Anyone ever do a comparison to see if the challenge entries differ due to weather...I know there is a lot of Northern Hemisphere (i.e cold during the september to march) participants who may not go outside and shoot as much becuase...well it's freaking cold. lol. I have entered alot less challenges because it's too cold to go out and shoot.
I have entered alot less challenges because it's too cold to go out and shoot.
Amateur!
Real photogs go out in any kind of weather! No such thing as too cold to shoot.
Oh there is too cold. Anything under 50 is waaay too cold to shoot. I would shoot from inside my house or inside my car, but I don't cant comments about dirt on the windows lol.
I have entered alot less challenges because it's too cold to go out and shoot.
Amateur!
Real photogs go out in any kind of weather! No such thing as too cold to shoot.
I think it's his models that complain. After all, most of the time they're half naked.
:-)
You know how much my heating bills increase...and the worst part, is when it's warm outside all they want to do is get dressed and go shoot. Models always have it backwards!
Anything under 50 is waaay too cold to shoot. I would shoot from inside my house or inside my car, but I don't cant comments about dirt on the windows lol.
Anything under 50 is waaay too cold to shoot. I would shoot from inside my house or inside my car, but I don't cant comments about dirt on the windows lol.
Dude! You live in New Jersey! WTF?????? LOL!!!
Don't you notice that there is a lot less Fist Pumpin' in Jersey in the winter?
You're not imagining things, no. Challenge History gives you all the facts & figures if you want 'em...
Yeah, I went and checked the archives. What I found was interesting. I was wondering if anyone else noticed too.
Yeh, well, interesting isn't exactly the first word that springs to my mind! ;-)
During my time on SC I had been publishing quarterly reports of site activity statistics, and the trend for the past three years or so can be described in one word... "down."
As recently as the middle of last year we had about 2200 paying members. Around the end of the year we sank below 2000, and today we are at 1847.
At this rate we will soon lose "critical mass" and folks will just pack it up and go elsewhere. I've pretty much given up on major changes that will reverse the trend.
I remember a time when you often missed a thread if you were away for an hour; it would fall off the front page in as little as 20 minutes. Now stuff stays on the list for 12 hours or more on a very regular basis. 30 posts in 12 hours is not a healthy number for an active photography site.
Yeh, well, interesting isn't exactly the first word that springs to my mind! ;-)
During my time on SC I had been publishing quarterly reports of site activity statistics, and the trend for the past three years or so can be described in one word... "down."
As recently as the middle of last year we had about 2200 paying members. Around the end of the year we sank below 2000, and today we are at 1847.
At this rate we will soon lose "critical mass" and folks will just pack it up and go elsewhere. I've pretty much given up on major changes that will reverse the trend.
I remember a time when you often missed a thread if you were away for an hour; it would fall off the front page in as little as 20 minutes. Now stuff stays on the list for 12 hours or more on a very regular basis. 30 posts in 12 hours is not a healthy number for an active photography site.
Yes, the place has lost much of the liveliness that it had for my first few years. It also seems a less friendly place than it used to be.
So kirbic, in your opinion, what's causing it? Why has participation and membership fallen off so drastically?
So kirbic, in your opinion, what's causing it? Why has participation and membership fallen off so drastically?
I think that it's a multi-pronged problem. Part of it market maturity. When DPC started, we were one of only a few places like this, and digital photography was just being adopted by the masses. Heck, mass internet adoption was just catching fire. That all drove people here in hordes; they wanted to learn, to share. It's why I came. Fast-forward 8 years, and many younger folks have grown up with digital. There's a *huge* pool of web, print and local learning resources out there, some very sophisticated. We are just a (very) small slice of that market. We need to ask, "what are folks who come to the web for photography-related reasons looking for, and how can we provide something that no one else provides, or provide something *better* than everyone else?" The potential members are out there, but we now need to work to attract them. We need to be very careful, though, because we do not want to become a flickr, a mass-market "facebook of the photography world." We should strive to maintain a strong focus on attracting and retaining folks who are more serious about their photography. And that brings me to the last thing, how to retain folks who have grown to the point that they are not learning her anymore. They are incredibly valuable as teachers, as resources for the newer users, but they leave, inevitably. I don't have specific answers to this one, but I do think there are answers out there.
The perceived loss of the friendliness is, I think, just that... perceived. I still think that the community is as tight as it was years ago, perhaps tighter. It's just that folks are much more reserved these days; we're all a little jaded after enduring nearly years of nearly daily phishing, SPAM, "419" scam attempts, you name it. We are more wary, more cynical in general on the web. Not just here. I think that leads to a feeling that the place is less friendly. I still think that it's one of the most civil forums on the 'net.
No doubt. I started writing a reply listing some of the reasons that I think it's going downhill, but it was getting long winded and probably wouldn't make any difference anyway. Suffice it to say that DPC has several issues. Most of them could be fixed, either by feature changes (additions and subtractions) or by throwing money at the problem (directed advertising), and some are out of DPC's control, like the economy.
Stability can be a good thing, but stagnation in a dynamic market usually is not. It's a fast paced world we live in, and if you stand around too long someone's going to bulldoze you and build a Starbucks. ;)
We should strive to maintain a strong focus on attracting and retaining folks who are more serious about their photography. And that brings me to the last thing, how to retain folks who have grown to the point that they are not learning her anymore. They are incredibly valuable as teachers, as resources for the newer users, but they leave, inevitably.
Perhaps it is the nature of a site like this that someone arrives here to learn, they make progress and eventually outgrow the site, but as they grow they are also teaching the people who come in after them. A regular cycle. If I was routinely pulling in high scores and getting nothing new out of the place I might not come around as much either. I participated for a few months on another contest site and found my stuff that was mid-pack on DPC was coming in at or near the top over there. I got bored after a couple of months and haven't been back much. The forums were also more fragmented and inconvenient to watch. I think that also had something to do with it.
Why would a lively and active forum be valuable for a photography site? I mean, if I remember, a lot of the threads (when the forums were very active) were only indirectly (if at all) related to photography. So the question I guess is, is it valuable for a site, a photography site, to have an active forum that is a sort of community chat, or is it better to try to rein in the discussions to just what is related to photography? Does the question make sense?
Why would a lively and active forum be valuable for a photography site? I mean, if I remember, a lot of the threads (when the forums were very active) were only indirectly (if at all) related to photography. So the question I guess is, is it valuable for a site, a photography site, to have an active forum that is a sort of community chat, or is it better to try to rein in the discussions to just what is related to photography? Does the question make sense?
The question does make sense. I think it requires a balance between on-topic and off-topic discussion. Some off-topic discussions tend to bond the community together while others don't. Without a sense of community it gets dry and interest goes down.
We should strive to maintain a strong focus on attracting and retaining folks who are more serious about their photography. And that brings me to the last thing, how to retain folks who have grown to the point that they are not learning her anymore. They are incredibly valuable as teachers, as resources for the newer users, but they leave, inevitably.
Perhaps it is the nature of a site like this that someone arrives here to learn, they make progress and eventually outgrow the site, but as they grow they are also teaching the people who come in after them. A regular cycle.
So some of us who have been here over 5 years are like the kid who never graduates but just keeps repeating the 12th grade. Maybe it's time I stopped goofing off in class and started paying attention. ....nahhhh. :-)
We should strive to maintain a strong focus on attracting and retaining folks who are more serious about their photography. And that brings me to the last thing, how to retain folks who have grown to the point that they are not learning her anymore. They are incredibly valuable as teachers, as resources for the newer users, but they leave, inevitably.
Perhaps it is the nature of a site like this that someone arrives here to learn, they make progress and eventually outgrow the site, but as they grow they are also teaching the people who come in after them. A regular cycle.
So some of us who have been here over 5 years are like the kid who never graduates but just keeps repeating the 12th grade. Maybe it's time I stopped goofing off in class and started paying attention. ....nahhhh. :-)
only 5????? i'm quickly approaching my 8th "anniversary," at dpc. i guess some of us are just really slow learners. :P
We should strive to maintain a strong focus on attracting and retaining folks who are more serious about their photography. And that brings me to the last thing, how to retain folks who have grown to the point that they are not learning her anymore. They are incredibly valuable as teachers, as resources for the newer users, but they leave, inevitably.
Perhaps it is the nature of a site like this that someone arrives here to learn, they make progress and eventually outgrow the site, but as they grow they are also teaching the people who come in after them. A regular cycle.
So some of us who have been here over 5 years are like the kid who never graduates but just keeps repeating the 12th grade. Maybe it's time I stopped goofing off in class and started paying attention. ....nahhhh. :-)
only 5????? i'm quickly approaching my 8th "anniversary," at dpc. i guess some of us are just really slow learners. :P
Slow learners? I though it was more that you can't teach an old dog new tricks... not that you're old or anything... :P
We should strive to maintain a strong focus on attracting and retaining folks who are more serious about their photography. And that brings me to the last thing, how to retain folks who have grown to the point that they are not learning her anymore. They are incredibly valuable as teachers, as resources for the newer users, but they leave, inevitably.
Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:
Perhaps it is the nature of a site like this that someone arrives here to learn, they make progress and eventually outgrow the site, but as they grow they are also teaching the people who come in after them. A regular cycle.
Originally posted by Art Roflmao:
So some of us who have been here over 5 years are like the kid who never graduates but just keeps repeating the 12th grade. Maybe it's time I stopped goofing off in class and started paying attention. ....nahhhh. :-)
I know that I don't so much look to this site as an evrything siource the way I used to, and actually find that I'm pitting myself against my own limitations now that I've learned how to identify them and deal with them. It's because of the community, on and off the subject of photography that will keep me coming back.....the site has offered me more in the way of features and growth than I would have asked of it, so I'm very happy with that. I guess there will always be people like me that are easy to keep happy with a consistent, yet always improving site that doesn't really need to be cutting edge. Not to compare this place with Facebook on any level, but they are a perfect example of a site that is constantly "Improving", and doing it so fast while not paying any attention to what they're doing. It makes them seem erratic and inconsistent.
I know there are people who will come and go because they "outgrow" the site, whatever that means, but it's relly a case of what you're here for in the first place. If you're here as a stepping stone to be a hotshot pro, yeah, you're going to outgrow it. If you're seriously into photography, not some fast track to the big time, I fail to see how you could possibly outgrow DPC, because basically, the only thing you can try to achieve is personal perfection by continuing to challenge yourself in all aspects of photography. You get out of it what you put into it, and I'm completely stunned at what I can do now as compared to what I knew when I got here. I also feel that I'm just starting to really be able to know what I'm doing as I strive to become better at being the photographer that I have discovered within me.
I have seriously learned how to shoot the way I want to shoot to express who I am and create images from my vision. This place is freakin' awesome!
