Is POTW Dead?

[Tugboat]

I am happy to give anything a try just to get some interest back into the site.

[Steve.]

Crikey, suggestions where made 4 years ago...and with 6400 members you get 7 or 8 votes.

I dont think I can wait another four years for something to be sorted out.

With 6400 members, this place should be buzzing...I'll hang for another few days but in the meantime I'll reg at another forum then let nature takes its course.

Steve...

[steve2005]

I feel that whatever is decided or put into practice is too late for this site. I've felt for a while that we have no leadership, no umph, no interest from those that put these things into place. I believe we have three moderators and Admin Andy. Only one of the moderators periodically pops up and says he too busy or can't get on the internet (surely you have a router and wireless). When I joined the site in 2006 we had at least three enthusiastic moderators who were always on site, always commenting on anything and everything, as well as trying to help new users and beginners (especially Duncan, God bless him).

We have 6400 members and no interest, the regular few 6/7 vote on the bi-weekly comp - setup by the members. I know I'm guilty of not voting, I used to but when there are only 4/5 entries you lose the enthusiasm.

I would love to see the site rise up to it's former glory but we need people to drive it and make new members want to participate. Steve. has come up with some nice ideas but I don't see any evidence of the people who could put these ideas into practice even commenting. Why not??

Rant over.

[Steve.]

What a shame Steve, and you have done well to stick around for so long. But website decline is an awful thing to recover from and to do so often means hard decisions need making about staff etc. I joined ere a few days ago because of the 6400 members and though "Ahh good...a busy site"

I closed my own community/gallery a year ago as I was running into a period of life thats extra busy. We only had a few hundred members but regularly had mpre then a hundred votes for POTW, and nearly everyone voted for POTM.

I had coded a system there like I have descibed in previous posts here and it was 95% automatic, we only had to copy and paste the winners list that the server generated for us, and the voting was a rating system so you could easily rate each photo you viewed...without leaving the page.

If anything does change here, someone drop me a mail to let me know.

Good luck to the site owners, you obviuosly have some tough decisions to make.

Steve...

[graham harcombe]

I think Steve's idea is excellent, but like Trena I would support giving Clive's suggestion of one person agreeing to pick up the duty for an agreed length of time. I would volunteer as and when the turns come around.

[postcardcv]

OK I guess I need to reply to this... There is a reason that I have not replied to this yet is that I wanted to see what the consensus was from the active members. I have no idea about how easy or otherwise adding a voting button to the gallery would be or how easy it would be to stop members voting for multiple photos (which in my opinion would make the system less effective) this is something that the tech folk are looking at. The way that I set up recently to try and get POTW going again was never the smoothest but I don't see that sending an email was the hardest of processes. To be honest with everyone on the first week of that we got the most votes and that was less than ten people, within two weeks it was down to six and soon after just a couple a week so clearly it didn't work. I think the system of a rota of members selecting POTW would be the most workable system so long as one person is willing to take on organising this. I am happy to be involved either by being included on the rota or being left in reserve to make a section if for any reason the person who shoud be doing it cannot.

As for the theory that the site needs more activity from the mods to get it going I would firmly disagree. The only way that forums stay active is through the membership, I join in and offer help where I can but I do not have the answers to many questions that are asked. As for me only popping on from time to time there are plenty of reasons for this (I on here everyday checking the site but don't always have anything to add so don't always post) which I am not going to go into right now.

For me POTW has always been a bit of an issue, as previous systems have been quite time consuming. I think if the members want to increase activity on here the way to do it is to post threads that lead to discussion. I would love to see more honest critique in the gallery, I woud definitely post more I there if I received feedback on what I was doing wrong. I also think that the lack of activity in the equipment section is amazing, on most such sites this is the most active section. I'd love to see some reviews of gear going up and some discussions about which lens/camera is best for a certain job. I'd even quite like to see the odd Canon vs Nikon debate as they are usually quite good fun. Perhaps we should look to set up some threads about specific areas of photography where members can ask advice?

[Nigel G]

I liked PTOW and was really chuffed the one and only time I won and would like to see it back - but its got to be easy.

I've been here since the begining and use the forum mostly to look at other peoples work, gain inspiration from it and to show off some of my own efforts. I comment on what I like and for the most part they are "good shot" comments because unless I "know" someone well I am cautious of critique that may not be taken the way its meant and I wouldn't wish to offend. Thats one of the good things about this site - its friendly and there is no bitching etc.

So how to raise PTOW from the dead. Well for a start 6400 members is irrelevant because no-one ever un-joins a site so that is how many there have been since Dec 2005 - not how many there are now. Reallistically if you look at posters in the forum we might be around 100 or so.

I have sympathy with Postcard's view that the Mods can't do this themselves it has to come from us and as with any club I have ever been in there are a small number of people that do the work and plenty that think it could be done better.

One of the problems I have with selecting a PTOW/PTOM is that I haven't found an easy way to review the last 7/30 days worth of input. (If there is one someone tell me). Generally I would select from those I have commented on and if I could pull them up and run through them I could then allocate a choice. (Bit like the DPReview slideshow voting system) Alternatively a button to allocate a score out of 5/10 alongside the image which then acumulated to an automatic result would work for me as I could do it at the same time as I commented.

Alternatively very happy to join a team where one person is responsible for a given week as has been suggested earlier. Certainly as a non-tech solution this has to be worth a try whilst the site staff look a clever "options"

[omalanrf]

I to have been keeping an eye on this thread now and Im going to be truthful guys. I looked for another forum from the one I was in and found this one but I find myself being drawn back to the other one because,

1, When I have logged in, theres just too few posts to read.
2, I think it would help if the forum got a face lift and made it clearer and I think then you would have a better chance of getting new members and keeping them.
3 Let the people with more time on there hands to run the forum..

Now to be running a forum for the last 6-7 years is a great sucsess (well done on that)
Im only a new user with views on how it could be made better "please dont eat me for saying the above"

Richard

[miketoll]

Originally Posted by omalanrf

I to have been keeping an eye on this thread now and Im going to be truthful guys. I looked for another forum from the one I was in and found this one but I find myself being drawn back to the other one because,

1, When I have logged in, theres just too few posts to read.
2, I think it would help if the forum got a face lift and made it clearer and I think then you would have a better chance of getting new members and keeping them.
3 Let the people with more time on there hands to run the forum..

Now to be running a forum for the last 6-7 years is a great sucsess (well done on that)
Im only a new user with views on how it could be made better "please dont eat me for saying the above"

Richard

One of the strengths of this site is that nobody will eat you!
The first point is very valid, the answer is in the hands of all the members. Nobody else can post but the members! The bottom line is you only get out what you are willing to put in.

The design of the site is up to the Mods and whether they agree with you and are willing to put the effort in. The one thing that beat me with the last experiment with POTW was that somehow it was not obvious and how to vote was even less obvious, as I said earlier I gave up trying to re-find how to vote.

[omalanrf]

good, other forums just go down your throat for saying stuff. This is what I do to show my pictures which I think is easier, I upload my photos onto flickr then I cut and paste the BBcode to the end of this message, Example below


Grim Reaper by omalanrf, on Flickr

I think it shows all the photos better straight from the word go and when your click on the image, it tell you when it was took and the details of the photo straight off the bat. Anyway something to think about, flickr is free to sign upto btw