Where we go from here

Some great ideas here - thank you all. Keep posting if you feel like adding ideas.

Yes, what has been said is on the lines that Bob and I discussed on Monday. It will take time to implement (turning tankers springs to mind 😁) but, with all your help, we will get there.

Alan

Hmm - a 'my menu' option would be nice.

I think that there was a genuine cry of anguish from many people who had found DPReview to be an oppressive place for them. Then there were a lot of people who didn't, who said 'where's your problem'. I really don't like your characterisation of these people much. It kind of works on the assumption that they are mostly deliberate trouble makers, which I don't think they mostly are. They are likely people whose personality types lead them to create trouble, often unintentionally.
FWIW, I also don't think that your theory of what happened at DPReview is remotely correct. I had enough conversations with the staffers there to know that they were genuinely distressed, and if Amazon was playing a game with them as well as us then that truly is heartless. Dale Baskin has come out with comments on it (which would get his post removed both here and on DPReview, and likely a permaban on the latter) which really does indicate that this wasn't a devious plot. Remember DPReview was an insignificant part of the Amazon empire. It's staff would have been 0.04% of those layed off by Amazon in 2023. I very much doubt that those planning the rationalisation even gave a thought to DPReview - just saw a few staff there that could easily be 'rationalised' and checked the box on the spreadsheet. What happened thereafter was very much the DPReview staff negotiating a way out in the face of a disinterested higher management.

I hope I am both, they are not mutually exclusive. The problem is again that both sides in these arguments identify as the ones that 'know their stuff' and their interlocutors as the ones who only think that they know their stuff and are being caustic. The key thing is the stuff - and if you study these disputes, and know your stuff (because otherwise, how are you to determine which is which?), you find the same groups of people are in opposing camps, whatever the issue, and it is the same group that always knows the stuff correctly. When you get discussions within those groups, though they can sometimes get a little testy, that tends to be the limit. The real vitriol is between stuff knowledgable and stuff ignorant. Now, here is the problem - there is also seems to be a big correlation between the stuff ignorant and those calling for the other side to be 'cajoled or cudjeled'. The stuff is important, and if we are to judge on whether these unruly people are to suffer this treatment on whether they really do know their stuff, then it is exactly the ones calling for cajoling and cudgeling that will end up getting that treatment.

Usually when people go the 'I have these qualifications route', I can outbid them. The whole approach is fallacious - 'believe me because I'm qualified'. I've had enough experience of qualifications to know that many, maybe a majority who exit higher education with degrees end up without a great depth of knowledge about their subject. The pass criterion is in any case 'bare competence' and the whole assessment regime in most cases is extremely gameable and only produces a superficial correlation with competence, yet again knowledge. This is why statutory professions (i.e, when competence actually matters) never accept simple college degrees as the sole criterion for full membership.

I think there is a test of the type of conversation that you describe. If it is a matter of both sides just making declarations that they know best, then sure, it's a valueless conversation. But I don't see very many like that. Maybe one or two individuals, and even there I think your estimation that their intent is to 'impress everyone' is dismissive and pejorative. If someone believes that they are right, and that is questioned, they will usually argue. That's human nature. If it's a topic for which they have some passion, and much of their self-esteem and identity have become tied up in it, then that gets much more pronounced. My observation of these kinds of discussion is that they are very often between party A, who is a professional photographer, very invested in their own expertise and party B, who is maybe an engineer or scientist from a different (but often closely related) discipline, who is usually a photographer of the type you'd call 'serious amateur' (though quote often also professional). The usual pathology is that party A deploys the 'I'm professional' argument, and party B deploys 'technical' arguments based around evidence and reason. Party B is, of course, the one that knows his stuff (or at least the stuff relevant to the discussion). In the process, Party B will usually be accused of only thinking that they know their stuff, trying to impress others, beating their interlocutor over and over, and harassing anyone who questions their knowledge - and on a place like DPReview, will get trolled and likely sanctioned by moderators.

I'm not sure the site's name is really a big issue - at least not for now. As for the DPReview heritage - it is what it is. Whether it redirects into a calm, welcoming site depends on the membership. Trying to calm it with punitive action will surely drive out the very people who make this site different from DPReview - it's in our worst interests.

Yes, we've had people beating us over and over with their opinions on that. Quite a few (and I'm not saying you) clearly do not have the interests of this site at heart. And also, we've had a significant group of people telling us that they think that this place is much more friendly and welcoming on DPReview. I can understand that, because group bullying is a huge problem there, and many of the people who would prefer this site over DPReview are those that have suffered from it.

So, what should we do about exposure? Maybe we have a site policy about what exposure means, and anyone who disagrees about that (and dares to mention it) be excluded from the site? Or what?

I'm not convinced. It's best to credit beginners with some intelligence and initiative. If you're a 'beginner' on a photography forum these days it's probable that you're not someone content with taking phone pictures. You've invested in a specialist camera, and likely done a bit of research using the many web sites to make your purchase decisions. It's very likely that when you read the review for you camera that 'noise' was mentioned, so you picked up the term. Maybe you want to one of the many photographic tutorial sites, or YouTube videos, and they will have talked about noise - and then very likely told you nonsense about what causes it.
So, when you come to be sufficiently proactive you go to a 'beginner's questions' forum and ask for the stuff all those sites didn't give you. Very often when beginners ask questions like that it's because they are told that high ISO causes noise, but they are keeping the ISO low and the picture still looks more noisy than they expected, now they want to know why.

Reminds me of when I was in college. The 'pass mark' was 40% and you got the top level by achieving 80%. Part of my course was going into industry. I soon learned that if you got 80% right, you got 20% wrong - and failed (this was computing). So, it had to be RIGHT - not "Mostly right". Guess what - I went back to college for my final year and did rather well 😁😁

And, of course, once you go to work full time, you soon learn the things that make you successful - and it's probably not what you were taught at college.

Alan

With respect, it was you that raised the issue of qualifications, and implying that those qualifications meant that you knew 'the stuff'. Maybe I got it wrong, but if that wasn't the intention, I don't see why you'd raise the matter. The connection between your qualifications and your subsequent career, I find beside the point. I've known very successful photographers with zero formal qualifications and also people with top-rate qualifications that haven't had successful careers.

It might be what you learned at college - it depends on the course you did. If your computing course was one of the many that jams you full of facts, then it was likely that most of them were out of date before you started work. If, on the other hand it developed the base principles and knowledge, which haven't really changed over 50 years or so, taught you how to use the maths that go with them, and how to problem solve, and use that knowledge to find a solution to the problem in hand, then you'd have found that you solved them a lot faster that the fact crammed people. That's one reason why getting the basics right and knowing how things work is generally important.

To be fair to the 'scientific experts', their debates between themselves are usually quite short, polite, interesting and full of mutual respect. It's debates where others decide that what the 'scientific' folks say must be challenged that can become long and tortured, and the scientific folk attempt to explain to science deniers why their views don't accord with reality.

Firstly, thanks for your contribution. Second, I'd hope that some of the developments here will enhance that kind of activity. Editorial content about the kind of topics you discuss is exactly what we had in mind. The art and craft is what it's in the end about.