Your forum concerns: from Ben Bowers, Chief Content Officer at Gear Patrol

Hi everyone,

I'm Ben Bowers, Chief Content Officer at Gear Patrol. I'm ultimately responsible for supporting DPReview's editorial and community efforts. I wanted to speak to everyone directly to address two of the major themes in your feedback to our forum migration announcement.

The process

First, I owe you all an apology. The way we announced the forum migration wasn't good enough. Many of you felt blindsided, and you're right—you should have been brought into this process earlier.

This place has always been about more than cameras—it's about the people who show up here, and that's not going to change.

I wrongly assumed this decision was too in the weeds for most of the community to care passionately about. That oversight falls squarely on me, and I promise we can and will do better about engaging with all of you about any significant changes to the forums moving forward.

The platform

The other sticking point for many of you is losing the threaded view. We know people value it and that removing it would upset at least some users. What we didn't do well was explain why we felt we had no real alternative but to move forward anyway.

I'll be blunt: if we had a way to fix the deeper problems with our current system and still keep threaded view, we'd be implementing that. But we didn't have that option— at least not with the tools, money, and people available to us.

Here's what pushed us to make this move anyway: our forums are running on old, custom-built tech that's increasingly difficult to maintain - let alone improve upon. Our moderators don't have the tools they need. The platform is missing features that are now basic expectations in any online community. And every month, it gets harder for us to keep the system working, let alone improving it.

Moving to XenForo isn't about chasing shiny features—it's about making sure DPReview's community has a stable, functional home for the long term. Based on every option available, we concluded that an already proven platform was the only way forward. It does come with some compromises, and the threaded view is one of them.

I know that's frustrating to hear, and I know that, in many ways, it also feels like a major step backwards. But given our choices, we decided it was best to face hard trade-offs now rather than risk the forums breaking down further in the future.

The future

I'll wrap things up by emphasizing that this migration also isn't the end of the road. It's the first step.

We've got ideas for improving the community experience over time, and we hope to do that best by soliciting your feedback and insights sooner this time.

For now, I hope those of you on the fence can stick with us through the transition and continue engaging with us as we work to do better.

I would also like to continue this conversation with anyone with something productive to add. Please reply to this post with your thoughts so our team and I can respond. I can't promise we'll have an answer to every question, but we will do our best to provide clarity where possible.

You can also send us a direct message or email us at [email protected].

I'll also be in the forums with the rest of the team, listening to and learning from you all as we go.

As I've said in the weekly emails over the last several years, thank you for caring about this place and supporting DPReview's work over the previous 20 years. You are the reason we do what we do.

—Ben

We hope that you designed the new forum for content critical access and engagement. You hope you retain the content input that puts you at the top of searches for information when buying photo gear.

Hopefully we all recognise and appreciate that you need a stable and affordable platform and the needs of the next generation of photographers will be different.

Now we wait to engage with the new platform to decide how to use it.

Andrew

How long before we get to see "the real new shiny thing" (or a test site)?

A week? A month? I am looking forward to it.

--
- M4M

Ben Bowers said:

Hi everyone,

I'm Ben Bowers, Chief Content Officer at Gear Patrol. I'm ultimately responsible for supporting DPReview's editorial and community efforts. I wanted to speak to everyone directly to address two of the major themes in your feedback to our forum migration announcement.

The process

First, I owe you all an apology. The way we announced the forum migration wasn't good enough. Many of you felt blindsided, and you're right—you should have been brought into this process earlier.

This place has always been about more than cameras—it's about the people who show up here, and that's not going to change.

I wrongly assumed this decision was too in the weeds for most of the community to care passionately about. That oversight falls squarely on me, and I promise we can and will do better about engaging with all of you about any significant changes to the forums moving forward.

Click to expand...

I think that's part of the problem.

I absolutely understand the need to update the software. But, I think you sorely underestimated the staggering amount of technical knowledge that exists amongst your more consistent users, and that might have been available and usable to generate a potentially better alternative to your boiler-plate commercial upgrade options.

Look, people who post on this forum, especially long-term, repeat posters, are, well, kind of geeks. (I include myself in this category...I have been interested/working with photography and gear since I was about 12, which means 55 years (yeah, I'm old, so sue me). I'm also a Veterinarian (DVM). AND I have a BFA). And they are fussy, yes, but also a huge repository of both photographic and other technical knowledge. By choosing a lowest common denominator type commercial site option update, you really fail your most valuable community and its rich technical resources and knowledge going forward. And, that is a very worrying thing for this site's future.

I know you want to attract young eyes. And you should. And that means changes, and it should. But removing the easy ability to access complex information and interactions is not the way to distinguish yourself from every other forum out there, for those who DO want to go further and explore more complex information about both photography and the gear that supports it. And that seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Ben Bowers said:

The platform

The other sticking point for many of you is losing the threaded view. We know people value it and that removing it would upset at least some users. What we didn't do well was explain why we felt we had no real alternative but to move forward anyway.

I'll be blunt: if we had a way to fix the deeper problems with our current system and still keep threaded view, we'd be implementing that. But we didn't have that option— at least not with the tools, money, and people available to us.

Here's what pushed us to make this move anyway: our forums are running on old, custom-built tech that's increasingly difficult to maintain - let alone improve upon. Our moderators don't have the tools they need. The platform is missing features that are now basic expectations in any online community. And every month, it gets harder for us to keep the system working, let alone improving it.

Moving to XenForo isn't about chasing shiny features—it's about making sure DPReview's community has a stable, functional home for the long term. Based on every option available, we concluded that an already proven platform was the only way forward. It does come with some compromises, and the threaded view is one of them.

I know that's frustrating to hear, and I know that, in many ways, it also feels like a major step backwards. But given our choices, we decided it was best to face hard trade-offs now rather than risk the forums breaking down further in the future.

Click to expand...

I understand. There is a budget. It's not giant. A commercial solution is the only thing you could come up with to do things with what you can pay. BUT, as I said in the earlier paragraph: You should have consulted with the community as there might have been people who could have set this up for you (someone suggested making the DPR current software open-source to see what the community could come up with, for instance). Or, maybe someone here works for or owns a different software community that could come up with a custom design that is current, but not boiler plate, and also fit into your budget. Drawing on the good will of your users would have been a way to approach this that might have gotten you a much better solution going forward. It certainly would have been a better choice than just dropping this out there as a fait accompli...and, if it came to naught, at least the community would have been better resigned to the outcome.

Ben Bowers said:

The future

I'll wrap things up by emphasizing that this migration also isn't the end of the road. It's the first step.

We've got ideas for improving the community experience over time, and we hope to do that best by soliciting your feedback and insights sooner this time.

For now, I hope those of you on the fence can stick with us through the transition and continue engaging with us as we work to do better.

I would also like to continue this conversation with anyone with something productive to add. Please reply to this post with your thoughts so our team and I can respond. I can't promise we'll have an answer to every question, but we will do our best to provide clarity where possible.

Click to expand...

Honestly, I think you should step back, and hold off until you do at least a short exploration of options that community members might be able to come up with, that might be a much better alternative...And if that doesn't fly, then go with what you have to. But at least that should/should have been tried first.

-J

I totally agree, and you can best see what I totally agree with in threaded mode ;-)

You're only migrating the forum, not the entire DPR site, and you still have the designer available for advice and consultation. Once you lose this opportunity, it's gone forever.

--

Sherm
Sherms flickr page

P950 album

P900 album RX10iv album
OM1.2 150-600 album

Heya Ben ️ for being concerned for Dpr forum members.

Things shouldn't be one or the other.

Theres always space for both.

Run 2 two forums for a little while.

The forum Gear Patrol et al are undertaking : naming it Dpr Social or similar to draw the influencer social media people you are looking for. This Dpr Social forum would start from scratch.

Keeping this current Dpr forum as it is with its vast camera gear knowledge base from thousands of Dpr forum members. The massive traffic on this forum is reason Amazon purchased Dpr, Not because of gear reviews. If the traffic to this site is drastically reduced due to altering the forum, then some Dpr staff some Gear Patrol staff could be out of a job.

In say 7 months see how the new Dpr Social forum is doing.

Thereafter consulting with forum members of both forums in an open discussion.

--
Photography after all is interplay of light alongside perspective.

Ben,

I will add the following to Jaylywol’s excellent response. But first, thank you for engaging directly and for reading the strong member feedback this week. As you now recognize, many long-time users rely on threaded view to follow complex, technical discussions. A different thread—informal but clear—showed the split: roughly half prefer flat, roughly half prefer threaded view, with a small group having no preference. Moving only the forums to a flat-only platform, while the rest of the site remains as is, sounds like a snub to those members and their established workflows.

No one is asking you to keep obsolete infrastructure; you are being asked to respect a significant percentage of the people who have built and sustained this community. Whatever occurs in the future, the message should be unmistakable: many of the long-time community are not expendable, and their way of working is valued.

That clear, respectful stance will determine whether many of those members stay engaged through the transition.

Respectfully,

Hi,

I think the days are long gone when the Top Boss would allow members access such that they write the code that improves things. The Threaded View came about in just that way. As a solution to having technical discussions which almost always have several subthreads.

But, back then, there was a sizable number of community volunteers. I suspect that part changed once the site became a commercial operation. I know I fell out of that loop.

Anyway, lose Threaded view and be prepared to significantly cutrail the technical discussions.

I arrived here at the express request of the founder to be another engineer online to help with the technical side of these digital cameras. Many others joined in the early days as well. Many more joined over time. We have a really good core of technical members.

Should this proceed to the loss of Threaded view, I will curtail my participation to only two forums where the traffic is low enough to where I might actually be able to follow along in a Flat only view.

Stan

I’m not sure how popular this idea would be-

A while ago there was talk of a subscription model. Would this not allow for more funds to find a better forum set up? If I remember there was talk of that allowing ad free experience as well.

I highly value the threaded view, and would be sad to see it go.

I couldn't have answered better than Janet (jalywol) and as I'm using the sensible threaded view there's little need to quote much (nothing in this case!) as the context is obvious. I won't use a flat-only forum, with it's mixture of vast amounts of repeated quote and zero-context replies without quotes at all. It's a lose-lose as far as i'm concerned.

I'm reminded of the days of printed photo mags with "letters to the editor" usually included one disgruntled subscriber threatening to cancel his subscription over some editorial change that nobody else even noticed, but this editorial change is in a different league. If I actually had a subscription I'd definitely write my letter to the editor this time... and not expect to be alone.

Ben,

Thank you engaging with the community.

As a long-time IT system/architecture designer (now thankfully retired!). I understand that you need a product with a certain future of support and development for a key part of your infrastructure.

Forum software is not something I ever had to dig into, but a quick question to ChatGPT suggests there are commercial offerings that support a threaded view. Have they been evaluated and rejected for some reason?

Given that few other forums offer a threaded view I guess it was always going to be difficult to find software to support that. It is unfortunate but inevitable that some members will have difficulties with a flat view, but better that than no forum.

Hi Ben,

Thank you for stepping forward and get personally involved.

You are correct saying the way this was handled by DPReview is not exactly a school example.

Apologies excepted. What happened happened, and is now done. It's time to positively look forward.

- A new forum is needed due to maintenance issues -> no problem, we understand

- Threaded view will disappear -> this is a problem to many users

If we narrow everything down, the remaining problem is the disappearance of threaded view.

In my opinion there are 2 ways to go:

- continue the process and ignore the voice of many users -> you will loose a big part of the community

- put the project temporarily on hold, take the users seriously and try to find a solution to incorporate threaded view

To me the last option seems like the best one.

If the will is there, there are several options you could think of to incorporate threaded view. You could contact XenForo, explain the situation and ask them to build a solution. Since they are the ones who built and maintain the software it would be logical to ask them first. Or you could hire an external IT company to build the feature for you. Or you could expand your search for another software platform that does facilitate threaded view.

The very big question is, are you willing to do that? Are you willing to listen to your user base and explore the possibilities to incorporate threaded view? Or, is this a dead-end street and has the decision to continue without threaded view been already made? If so, please tell us because then we no longer need to discuss the issue.

Again, thanks for stepping forward. Please enlighten us about which way you want to go. Are you going to take the voices of so many users seriously and try to find a solution for threaded view? Or is this a done deal and can we stop discussing it?

Looking forward to your reply.

Ben Bowers said:

Hi everyone,

I'm Ben Bowers, Chief Content Officer at Gear Patrol. I'm ultimately responsible for supporting DPReview's editorial and community efforts. I wanted to speak to everyone directly to address two of the major themes in your feedback to our forum migration announcement.

The process

First, I owe you all an apology. The way we announced the forum migration wasn't good enough. Many of you felt blindsided, and you're right—you should have been brought into this process earlier.

Click to expand...

so let’s back up - it’s not too late - you haven’t yet made the change - bring us into the process now

We hope to build the ideal forum experience that can serve all manner of community members from newbies to decades-long contributors.

We don't see it as an either or, even though at launch, we have been forced to take a few steps back in order to be able to confidently move forward for years to come.

Thank you though for being open to at least seeing what the new system is like and giving it a chance.

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

I wouldn't say we underestimated this community's technical knowledge.

When Amazon first announced that the site was shutting down, we witnessed firsthand how this community leaped into action in an effort to preserve and maintain this community.

However, knowing and acknowledging that people in your community are technically capable and willing to help is one thing.

Actually leaning on that group's talent and expecting them to act as external volunteers/consultants, etc., to solve a wide range of technical concerns and support future strategic initiatives for DPReview is another entirely different situation.

Don't get me wrong—the fact that anyone is willing to suggest this idea and offer their time is both moving and remarkable.

When you start to dig into the practical details of this idea, though, many immediate roadblocks and practical issues leap to mind that, even with a brief bit of contemplation, make this scenario start to feel fairly unrealistic.

I also want to address another suggestion in your note—i.e., that we're creating a "social" version of the forums and seem content to settle with a "generic" version that caters only to unsophisticated/non-geeky or hard-core community crowds.

That's not our intent or end goal with this process. But again, I understand how losing a defining feature could lead someone to believe that's what we're doing here.

Migrating decades of data and new information to a new system is a massive undertaking, which you clearly understand. But as I said in my note, this isn't some kind of final "step" in the process of evolving and improving the forums.

We truly expect this to be the beginning of a new era for DPReview and our company as a whole.

We deeply understand that, in the end, our forum technology will need to cater specifically to the needs related to talking about cameras and photography culture if we expect anyone to choose our community over other massive options like Reddit, etc.

Human expertise and conversation within a community go a long way toward making it special. But we know that excellent tools that help foster the community's ability to share, interact, advise, etc., are also required.

I wish we could simultaneously shift the community's foundations and launch various tailor-made tools for camera discussions, but it's just not feasible.

Given everything else the community has gone through, it's a lot to ask for patience on this front.

But it will take time to implement and build everything we want to ensure DPReview remains the preeminent community for discussing cameras and photography.

Ben Bowers said:

We hope to build the ideal forum experience that can serve all manner of community members from newbies to decades-long contributors.
We don't see it as an either or, even though at launch, we have been forced to take a few steps back in order to be able to confidently move forward for years to come.
Thank you though for being open to at least seeing what the new system is like and giving it a chance.

Click to expand...

That’s an intriguing gear list you have there.

A

--
Infinite are the arguments of mages. Truth is a jewel with many facets. Ursula K LeGuin
Please feel free to edit any images that I post

Ben,

Thank you for your post. But I still don't understand why you chose forum software that has no threaded view and (apparently) won't change that decision.

There is software out there in the public domain that will do what everyone will want. myBB is one example and one that I used to start a new forum when Amazon announced its closure. It has threaded view, it has galleries, it has modules you can add on to do all sorts of things. I did a lot of evaluation of what was around at the time and found myBB did everything I needed.

There are others around that also do that.

Would you reconsider the decision? I'd be happy - for free - to help with any evaluation.

Here's hoping you understand where we are coming from. DPReview is a fantastic resource and it wouldbe sad if we lost a lot of members and/or the depth of discussion that has evolved.

Alan

Thanks for explaining your side of things.

We are indeed a photo community full of smaller, dedicated photo communities.
The Dpreview forums in their present form are unique in this world.

Thousands of photographers from all over the planet have found their niche here.

I am from the Netherlands and the first thing I do every morning is open Dpreview and scan my favourite forums for new interesting images that folks are proud to share.

I consider the Landscape & Travel forum my spiritual home, photographically speaking.

I particularly like collective threads like:
- 'Post your favourite landscape close to home'.
- 'Post your Autumn/Fall images'.
- 'In the Mountains, post yours'.
- etc.

The various 'This week with your |insert camera brand| Camera' threads are also favorites of mine.

You'll see where I'm going - all these will be impossible without Threaded View.
The whole 'sharing' experience will be gone.

So, please do your very best to keep this vital aspect intact.

Regards,

André

Replying to jalywhol without quoting.

i didn’t get the impression that management was going to discard anything from the old forums. There just won’t be a threaded view.