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Author Topic: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***  (Read 30374 times)

digitaldog

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #60 on: October 10, 2017, 11:45:00 am »

The number is up to the moderators, of course. What silliness is worse: 149 posts, or having threads that go on for months with hundreds of (mostly) useless posts after a while?
IMHO, the later. Keep this idea in mind too: “Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.” Mark Twain
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RSL

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #61 on: October 10, 2017, 11:53:51 am »

And since that thread too is (intentionally?) taking a more strident political tone, it has been removed.

I think that's the right decision, Chris, even though I greatly enjoy arguing with people who have different backgrounds and views. Let's get on with photography and leave the political arguments to other sites.
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pegelli

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #62 on: October 10, 2017, 01:07:45 pm »

I think that's the right decision, Chris, even though I greatly enjoy arguing with people who have different backgrounds and views. Let's get on with photography and leave the political arguments to other sites.
+1
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #63 on: October 10, 2017, 01:53:21 pm »

I am sorry that the Climate Change thread was taken down from view.  Unlike the Trump threads, this one was data driven from the first post that Ray made.  It's unfortunate that others weighed in much later in the process and turned it into a forum for polemics as opposed to focusing on data and policy choices.  We are poorer for this decision as climate change has an obvious impact on photography, both negative and positive. 
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RSL

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #64 on: October 10, 2017, 02:40:14 pm »

I'm gonna let you get away with that one without comment, Alan, though it's damn hard to do.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #65 on: October 11, 2017, 02:40:44 am »

If it was not clear from the above, I am strongly against removing whole threads and banning certain subjects.

I do in fact agree with Slobodan on this.

The very fact that we are not "into politics" made these discussions very valuable.

I am saddened by the overall trend to close oneself from debate.

Anyway, I can only respect the decision that was taken, but I am not sure what harm was being done as long as these discussions were kept in the Coffee corner section.

Cheers,
Bernard

LesPalenik

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #66 on: October 11, 2017, 02:43:10 am »

+1
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Ray

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #67 on: October 11, 2017, 04:39:04 am »

I am sorry that the Climate Change thread was taken down from view.  Unlike the Trump threads, this one was data driven from the first post that Ray made.  It's unfortunate that others weighed in much later in the process and turned it into a forum for polemics as opposed to focusing on data and policy choices.  We are poorer for this decision as climate change has an obvious impact on photography, both negative and positive.

Of course I agree with Alan Goldhammer on these points, not surprisingly.  ;)

After the removal of the various Trump threads, I was considering locking the Climate Change thread in the hope of preserving it, because many of the links to scientific studies, and the arguments for and against the issue, might have provided some interesting information, ideas and concepts, to future readers.

However, since I had criticized another poster for locking his own thread on climate change skepticism, because the thread wasn't going his own way, I couldn't justify locking my thread. And even if I had locked it, that would have been no guarantee that the thread would not be removed.

As has often been said, everyone can have an opinion, on whatever subject. Expressing an opinion is usually very easy. The real difficulty is in justifying the opinion with reasoned explanations and evidence.

This also applies to all critiques of photographs and camera performance. To simply state that one likes or dislikes a particular image, or that it's 'great' or 'cool', or 'crap' as the case may be, says something about the person making the comment, but nothing about the photo.

I'm also in complete agreement with Slobodan's earlier comment in this thread.

Quote
Where else I can discuss such things not with total, mostly anonymous strangers, but with real people who I got to know over the years reasonably well, from their photography, to their musings and writings about photography, from their professional history to their family history, forming a pretty good idea of who they are, and forming a respect for what they did in their life and with their life? Those are the people I am willing to listen to, engage with, exchange opinions, even if we disagree (especially if we disagree). And stay friends even if we politely disagree. Those who can not disagree politely, should be banned and the offending post removed. Not the thread.

If it was not clear from the above, I am strongly against removing whole threads and banning certain subjects.


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Farmer

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #68 on: October 11, 2017, 05:20:58 am »

Whilst I of course respect the rights of the site owners/managers/moderators to act as they feel most appropriate, and in having more than a modicum of sympathy for having to wade through a lot of the material as I have moderated discussion boards in the past, I have to agree with Ray and Slobo.  Yes, I did actually type that :-)

But it is what it is and that's fine.
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Phil Brown

Otto Phocus

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #69 on: October 11, 2017, 05:48:31 am »

A good metric would be to keep track of the traffic to this site and compare the traffic to when we had the political threads and after they were removed.
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #70 on: October 11, 2017, 08:20:18 am »

A good metric would be to keep track of the traffic to this site and compare the traffic to when we had the political threads and after they were removed.
Yes this would be something good to do.  One does have some preliminary data in terms of the number of web pages created by users on each of the three topics (gun control, Trump and Climate Change).  Each topic did engage LuLa users to a very strong degree and for a lot of us the sharing of differing view points was certainly interesting.
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kers

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #71 on: October 11, 2017, 08:48:50 am »

Censorship and democracy are always fighting together in their specific space of time.

Today a platform like Facebook determines for many what is - and what is not - appropriate.

And looking at my television i can choose between lot of serial killers - the latest one even more sadistic than the former… i see on screen an increase in extreme sadistic and explicit violence.
On the other hand nudity and sex -a more normal part of everyones life- is almost completely absent.

In the US often pictures of naked children are considered child abuse while mostly in Europe they are considered just naked children / art.

I saw a documentary about Hugh Hefner and Playboy..
The doc was far more sexual-prudent than the subject…otherwise they cannot sell it to everyone…

I find it a hopeful democratic sign that the site Wikipedia runs very good with contribution from everywhere and without being commercial.

back to this site…
The makers have a right to change the site as they like, and also the forum.
They do not have the responsibility Facebook has because of its relative small size.
Also they clearly intended to make a photographic site targeted at photographers.
I can imagine they want to put at some point a hold on other subjects than photographic ones.

I always think; If you start a bar, you imagine some kind of atmosphere you are looking for.
But you never know what audience will come in and maybe they overtake the atmosphere in a way you never imagined or wanted.
In this case the makers have some means to address that.

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Christopher Sanderson

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #72 on: October 11, 2017, 09:13:35 am »

Pieter, thank you for that thoughtful post which comes closest to reflecting the reality of this issue.

I too enjoyed some of the debates that flowed across the coffee corner and regret the diminished content. The simple fact is that with the recent debasement of public discourse, the tone and temper of the debates in the Coffee Corner rather tended to reflect that reality. The time, patience and judgment necessary to moderate such debates is beyond the resources of three people whose time is better used doing the things that keep this site alive.

BobDavid

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #73 on: October 14, 2017, 02:13:18 pm »

There are tons of sites on the internet for open political discourse.

I support the decision to set guidelines on the "Coffee Corner."
« Last Edit: October 14, 2017, 02:17:05 pm by BobDavid »
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #74 on: October 14, 2017, 04:25:02 pm »

There are tons of sites on the internet for open political discourse.

I support the decision to set guidelines on the "Coffee Corner."
Agreed. And I too prefer to see our moderators spending time doing what they are very good at: creating excellent photography-related material for LuLa's members and readers.

-Eric
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Chris Kern

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #75 on: October 14, 2017, 07:13:49 pm »

For what it's worth, I'm inclined to agree with Slobodan on this one (albeit not much else that he posted to the Trump threads):

Where else I can discuss such things not with total, mostly anonymous strangers, but with real people who I got to know over the years reasonably well, from their photography, to their musings and writings about photography, from their professional history to their family history, forming a pretty good idea of who they are, and forming a respect for what they did in their life and with their life? Those are the people I am willing to listen to, engage with, exchange opinions, even if we disagree (especially if we disagree). And stay friends even if we politely disagree. Those who can not disagree politely, should be banned and the offending post removed. Not the thread.

Yup: well said!

Tim Lookingbill

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #76 on: October 17, 2017, 12:44:41 am »

Yes, I left the door ajar. I quote the new Coffee Corner header:

Inflammatory topics will be deleted at Moderator's discretion.


I hesitated on that thread since it is generally civil. However the apparent opinion is that it too should go. Let's see what 24 hours brings.

The Climate Change thread started weirding me out not because of the typical LuLa political back and forth, but because I started seeing my points about the "Super Fund" issues as priorities after the recent devastating hurricanes being mentioned more on broadcast news media. What I've so far found out is that it's far worse than I thought especially in east Houston and Puerto Rico.

IOW I say it here and it gets answered and/or addressed more on network news TV. Started thinking maybe movers and shakers in the news media are reading LuLa Coffee Corner topics.

And now I come back after being away several weeks from that thread to find it missing and from the provided link in this thread as closed.

I'm all for the clean up of the Coffee Corner, but that Climate Change thread just started to get strange for me at least.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #77 on: October 17, 2017, 05:19:03 am »

IOW I say it here and it gets answered and/or addressed more on network news TV. Started thinking maybe movers and shakers in the news media are reading LuLa Coffee Corner topics.

You sound surprised ... ;)

Or, to paraphrase a recent (fake?) media comment about an obsession with predecessors, related to another closed (series of) thread(s):
Some people may have money but they can't buy class.

Cheers,
Bart
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Rob C

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #78 on: October 18, 2017, 05:56:19 am »

You sound surprised ... ;)

Or, to paraphrase a recent (fake?) media comment about an obsession with predecessors, related to another closed (series of) thread(s):
Some people may have money but they can't buy class.

Cheers,
Bart

That's why so many rich people are unhappy and can't retain relationships. Not only can you not buy class, but money can atually make somebody born into class lose it - both the class and the money.

I play the lottery every week in the distant hope of being able to escape the old-age quandry of low-level death duties and how those will affect one's kids. I do not want to win hundreds of millions; I want to win between five and ten. That could perhaps guarantee fiscal sercurity for the rest of my life and the lives of my descendents, too, as they'd instantly get most of it - I don't have the outlets, or the desires, to blow it on myself, in part a product of stage-of-life. I have been friends with people owning many of those millions (earned) and those numbers have not brought peace of mind: they have brought heightened concern and worry about conservation, protection and continuity of said sums. I saw little sense of joy. Not even in the toys or in the homes. If anything, owning vast sums can turn one into a recluse and totally suspicious of every new personal connection that comes along. And that includes the various legal and accountancy companies that suck fees every year.

Really, envy and hatred of the rich is a misplaced political emotion. It certainly provides piles of ammunition for politicians, but deep down, their targets deserve at least a little sigh of sympathy. And yes, there is a difference between rich and criminal.

Rob

Otto Phocus

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Re: *** CHANGES in the Coffee Corner ***
« Reply #79 on: October 18, 2017, 06:18:43 am »

IMHO, the later. Keep this idea in mind too: “Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.” Mark Twain

But LuLa is not telling anyone they can't have steak (political arguments), they are just telling people that they can't have steak (political arguments) on their webpage.  LULA is not not restricting anyone from engaging in either steak eating nor political arguing elsewhere.

All of us are free to start our own website and make our own rules about political arguments or the discussion of any topic.... just like the owners of LULA can.

Their site, their rules, their decisions. 
Your site, your rules, your decisions.

That's the beauty of the Internets Tubes.
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