• Members 535 posts
    April 5, 2023, 5:28 p.m.

    image.png

    LOL

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    PNG, 1.1 MB, uploaded by AlainCh2 on April 5, 2023.

  • Members 146 posts
    April 5, 2023, 5:29 p.m.

    One gets the sense that they had that move lined up well in advance and were poised to announce it is soon as the "DPR is closing" missive launched into the ether.

    If that's the case, they and other staff likely had more lead time than the rest of us, so it's likely that at least some of them have scouted out alternative positions that we don't happen to know about (yet).

  • Members 244 posts
    April 5, 2023, 5:32 p.m.

    So you effectively got a 5-day suspension?

  • Members 244 posts
    April 5, 2023, 5:36 p.m.

    I feel this way too. And, what that says to me is that Amazon Bosses discussed with DPR management the closing well in advance of the announcement and, IMO may have offered the DPR site to management for a small/nominal fee. BUT, I also believe that the site was losing enough cash that management decided to decline to purchase or couldn’t get financing. But, that is my utter speculation. No facts, just a guess.

  • Members 164 posts
    April 5, 2023, 5:46 p.m.

    I don’t think they’ve hidden the fact that this decision was made some time ago, it seems to have been part of a wave of widespread cuts Amazon have been making in recent months.

    As for offering the site for sale to anyone, I’m not sure this was ever something that Amazon considered. It’s their property and remains so. They may well feel it still has more value to them in the long term, even in its shuttered form, than anyone is likely to pay for it.

  • Members 51 posts
    April 5, 2023, 5:52 p.m.

    you mean banned for a week then, glad we can just move on with the new forums and forget this nonsense

  • Members 173 posts
    April 5, 2023, 6:15 p.m.

    Humans. We are an erratic lot.

    Somebody posted a link to a similar thread on DPRforum and, surprise, they were complaining about exactly the same sort of bias as people are talking about here. I suspect that, regardless of how moderation was handled in the dying days, people would not be happy. Their forum has been unceremoniously and abruptly killed.

    My impression from my time on dpreview is that some people have very strongly held views about some things relating to photography and could be rather aggressive about those views. On an online forum where you do not get real time, non-verbal, feedback those strongly held opinions can lead to less than optimal outcomes and perhaps hard feelings towards moderators.

    FWIW, I've not had any issues with moderation at dpreview.

    Also FWIW, I participate on a forum where political discussion is allowed. It can get fractous and there have been a few bans for people who let things get personal. The site owner has most likely made a decision to moderate with a very light touch and made it work on the most contentious possible subject, so even handed moderation is possible. I suspect it takes a lot of effort on the part of site management to get to some level of consistency.

  • Members 284 posts
    April 5, 2023, 7:29 p.m.

    The staff got the news at the end of January, but the public announcement was made almost 2 months later, so they had enough time to make a move.

    Chris and Jordan seem thrilled about moving to PetaPixel in that video.

  • April 5, 2023, 7:41 p.m.

    I'm not sure that the issue is 'light' versus 'heavy'. I think it's the standard. Clearly on DPReview different moderators were applying what were notionally the same rules very differently, and likely all of them thinking that they were doing it the right way. In many cases a new moderator stepping in would change the atmosphere and fractiousness of a forum immediately, generally for the worse - and once it gets away it's hard to get back. That happened to two of the forums I used regularly. The contentious issues didn't change, what did was the amount of discontent around. Long-standing and respected members of those forums got permabanned. The forum bullies realised that they could get someone banned by ganging up on them and pressing the complaint button if they reacted, and sanctions seemed to be handed out in line with moderators opinions on the contentious issue, often publicly expressed along with rebukes for those on the other side. Passionate discussion is the life blood of forums like this. No-one really wants to go somewhere where everyone meekly agrees with each other.

  • Members 37 posts
    April 5, 2023, 7:52 p.m.

    Well, they started advertising it as an officially approved forum on the old place a few days ago... that being said, I am not trying to throw shade on anyone in particular, just alert people that they may get "banned" in favour of promoting a forum the old mods are now running...

  • Members 37 posts
    April 5, 2023, 7:55 p.m.

    Both of the forums I am already a mod on, we have banned politics as it has caused, more than once, the loss of a significant quantity of members. I would not recommend it be allowed on here.

  • April 5, 2023, 8:04 p.m.

    To be honest, I'm not sure what not allowing it would mean. One of the things that people have significant differences about is what is 'politics'. Somewhere upthread, or maybe in the other, is a case fo someone that got banned for a 'political' post for posting a picture of a protest. Some of the most well known photos of all time have been distinctly political. Completely political posts are clearly off-topic in any case, but photography is supposed to reflect society, and reflecting society is by its very nature political. What we would not want to be rife is abuse of people based on political affiliations, or discussions that got as boring as two people slagging off each others favourite brand of camera.

  • Members 313 posts
    April 6, 2023, 3:24 a.m.

    In an an article in LuLa on the demise of DPR, the writer pointed out that Amazon bought DPR at a time when millions of compact and P&S cameras were flying off the shelves and before phones were any real competition to the camera market. That portion of the P&S camera basically died as phones got better and the whole camera market has been in contraction for last 10 years. So while it might have made financial sense for Amazon to own DPR at one time that is no longer true today. Seems to make sense and Amazon is a publicly held company, not a non profit charity for Amazon to close it down.

  • Members 2303 posts
    April 6, 2023, 3:40 a.m.

    This is what happens when you post a FF camera on m43 forum and mod Tom C.... doesnt like you :-) LOL

    Screenshot 2023-04-06 075140.jpgScreenshot 2023-04-06 132013.jpg

    Screenshot 2023-04-06 075140.jpg

    JPG, 79.7 KB, uploaded by DonaldB on April 6, 2023.

    Screenshot 2023-04-06 132013.jpg

    JPG, 279.7 KB, uploaded by DonaldB on April 6, 2023.

  • Members 173 posts
    April 6, 2023, 4:13 a.m.

    I am not in any way suggesting political discussion should be allowed (or should not). I'm just using it as an example of what good moderation can achieve.

  • Members 173 posts
    April 6, 2023, 4:23 a.m.

    Interesting. I have not been on dpreview that long, so I don't have any real sense of what the moderation is like. I don't know how exactly you would go about maintaining uniformity across moderators. I do know that on the site I am talking about, there are multiple moderators involved in any banning.

  • Members 1583 posts
    April 6, 2023, 5:51 a.m.

    I saw your post and I saw his. I thought he was joking when he wrote about a ban. For heavens sake what was the problem with your post? What a pathetic jerk.

    He was amongst the the most incoherent and hypocritical Mods on DPR. Always saying there was no other worthwhile format other than M43, whilst he used Panasonic FF for his photography.

    I remember him posting a comparison set that was shot in a theatre. We could see some high ISO M43 shots with the format stretched to its limits compared to a Canon FF shot. Even in the small shots in the thread, the Canon shots were clearly superior, regarding shadow detail. But he insisted the M43 shots were better. Did he really believe what he wrote? Or was he playing to the gallery?

  • Members 37 posts
    April 6, 2023, 5:56 a.m.

    On one forum, I am the only mod, but I use a moderate tone and when things start to get out of hand, I calm it down, ask the members to please play nice. This is a "calm" forum anyway, so rarely any drama. If anything continues to get out of hand, a quick PM asking them to be reasonable and to please look at the forum rules. I have yet had to ban any member (outside of Spam posts, which are a nuisance)

    On another forum, we are three mods. People are more prone to getting into discussion of topics that are not allowed as it is a rather large forum. Incidents happen more often. Usually, if there is a question about a thread or post, we have a section of the forum that only Mods can access, you pose the question there about if they agree if a post is trespassing a rule or not. Consensus rules. If a post is blatantly in violation of the rules, we nuke the post or thread and PM the person, if it continues, they get a temporary ban. Outside of spammers, I have never had to ban someone forever, even though being the target of abuse in a post or PM. It's called having thick skin and understanding that sometimes people are having a bad day/week/year. Granted, there are some people out there that cannot be reasoned with, but I have yet to come across one that does not respond well to a kindly worded PM.

    At the same time, a mod needs to be able to admit when they screwed up and have the humility to apologize. Mods are mods, not gods.

    That's why I say that any mod who is ban-hammer happy, or takes sides in a discussion where two groups are pitted against another on a topic, is not a good mod. Mods should be neutral, otherwise you get a toxic "school bully / clique" like environment. I have seen this on more than one forum, but DPR was typical, you had groups of people that the Mod likes (his/her yes men/women) and those people the Mods do not like who get banned (or harassed by the mod, even) for even simple, inoffensive things, or having a differing opinion.