This is a forum with the focus on photography.
You delude yourselves.
In the early, pioneering years of digital, LuLa under the expertise and guidance of Michael Reichmann , became known as an 'authority' – so much so that even NatGeo rated it amongst the top 100 sites on the internet.
Those days were marked by informed technical articles, valued reviews (and critiques) of new equipment, 'How-to' and 'Understanding' essays amongst others – not least of which were Michael's personal outlooks and commentary on the industry. A man not afraid to speak his mind , and not one to shy away from controversy.
He took both praise and, at times, not undeserved flak. Who remembers the commotion over his review of the Leica M8 ?
Amongst all this there was a vibrant forum. One where rising participation engulfed the occasional conflict and partisanship. Rather than shy away or close it down he more often than not contributed too. In the same way that the Rob Galbraith site had done before him – (The site and forum closed when Rob left to go into private employment).
Today, with LuLa clearly on a slippery slope to oblivion – the authoritative articles are long gone, the professional participation having dwindled to less than a handful (and they only fitfully), there remain few commendable features.
You'd rather have endless discussions from outright fanboys on the merits of Nikon v Canon, a readership where I doubt the average age is below 60 and an atmosphere more suited to a retirement home than the vibrant place LuLa once was.
And yes – the Coffee Corner was a positive.
But you just had to go and neuter it, didn't you?
In case you hadn't noticed, The Coffee Corner and its political and current affair debates, actually added to general interest in the site (nothing else has) – and you go ahead and not just close down, but delete whole threads, that offended your deluded notion essentially resting on Michael's laurels.
Those deleted threads represented many hours, not to say days and weeks, of mostly informed and interesting posts. They represented serious man-hours of contributions. Sure, at times there was friction and not just in the Coffee Corner section. More or less the only thing Michael drew the line on was profanity and whether or not we crossed the site's etiquette red line by typing 'bullshit' instead of 'BS'.
There was more interest in all those Trump, Brexit and Climate Change threads (and several more) than the whole of the LuLa site in one. I know of several people who logged in just to read Schewe's daily Trump commentary – not something that can be said of any other part of this site. The Brexit thread had more views and contributions than any other thread – that is until Trump came along – and then only in posts, not in views.
Yet, in your wisdom, you chose to not just lock the threads, but delete them – what a novel way to encourage people to post on your forum!
In their place what do you offer ? A review on Capture One 11 – blatantly reproduced verbatim from another web site, with the arrogance to announce that you've just 'published' it – even though it was already freely available to one and all on The Image Alchemist' web site since November last year. A Lens review (Loxia) where the lenses weren't even correctly focused and some post processing articles - more akin to a 'painting by-numbers' how-to – titbits so puffed up, they could have been condensed to a single 80 word paragraph.
So , feel free – delude yourselves all you want.
Be an outpost for your trips and workshops by all means, but still relevant and an informed source ?
Not so much … and not because of any heated discussions in the coffee shop.
Goodnight and good luck!
