Not just this site, but DPRForum and PhotographyLife as well. All the things that made DPReview popular and successful for so many people for so many years are not evident on any of these new alternatives, only little bits and pieces. I realize there may be legalities involved with IP and so on, but if I were making an alternative to DPReview, I would make it as close as possible to the original. There are simply too many things wrong with all of these new alternatives and I for one am finding it difficult to warm up to any of them. I want to, believe me, and I would like to see one, or even two or three of them, become a necessity in my daily life as a photographer, as DPReview was. I'm hoping things will change.
May 19, 2023
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With respect, how much information, new or old do you require ?
The format of this forum based website is streets ahead of dpreview. -
I think that you should consider starting a site. Start it, fund it, and get it going. If you don’t want do to all the work required, pay a firm to do it. Then it will be the exact version that you desire. Done and dusted.
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The French expression “Rome wasn't built in a day” ( Rome ne s'est pas construite en un jour)
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I think that your expectations are quite unrealistic - in the sense that no group of people is ever going to replicate something which had the backing of a huge corporation and years of effort of a dedicated professional staff behind it.
When DPReview announced its closure a few people decided that some action either needed to be taken or saw it as an opportunity.
In the case of Alan and myself, we decided to establish a site essentially as a refuge for forum refugees. We had limited resources, but did what we could with them in the short time available. Since then we've gained resources and people, but what's available is still less than DPReview.
The other players are extensions of existing activities. DPRForums is an addition to an existing set of forums which uses their existing infrastructure to mimic DPReview forums to an extent. Photography Life added a forum package to an existing site, Photography life is essentially a two-man band and DPRForums a lone actor. Neither has or will have the resources of DPReview.
I think it's likely that DPReview will never be replicated, and even if it continues it will do so in a much slimmed-down state from what we see now. The other sites may or may not grow, but if they do it won't be a replica of DPReview.
So far as this site goes, all we are doing at the moment is what we set out to do originally, provide forums that would be a place for DPReview refugees. Some of it isn't as good as DPReview, some of it is better. We have plans to offer more, but all of that depends on resources. We're a volunteer site, so resources depend on volunteers. Interested? -
A wise colleague once told me that hope was excellent theology but a terrible strategy for improvement.
I think all of us miss certain things about DPR - I miss threaded view. Others miss the equipment reviews. Others long for certain subforums to have more activity. But it isn't realistic to expect brand new forums to put in place all that DPReview took a quarter century to build, and without DPR's considerable resources. Building a forum is exceedingly hard on multiple fronts.
The best thing any of us can do is to help build it. Participate. Post in threads that interest you. Share your images. Comment on other people's images. Start interesting new threads. Participate in discussions of matters relevant to your favorite genres or equipment. Volunteer to help. Invite friends to join. When the guys who run it get around to passing the hat for donations, donate if you can. Investment in a new forum by enough members will result in more features down the road.
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It is pretty obvious that DPR is not going anywhere, we all know that. So you can still be happy there instead of whining at other sites.
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Many thanks Bob - you guys done a cracking job - and if DPR does close hopefully more action over here
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Not only am I struck with admiration at how quickly the Dprevived co-conspirators mobilized, and how credibly in such a short time . . . I'm moved by it. We could say, deeply moved by it. Perhaps in an existential sense.
Because the problem is not only that we live in times when the hollow, shallow bean-counters and profiteers wouldn't hesitate for a second to shut down a lively, populated, far-from-moribund source of knowledge and center of community like DPR. It's that these hollow-, shallow bean-counters and profiteers wouldn't give a second thought to destroying the compendium of information and knowledge it amassed over the decades. It wouldn't be important to them in terms of their values to say, OK, we're killing it because we're all about the bottom line, but we must save the record and the knowledge because those values are some of the highest values of humankind. Imaging-Resource was also such a compendium, and the volumes it contributed to the stacks in the Borgesian Alexandria may be gone forever. DPR's volumes and stacks came within a hairsbreadth of same.
Almost equally devastating when the news hit DPR was the sheer passivity of the majority of its participants. It's not really a personal fault, but it speaks to our times in a horrifying way. People shifted literally immediately into, mourning mode, and "Let's say our goodbyes," mode. Immediately.
Except for the very, very, few. The swashbuckling, gallant, upstart few. Some of them went into action to save the library, while others, including the people who formed DPRevived almost on a dime, focused on continuing the community. That spirit is unfortunately a precious and scarce commodity. It is to be celebrated and toasted, not denigrated or slagged. Its accomplishment is in a certain way monumental.
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In general, I'd hope that people that find this community (or other DPR replacements/competitors) lacking would offer concrete ideas about what they're unsatisfied about, or even better, content or fixes that could improve the situation. It's good to say you're unhappy about something, but even better if you have some ideas about how to fix the matter.
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I think we should just be grateful to Bob, Alan and the team, for getting together a new refuge for those of us who loved debating and arguing on DPR. So I think the winging in this and another thread are out of place. It is slowly shaping up to be a good place to hang out online.
DPR is dead, even if it is still formally alive. A small minority of the moderation team there, but in key forums, have, and will make it impossible to express our opinions freely.
GuyDager, you have basically copied word for word, a Thom Hogan comment piece.
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It's very, very quiet now on dpreview in Open Talk and Beginners Questions and so they probably don't need moderators there anymore.
Maybe just life size cardboard cut outs of the moderators' avatars will be enough to scare off any trolls 😃😃
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What exactly are you missing?
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Just thoughts - again grateful to Alan, Bob et al for setting up here.
I think this site with some cosmetics could be enhanced - the visuals I think will attract people thinking of joining. Other sites look professional (even if they are very similar in functionality). Also suggest rationalising forums - take Canon for example, very little now on EFM and APSC-DLSR - why not just move to i) Canon gear forum maybe ii) a Canon photo sharing/help forum as just 2? And take similar tack throughout. DPR had too many low use forums even pre the announced closure. Now appreciate there is already the ability to just look at Canon or Nikon for example - but would tidy up the main page - suggest allow tagging but lower profile. A "cleaner" more visual presentation would be great
Main think this site lacks is the traffic - and DPReview hanging on not helping. Fewer forums might just regain critical mass on each
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Actually, I prefer the look of this site by far to that of the over-sophisticated DPR. There were many areas of the DPR site that I was never aware of — perhaps just as well, as they were clearly populated by some of the time wasters we have here. Though many do not like the flat format of the Threads page, I find it encourages me to read threads that would effectively have been inaccessible to me at DPR. (Of course, it would also help, if some of the threads here had titles that more fully describe their contents!)
David
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I think you are being very unfair to the "alternative" sites because that is what they are, alternatives, they are not trying to be an exact copy and I think this site is really good. It may not be quite as polished as DPR was but then it is very early days and I am sure this website does not have the financial clout behind them like DPR had. I still follow DPR but I also follow several other sites including this one
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There may be a little problem with that.
I have seen numerous times (including in our company produced software history) that creating almost clone of some system is often worst approach - users will then expect 100% identical functionality, behavior, even errors - and when they meet this maybe 5% of differences, then they will be angry, bomb user support with their woes and so on.
I think everyone also knows that if some random software or OS update changes only little things, then it feels as distracting and workflow-breaking change. For major upgrades, where everything is different, people much often consider this as something new and interesting and they will happily learn new things.Thereby I personally welcome Bob and Alan intent to create something different here :)
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This forum website was initially created in about 3 days under tremendous time pressure to preserve the DPReview forum community, which it has done quite well. Almost no one expects that the most comprehensive photography website, DPReview, with all its tools, features, and data, could be duplicated in a short time or even ever.
