old RG site etc. - none of them is making money on their forums. Actually i'm willing to bet - they all run their forums at total loss. Still forums are good for any website created with profit on mind. Why so?

They are the most powerfull visitor magnet that is known to web marketing, thats why.
We like to read news, reviews and stuff but we LOVE to tell others what we're thinking about these news and reviews. We just can't help it :-). While you may visit some photo-news site once or twice a day - you may visit it more than 10 times if something interesting's going on in the site's forum. That's how RG site used to work. I was going through their homepage about 5-6 times a day - to get to the forums. RG made big mistake, thinking that forum is useless, because it's not generating directly "ad-clicks". Forums were there for them, channeling users back and forth through main page - where "ad-clicks" occur.
Well... now im visiting RG once in 3-4 days, since they are publishing same news everyone else has published the day before.

Forums are excellent promotion tool. Tool, not a product itself - mind that! You can use it to sell, but can't sell it. Pro-photo-bla-bla forums /they are changing names too fast to remember/ will fail, because they have no understanding of this simple web-marketing principle. RG will suffer severe "frequent visitor loss", because of this decision, i'm pretty sure they are already feeling this.

I'm just wandering about the selling price... was it worth it?!
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[yaya]

I wrote PDN about starting a forum.  Hopefully they will do so.

You mean this http://www.pdngallery.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi