John M. Setzler, Jr.

I’m sure that some of you participate in various online communities. If you didn’t, you probalby wouldn’t be reading this. My personal poison is photography, so I like a couple different online communities of photographers. I was lucky enough to find my first one very early in its existence. There weren’t a lot of people involved, but those who were, were like me. They were learning and sharing. The discussion forums were great. The content of those forums was priceless to me. This was just about 5 years ago when I found this particular site. The site hosts digital photography competitions as well. I participated in those throughout my learning process. Over time, the site grew. When I first joined, there were about 50 or 75 active participants in those competitions. Of those, there were 35 or so who participated in the discussion forums. Now, there are hundreds and hundreds of regular participants in the contests and quite a few of those are active in the forums as well. The site is very popular. It’s membership spans the globe.

This growth has been good for the site owners. I’m sure they are making a nice chunk of money from the membership dues and the print sale commissions. I’m very happy for them that it’s so successful.

I have basically stopped participating in the photo competitions now. The number of photos that appear in any given competition is so large that it’s nearly impossible to evaluate each photo properly and vote fairly. Much to my dismay, I have also practically stopped participating in the discussion forums as well. There are so many people posting that it’s nearly impossible to keep up with what’s going on. What bothers me the most is that the forums are relatively unmoderated. The only moderation that comes into play is when flame wars get started or when the site’s terms of service have been violated in some way. Lots of users on the site seem to simply enjoy seeing their name on the screen, so they start forum threads that have no apparent meaning. The site is a photography site, but discussions on photography seem to be rare.

Chances are, if you are reading this, you are also a photographer. Do you participate in any online photography communities? If so, do you have similar issues or is your favorite site much better? Let me know…