thread in wrong forum

[oneANT]

I wrote to the op of the plane spotting thread that has been placed in the STREET and CANDID forum. By the ops own admission it was a case of eeny, meeny, miny, moe when it was placed there.

I wrote to him in the PM's and he had chosen not to reply and instead brought it into the forum which is why it is there now.
In his own words there is no inconvenience for them if it was to be moved and moved to reportage as plane spotting is commonly found in such sources.

IMHO, I personally wouldn't have any issues nor objections for this series of threads to be moved to a more appropriate gallery sub-forum, I doubt it will affect us fellow aviation enthusiasts in anyway whatsoever. We have no deliberate intention or wish to create trouble for anyone.

I've also written (18/04) to CS via the only contact address at webmaster@ but have had no reply and am now unsure if that email link is still active.

There are two problems with its location there. The first is with the education of new street photographers because plane spotting is not an activity of street. In Op's first efforts to argue this he sought to redefine street photography which is troublesome. New photographers have enough difficulty with what defines street photography, and members of that forum have suggested without source or precedent that they are indeed a sub-set of street photography. Now imagine this behaviour in your own forums.It also raises a concern for their opinion of street photography to subvert it this way and is most unhelpful

The other issue is my invitation to a published street photographer that I had interviewed earlier this year and he agreed in principle but wanted to see the forum and he did. I sent him links to a number of photographers there and he was impressed just as I am but then he asks why is there a airplane spotting thread in a street and candid forum and had concern that it was not the right environment for his work and in his words he felt the forum was broken and refused my request.
It was a great loss and it happens to be a stunning interview and source of instructional material for street photographers looking to exhibit their own printed work. I have another 5, so you now understand my request.

My own interest, I'm a photographer in Melbourne Australia that does not like the western definition of street photography as it has become and have made definition changes on the internet to ensure that an international definition is applied. The street photography community at CS is something special, it is worth promoting and increasing the membership. There is also a learning experience for me here and its very different to the street scenes I would expect in Oz.

oneant.com.au

Now the conversation has turned bad and personal accusations have been made against me in the forum. The OP constantly changes his reasons for why it cannot be moved and amongst them says that there would be no objection. Instead it becomes clear that he sees this as simply a battle to win and has no real care if it stays or goes.
I joined CS some time ago but have been absent due to poor health and family difficulties, they ask me where have I been and now instead of addressing the issue the OP and another are making personal insult about the reply I gave them which is my own disability and the illness of my son.

I'd like to ask again that the plane spotting thread that does not belong in the street and candid forum be moved. It is not my choice where it goes but it can be either travel or reportage and I suspect reportage is more fitting but do not care to make a decision on their behalf.

Ant.

 

[9V-Orion Images]

Dear fellow ClubSNAP members:

All I have to request that you do is read both threads (here and here) carefully, thoroughly and judge for yourself who is the one being aggressive, arrogant and hostile dictating to other members in a superior overtone stepping over their heads with no due respect, demanding that they do this or that and take immediate action as if any of them has the authority to do so. Creating a big fuss and ruckus filled with unwarranted assumptions, not to mention throwing false accusations in the process thus making a mountain out of a molehill.

Also the **** and bull of being a paid professional street photographer who make a living spending a total of only 67 days in photography for the past 4 entire years and furthermore bringing his family into a trivia matter for no apparent reason which I found extremely disgusting and shameless.

Thank you.

 

[Administrator]

We have read through the posts in the threads that have been linked and this is our official response to the complaints/issues that have arisen.

But firstly, we would say that we absolutely disagree with your comment "why a community would be so broken" posted here, and we take particular offence with that statement. Please elaborate on how broken we are considering that we are now past our 10th year in existence with close to 8M posts and 190,000 members - we would like to know what we need to fix with our "broken" community.

As it has been pointed out, the Plane Spotting thread has been in Streets and Candids for a number of years, and the main reason is that we believe it is the best place for the thread at the present moment and foreseeable future. This is not to say that it is the perfect place for it, but sad to say, we all live in an imperfect world. From time to time, we would consider adding or amending categories for sub-genres of photography provided that there is enough interest in that sub-genre to justify it's own section.

For the sake of definition in our community context, the Street and Candid category is for pictures taken in public and we would say that taking pictures of airplanes at the airport or in the airport surroundings fall into that definition. It may not be adhering 100% to the definition of street photography but neither does it lend itself to Travel or any of the other categories. And to further confound the issue, how would one categorise a street shot taken while travelling? Does it fall into Street or Travel or both? And thus we have to live with imperfect categorisations.

If we were to take category definitions even further, one could argue that our World of Nature category is not "true to the definition" as it only contains images taken at the Zoo and parks and not really of the natural world in the wild. However, we do not have any issues in working with re-knowned nature photographers based on our past collaboration with Nat Geo and other organisations.

As it is, the Plane Spotting thread is but one thread out of 12,300 threads in the Streets and Candid category, and it is unfortunate that your purported client picked up on that instead of the other 12,299 threads full of street photography (and there are numerous examples of exemplary street photography in those other threads) to renege on his arrangement with you.

Herein lies the rub and if we may summarise what we believe is the crux of the issue - You lost an opportunity to make money from/through ClubSNAP because your client disagreed with one thread out of 12,300 threads and you want us to change our definition of street photography to your ideal (as mentioned here - I edited the Street Photography Wiki).

We am sorry to inform you that that's not going to happen if the method of communicating change is as per what you have been posting here in ClubSNAP. We always welcome feedback and appreciate meaningful discussions from our members as we do not always have the answers, but the way you have posted is absolutely not the way it is supposed to work.

As a community, we all learn from each other and you yourself even said that "One of the difficulties in street is that that the definitions can be slack". If the intention was truly there to really help the community to change/improve the definition of the street photography genre as practiced by our members as opposed to what a single person thinks street photography should be (even if he/she was a famous street photographer in his/her own right), we would have welcomed an approach by yourself and your client(s) in a meaningful discussion on what constitutes street photography together with our members and how it can be better observed/practiced which we can then cement into changes in our forums and community. The opportunity is still there, but an antagonistic approach will not be appreciated.

As it is, we suspect that if we asked 10 street photographers what their personal ideal or definition of street photography is, we would get 11 different answers. The trick is to find the common ground with those 11 answers and we definitely welcome discussions that are centred around that.

Finally, we emphatize with your family situation and wish you the best.

 

[oneANT]

Herein lies the rub and if we may summarise what we believe is the crux of the issue - You lost an opportunity to make money from/through ClubSNAP

You need to explain this ... and by this you will need to explain yourself.
The rest of what you wrote was utter rubbish but this is a slander.

I am able to provide interviews posted on-line for the benefit of forum members, street photographers specifically. I will not provide them here but give me an email address and I'll send you the link.

You need to explain this, not side step nor avoid the matter as is the game that we both know is played in the forums but in front of everyone explain how you came to this absurd conclusion. Its is as it happens as much of truth as anything else you said ...except that this is by any definition ... slander.

Because you cannot and like the rest of it, ... was self serving ... I would like an apology in the reply.

 

[Administrator]

Definition of slander ~ (The utterance or spreading of) a false or malicious statement about a person, intended to injure or defame; spec. (Law) a false and defamatory oral statement; the act or offence of making such a statement.

Your posting here - "I interview street photographers as part of another occupation." and "So I've lost an interview ..." is referenced and from that, an inference can be made that an occupation would generate some reward and/or benefit.

Whether said reward and/or benefit is monetary, a barter trade, an exchange of favors, goods in kind or of some other nature we do not know but it can be inferred that there is some reward and/or benefit to you personally.

For the sake of clarity, allow us to reword our statement to: You lost an opportunity to personally benefit from/through ClubSNAP because your client disagreed with one thread out of 12,300 threads and you want us to change our definition of street photography to your ideal (as mentioned here - I edited the Street Photography Wiki).

Is that an absurd conclusion?

Our statement, based on your own postings in our forums, is therefore neither false, malicious, slanderous nor defamatory as defined. If there is no money involved, we fully retract with our apology the first statement mentioning a monetary reward to be replaced with the reworded statement.