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Author Topic: The end of politics  (Read 8184 times)

Jeremy Roussak

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #20 on: July 29, 2018, 03:05:22 pm »

I would like to add my name to that.

Thanks, Rob.

Regarding referring to what Michael may or may not have done is a nonsense. LuLa has not been LuLa for quite some time, way before the political climate rose to temperate. No, that's neither a typo nor a mistake in adjective.

Had LuLa remained an act of love, divorced from the need to turn a buck, it would have probably stood still - perfectly pleasantly so, in my opinion - and pottered along with the same pretty big readership it had.

I obviously neither know nor want to know anything about its financial viability - my own concerns me enough; did it overstretch itself too ambitiously with its junkets to´Kina, Leica etc? who knows. Whatever, I get the impression that since turning into a pay-for, even in part, the climate has switched entirely away from a delightful "publish and be damned" one to a politically correct one that has debilitated it editorially as well as, now, within its relationship with long-time readers. When the moment arrives that the views and reactions of people who never post here have to be considered, well, it seems fairly clear to me that the relationship with members - as with the editorial, cannot but be compromised, however many up-front disclosures may be made. It just ain't the same game anymore.

Which is kinda disappointing. Doesn't more than one holy book point out that one cannot seve both God and Mammon?

Rob

I know nothing of the financial affairs of LuLa; I have no financial interest in it and I'm not paid for what I do. But I think you're being unfair. Financial concerns had no impact - none at all - on the way in which I moderated the political discussions and on not one single occasion did anyone in the company seek to place any pressure on me to act other than as I saw fit.

As you will have seen, I favoured a very light-touch approach. I can't agree with your description of the mood as temperate, though. By American standards it might have seemed so, but neither you nor I view the world through US prisms. To me, it was at times intolerable and for much of the time, tediously repetitive.

There are political sites where sterile arguments can be hearsed and rehearsed (joke). Politics doesn't have to infest every aspect of life, though.

Jeremy
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #21 on: July 29, 2018, 03:37:52 pm »

Politics doesn't have to infest every aspect of life, though.
Maybe a fresh reading of '1984' is needed. ;)
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Kevin Raber

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #22 on: July 29, 2018, 05:01:35 pm »

Rob. LuLa is an act of love but it is also a business.  Do you think servers, programmers, videographers and such are free?  I live and breathe LuLa it is my passion and what I do every day.  I do what I do to keep Michael's legacy alive.  I knew Michael and we together worked out the business model and how we needed to proceed to keep LuLa alive. While other sites are disappearing we are still here.  We have brought content to this site that wouldn't have been possible without the membership.  The Leica story, The Master Series, The interview with Ed Burtynsky and the other video content, as well as everything else we do, is a result of having the ability to make this content. 

This is a photography site and after an attempt to be somewhat flexible we found that the political talk was just not working and it was affecting the way people felt. So, we go back to the roots of what this site is about photography. 

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Rayyan

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #23 on: July 29, 2018, 07:23:27 pm »


Thank you Kevin, Jeremy and all admin. Good call.

My sole purpose joining this site was to learn ( and share, if possible ) photographic insights from better photographers than me. From anywhere around the world.

Kind regards and best wishes.


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amolitor

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #24 on: July 30, 2018, 01:13:11 am »

I also agree with this choice. While I never mentioned it to the management team, I had made a personal choice to make no further contribution to LuLa, on the grounds that association with the political content on the Coffee Corner was not something I wanted. I gather that there were others who made the same choice, but more vocally.

Moderation is hard. Mostly people elect to moderate words, perhaps tone. Which means that those who can master the game get to say the most foul things
 imaginable, because they can avoid the bad words, and salt in a sly, patently false but defensible, joking tone. People who actually care enough about anything to get emotionally involved are, paradoxically, punished. Endgame is a bunch of sly, mean-spirited people who don't actually care about anything sniping at one another. Everyone else has left or been banned.

Nobody needs to be associated with that. It's bad for business, it's bad for society, it's bad for us as individuals. Moderation, to be successful, must moderate meaning and intent, not words and tone, and even that is no guarantee.

Best to cut it out entirely.

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Rob C

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #25 on: July 30, 2018, 09:21:43 am »

Did you know him and if so, how well?


Man, isn't that the point?

He came, he saw, he created and now is gone. Period.

Second-guessing the guy, however intimate you or anyone else might have been with him, is absurd, arrogant and totally speculative; in other words, it turns into a self-serving, ingratiating bleat in search of, hopefully, the reflected glory of being part of an in-crowd. Let the man rest in peace, unencumbered by attributed idiosynchracies he may or may not have wanted to have thrust upon him.

I don't know what anyone is going to do next, never mind what a dead person is going to do or might have done within a situation with which he is/was not confronted during the altered, utterly changed ethos of now.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2018, 09:25:18 am by Rob C »
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #26 on: July 30, 2018, 09:31:56 am »


Man, isn't that the point?

He came, he saw, he created and now is gone. Period.

Second-guessing the guy, however intimate you or anyone else might have been with him, is absurd, arrogant and totally speculative; in other words, it turns into a self-serving, ingratiating bleat in search of, hopefully, the reflected glory of being part of an in-crowd. Let the man rest in peace, unencumbered by attributed idiosynchracies he may or may not have wanted to have thrust upon him.

I don't know what anyone is going to do next, never mind what a dead person is going to do or might have done within a situation with which he is/was not confronted during the altered, utterly changed ethos of now.

+1

It's sad enough that some people can't behave themselves on a public forum when Politics get involved, let's leave Michael out of it.

It's Kevin's show now (influenced by the late LuLa's Creator) and helped by Chris and others, so he can run it any way he sees fit.

Cheers,
Bart
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digitaldog

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #27 on: July 30, 2018, 09:34:01 am »


Man, isn't that the point?

He came, he saw, he created and now is gone. Period.

Second-guessing the guy, however intimate you or anyone else might have been with him, is absurd, arrogant and totally speculative; in other words, it turns into a self-serving, ingratiating bleat in search of, hopefully, the reflected glory of being part of an in-crowd. Let the man rest in peace, unencumbered by attributed idiosynchracies he may or may not have wanted to have thrust upon him.

I don't know what anyone is going to do next, never mind what a dead person is going to do or might have done within a situation with which he is/was not confronted during the altered, utterly changed ethos of now.
In other words, you didn’t know him?
« Last Edit: July 30, 2018, 09:37:26 am by digitaldog »
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Rob C

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #28 on: July 30, 2018, 10:15:40 am »

Kevin, Jeremy: I stated that I had no idea about the financials of LuLa and no interest. If you see my post in reply to Slobodan's you'll note that I put my name to thanking you for the way you moderated.

To those who complained about the content of the political threads: nobody asked you to read 'em; if you were unable to tear your eyes away from the slow train-crash, thank yourselves for lingering to watch. Why would you give a fig when you were under no obligation to play? Others, however, as the quantity of posting shows, enjoyed the tussle immensely.

Has it struck none of you complainers just how proscriptive you come across as being? You want to deny others a legal pleasure you can't share.

And you know what? You proved that if you bitch enough, you can do a lot of harm to freedoms that were legitimate.

Now, Kevin, unless my grey cells are more pale than I thought, wasn't it you who wrote that you had been having bad vibes come your way from sources that provide support to LuLa? That sounds like business pressures to me, probably far more worthy of attention than any from the neo-puritans here who are just civilians, exactly as am I.

Of course I understand nothing is for nothing; I ran a business too. As I have often stated, the site belongs to the owners to do with as they wish. That's sacrosanct - as far as finance permits! That said, I'd feel very disappointed that, if there have been no external business pressures to do as you have done (to close specific debates) you have then acted solely because of pressures from the politically correct amongst us. I kind of ask myself what some of them have offered LuLa in the past that makes them feel they have a right to force change.

I may be missing something, but I don't seem able to think of many complainants who have actually written very much worth reading or even just written very much about anything; as for posting images... so, armchair warriors. Maybe I just need to wear my specs more, but who exactly are we missing today because of political threads? I can name some damned good photographers who just had enough and picked up their tents and vanished, but it had nothing to do with political threads!

For the record: my own contributions to the naughty threads has been pretty slim, all things considered, because it doesn't interest me all that much; but it does interest me when people want to crush what others enjoy, and I'm pretty sure that sans our ultra-vocal whited sepulchres united in song, life would have continued perfectly happily with the fizzy stuff being splashed about in the political bath without harming anyone at all.

Just an opinion.

Rob C

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #29 on: July 30, 2018, 10:18:06 am »

In other words, you didn’t know him?


Heysoos, you still don't understand a goddam thing I've told you, explained to you and hoped you'd grasp.

digitaldog

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #30 on: July 30, 2018, 10:21:14 am »


Heysoos, you still don't understand a goddam thing I've told you, explained to you and hoped you'd grasp.
Your inability to answer a simple question with yes or no speaks volumes and I'll simply have to assume you never met him.
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Rob C

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #31 on: July 30, 2018, 10:27:17 am »

Your inability to answer a simple question with yes or no speaks volumes and I'll simply have to assume you never met him.


I recommend Bose; you can control volumes to taste. Better yet, you can listen to anything you like and assume for all you are worth. And don't forget: if you don't like something, you can also just switch off Without Upsetting Anyone Else! But that's no fun...

digitaldog

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #32 on: July 30, 2018, 10:30:21 am »

I recommend Bose; you can control volumes to taste.
Thanks but I own no less than four Bose products. No thanks for recommending something I didn't ask about and have experience with, too bad it's like pulling teeth to get a simple yes or no answer from you. I'll keep listening to my various Bose products while continuing to assume you and Michael never met. Which is a shame for you.

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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #33 on: July 30, 2018, 10:39:07 am »

Please close this thread.

Once again, it has turned into a political platform in which only one side, closer to the owners’ political ethos, is allowed to continue attacks on the other side.

The decision has been made, seems irrevocable, thus nothing to discuss. Those who want to pat owners on the back can do so behind the scene, in PMs, as they did when pressuring for the close of politics.

As for those who think that spewing vulgarities is the superior indicator of how much they care, and who clamor for policing meaning and intent... well, I’d love to show you just how much I care, but that would probably ban me from LuLa permanently, which I am on the verge to do myself, but not there yet.

digitaldog

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #34 on: July 30, 2018, 10:44:16 am »

Please close this thread.
The decision has been made, seems irrevocable, thus nothing to discuss.
+1 to the specific request and opinion below it.
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #35 on: July 30, 2018, 11:22:21 am »

Please close this thread.

Once again, it has turned into a political platform in which only one side, closer to the owners’ political ethos, is allowed to continue attacks on the other side.

The decision has been made, seems irrevocable, thus nothing to discuss. Those who want to pat owners on the back can do so behind the scene, in PMs, as they did when pressuring for the close of politics.

As for those who think that spewing vulgarities is the superior indicator of how much they care, and who clamor for policing meaning and intent... well, I’d love to show you just how much I care, but that would probably ban me from LuLa permanently, which I am on the verge to do myself, but not there yet.
+1; the managers of the site don't need any further distractions of this type even though the 'Coffee Corner' was generating more web hits than the technical forums over the past several months.  The technical threads are what I've always valued and that value seems to be decreasing each day; but that's a different story.
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amolitor

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #36 on: July 30, 2018, 11:26:59 am »

For reference I, at any rate, am very clearly NOT clamoring for policing meaning and intent. But it does seem to be true that the thread is degenerating into thinly veiled personal attacks.

ETA: Perhaps it is worth here noting that my remarks earlier about moderation are based on, arg, 29 years now of banging around in various forums. While there are a handful of people on LuLa who lean distinctly in the direction I alluded to (and I can name names on both sides of the spectrum) my remarks were far more broadly based.

Notably, on another forum, I was harassed over the course of several years by a fellow who had mastered the form. There were weeks in which I could literally not post without Charlie replying with a jokey/snarky harassing followup. Because he'd mastered the art of staying on one side of the line, and because the policies were structured in terms of specific words and specific tone it took about two years of steady, obvious, harassment, for Charlie to get banned, by which point people other than myself had been openly remarking on Charlie's behavior, and describing it as a campaign of continuous harassment.

But this is just another, albeit clearer, example of what I have absorbed over decades of experience in perhaps a dozen different forums.

Moderation is hard.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2018, 11:47:55 am by amolitor »
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Kevin Raber

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #37 on: July 30, 2018, 11:44:12 am »

Rob, You have been a great contributor to the site.  If you are not happy with my replies, decisions etc. then so be it.  It is my site and I do what I believe is right for the site.  We have all heard you and your feelings.  If you don't like the what I have decided then you can elect to not participate in this forum.  This is a site about photography, something based on what I have seen of your work you are very good at.  Please feel free to share your knowledge with the folks on this forum. 

This site is going to be about photography and that's all there is to it.  Now let's get back to it.
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JimGoshorn

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #38 on: July 30, 2018, 11:51:17 am »

Thank you moderators for closing down political topics. Unfortunately, political topics almost always end up heated, non productive and derogatory. While I have a definite view, I have not posted so as to not flame the fires or end up in a pointless argument.

Back to photography...
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jwstl

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Re: The end of politics
« Reply #39 on: July 30, 2018, 12:04:43 pm »

Thank you moderators for closing down political topics. Unfortunately, political topics almost always end up heated, non productive and derogatory. While I have a definite view, I have not posted so as to not flame the fires or end up in a pointless argument.

Back to photography...

Let me second this and add my thanks. Finally correcting a mistake that was made when political topics were allowed in the first place. There are plenty of appropriate forums for that; this isn't one of them. In my opinion of course.
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