Wow........I just had a quick browse on dpreview to see what is going on and I couldn't believe how quiet the Open Talk and Beginners Questions forums are at the moment (19th April 2023)
Looks like many members have already given up on dpreview and voted with their feet.
They aren't really voting with their feet. The place is going to shut down any minute and there's no reason to invest any more time there, helping others or seeking help.
Reading between the lines of dpreviews latest closure update I suspect they will keep the forums open until the archiving project is finished........could be tomorrow, next week, next month, a few months.......who knows but it looks like very few are sticking around to find out.
Reading through some of the posts i see a handful of members still in denial of the inevitable.
reading and posting there feels like experiencing ongoing dying. I'd rather be here. I also like the way people are getting along. More pleasant and upbuilding. Let's hope it lasts.
It's just a matter of time before everyone is over here. The moment posting at DPR gets locked up, this place will pop off like Mardi Gras.
I would agree. I see quite a few people who have joined, likely to reserve their user ID…but have not yet posted.
That's because there is actual activity over here in those forums. Some of the other forums over here (VR, Windows Talk for example) are still very quiet, I'm wondering if perhaps DPReview people may have found other alternatives for those more specialized areas.
The exodus will happen the minute that thing closes for good, and instead of 3500 members this forum will get many times that number very quickly.
Many still believe some miracle will happen and save DPR, and since I am banned for the life I don’t waste my precious time there to help their metrics anymore, but last time I check, 80% of forum posts were things like:
What to do next after DPR...
Let's boycott Amazon...
Farewell to you all...
I will miss you guys...
This is my last post...
Phil Askey should buy DPR again...
Pretty boring and useless content, really. Life goes on. If they manage to keep it alive I won't open another account anyway.
Yes, I noticed that too.
There was quite a lot of unpleasant score settling by certain moderators, which has reduced the possibility of a lot of people to post. Also I believe a lot of bans were handed ot to those posting about rival sites.
On a forum I followed the popular weekly photo thread has closed and moved here. So I quess there not much reason to post there except habit.
I am still scraping some of the threads I started that double as nice Blog posts. I copy an paste straight into Blogger. At least nobody can ban me from my own Blog.
I think mostly people have moved on to forums like this that have a future.
I've been putting my new threads here rather than there for over a week now, it does "feel" as though one is ok n the up and the other in decline.
I'm just hoping some of the yet-to-appear but extremely knowledgeable faces from the Printer forum turn up.
Yes, I wonder that. I'm hoping some may still rock up when they finally turn off the lights.
While I have only participated in a quite small part of dpreview (Adapted lens talk) - which means I probably don't have a very good indication of how a really populated, active forum looks like - I'm quite impressed by the amount of activity here, where I'm also taking a look at other areas. It's interesting to see and I feel like it might be a benefit to re-think the whole structure and see this as an opportunity. I'm sure there are several examples but here's just one observation:
It looks like some very interesting long-going threads for sharing weekly or monthly images and giving/getting feedback were hidden in several sub-forums of dpreview (where they originated) despite them having been platform-/brand-agnostic for a long time.
It's great to see that some people are trying to use the inevitable changes to set things up in an even better/more appropriate way.
If this spirit lasts for a while and perhaps there will even be an improved solution for the (somewhat flawed) threaded/flat view of the dpreview forum, I'm personally not going to miss the old place.
Yes, I am not missing the old dpreview at all either 😊
Beginners asking beginner questions are on Reddit. Places like r/photography and r/AskPhotography. To the tune of several questions daily (hourly even?).
Both here and DPReview consist of older photographers discussing details. I think younger beginners don’t use platforms like this anymore.
The more active R posters are active at RFShooters.com. I don’t see them using this forum yet. We shall see.
Not too surprising I guess when this sort of heavy-handedness continues...
The chap only asked politely how to cancel/delete his account.
And Smaug01 is one of the moderators on dprforum as well.
Looks like Smaug01 was cleverly manipulated by that member into closing the account which is what he wanted anyway 😊
If the member waited for dpreview admin to close the account it might never had been done. But in any case after dpreview goes off air the few still there will have their accounts closed anyway by default.
You could not make this sort of bullheadedness up if you tried.
And 'banning' someone isn't the same thing as closing an accout.
