Photo.net is dead (to me, anyway).

[dmanthree]

I've been visiting the photo.net site, a site started by MIT professor Philip Greenspun, for quite a while. The other day I visited, and found a truly horrific redesign that made the site utterly useless. And now, when I try to visit today, it wants my credentials first, and will transmit them unencrypted.

No chance.

Who did this? What in hell were they thinking? Very sad to see that site die this way.

 

[Glen Barrington]

The same thing happened to me. It's been a few months since I've visited and I can't remember my password and user ID and have always relied Chrome to remember that stuff for nonessential web sites.

I wonder if Win 10 is somehow connected to this? I mean even dying sites like to have visitors at the end if for no other reason than to boost the selling price to the fool thinking he can buy it and revitalize it!

 

[dmanthree]

The same thing happened to me. It's been a few months since I've visited and I can't remember my password and user ID and have always relied Chrome to remember that stuff for nonessential web sites.

I wonder if Win 10 is somehow connected to this? I mean even dying sites like to have visitors at the end if for no other reason than to boost the selling price to the fool thinking he can buy it and revitalize it!

I'm using Safari on a Mac, and I did know my user name and PW. But there's no way in hell I'd send any creds in the clear, even for a site as benign as that.

It's dead, and that's a shame.

 

[The Davinator]

Agreed. I posted that I found the new design to be horrible for navigation. Search functions rarely work. All posts older than 2 years or so have vanished. Links to threads I maintained for information purposes no longer work. And what response do we get! Well, the admin decided that instead of responding to long time users....I've been a paying member there for 15 years....they just delete the posts to censor anything negative. Many have been commenting their posts discussing issues with layout, etc, have simply been deleted.

The site is now unusable. I would not recommend it to anyone any longer. I've received numerous emails from long time members like myself whom I have kept in touch with that they are pulling their memberships and not giving them a penny of funds any longer. It appears the backlash is growing....and the admin have their heads stuck in the sand.

 

[scottfc]

There hasn't been anything new on the site anyway in years, so what's the difference?

Every possible camera-related question has been answered, x10. People just post the same questions ("my Hasselblad is jammed--what do I do?") and get the same old answers from the same 5 guys.

 

[The Davinator]

There hasn't been anything new on the site anyway in years, so what's the difference?

Every possible camera-related question has been answered, x10. People just post the same questions ("my Hasselblad is jammed--what do I do?") and get the same old answers from the same 5 guys.

Not sure what you've been reading there...but there is always new and useful information.

As to the same questions...you mean like here....equivalency, raw acronym, film vs digital, dynamic range, oil splatters, nikon vs canon, aps-c vs ff, bokeh, etc, etc, etc.?

 

[Les Berkley]

I have been a Photo.net member for seventeen years. I have always enjoyed the site because they talk about photography more than gear. You can join intelligent conversations about photographers, past and present, and not get flamed. HOWEVER, the recent site revamp has, in fact, rendered it entirely useless.

 

[Glen Barrington]

There hasn't been anything new on the site anyway in years, so what's the difference?

Every possible camera-related question has been answered, x10. People just post the same questions ("my Hasselblad is jammed--what do I do?") and get the same old answers from the same 5 guys.

How is that different from DPR? That's pretty much true of EVERY photo related web site!

EDIT: Well, Let me expand on that a bit. Photo.net was always a less than ideal site for technology questions. But it DID offer a lot more as a "photography as art" sort of site. But the issues that drove me away from using it was the straight from the 1950's approach to photography. I don't think anyone there knew that Life magazine and the "Famous Photographers" school was dead. It had become a closed clique for retro photography, not all that different in tone and approach to what you describe above.

Maybe death for Photo.net is not a bad thing.

--
I look good fat, I'm gonna look good old. . .
http://glenbarrington.blogspot.com/
http://glenbarringtonphotos.blogspot.com/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/130525321@N05/

 

[The Davinator]

I have been a Photo.net member for seventeen years. I have always enjoyed the site because they talk about photography more than gear. You can join intelligent conversations about photographers, past and present, and not get flamed. HOWEVER, the recent site revamp has, in fact, rendered it entirely useless.

 

[Schmingy]

I'm another that will add photo.net to the dead to me list now. The new design is unusable on mobile and with them removing any posts about the new design clearly shows they're not interested in improving it.

 

[66GTO]

I've been visiting the photo.net site, a site started by MIT professor Philip Greenspun, for quite a while. The other day I visited, and found a truly horrific redesign that made the site utterly useless. And now, when I try to visit today, it wants my credentials first, and will transmit them unencrypted.

No chance.

Who did this? What in hell were they thinking? Very sad to see that site die this way.

 

[dmanthree]

Agreed. I posted that I found the new design to be horrible for navigation. Search functions rarely work. All posts older than 2 years or so have vanished. Links to threads I maintained for information purposes no longer work. And what response do we get! Well, the admin decided that instead of responding to long time users....I've been a paying member there for 15 years....they just delete the posts to censor anything negative. Many have been commenting their posts discussing issues with layout, etc, have simply been deleted.

The site is now unusable. I would not recommend it to anyone any longer. I've received numerous emails from long time members like myself whom I have kept in touch with that they are pulling their memberships and not giving them a penny of funds any longer. It appears the backlash is growing....and the admin have their heads stuck in the sand.

I posted a negative comment there, and got the same treatment.

This is, without question, the worst redesign of any site I've ever seen, and I've seen some real screw-ups. Monumental, really. The old site wasn't cutting-edge, but it was useful. The new one is totally unusable.

Oh, well. I've dumped the bookmark, and will delete my account on that site. Done, over, and out.

 

[The Davinator]

Agreed. I posted that I found the new design to be horrible for navigation. Search functions rarely work. All posts older than 2 years or so have vanished. Links to threads I maintained for information purposes no longer work. And what response do we get! Well, the admin decided that instead of responding to long time users....I've been a paying member there for 15 years....they just delete the posts to censor anything negative. Many have been commenting their posts discussing issues with layout, etc, have simply been deleted.

The site is now unusable. I would not recommend it to anyone any longer. I've received numerous emails from long time members like myself whom I have kept in touch with that they are pulling their memberships and not giving them a penny of funds any longer. It appears the backlash is growing....and the admin have their heads stuck in the sand.

I posted a negative comment there, and got the same treatment.

This is, without question, the worst redesign of any site I've ever seen, and I've seen some real screw-ups. Monumental, really. The old site wasn't cutting-edge, but it was useful. The new one is totally unusable.

Oh, well. I've dumped the bookmark, and will delete my account on that site. Done, over, and out.

 

[noflashplease]

Agreed. I posted that I found the new design to be horrible for navigation. Search functions rarely work. All posts older than 2 years or so have vanished. Links to threads I maintained for information purposes no longer work. And what response do we get! Well, the admin decided that instead of responding to long time users....I've been a paying member there for 15 years....they just delete the posts to censor anything negative. Many have been commenting their posts discussing issues with layout, etc, have simply been deleted.

The site is now unusable. I would not recommend it to anyone any longer. I've received numerous emails from long time members like myself whom I have kept in touch with that they are pulling their memberships and not giving them a penny of funds any longer. It appears the backlash is growing....and the admin have their heads stuck in the sand.

I posted a negative comment there, and got the same treatment.

This is, without question, the worst redesign of any site I've ever seen, and I've seen some real screw-ups. Monumental, really. The old site wasn't cutting-edge, but it was useful. The new one is totally unusable.

Oh, well. I've dumped the bookmark, and will delete my account on that site. Done, over, and out.

--
-------------------------------------------------
---clever tag line---

I wouldn't panic quite yet. I find it to be odd that they dumped so much archival material with the redesigned site, so maybe it's a glitch?

On the other hand, the redesigned site seems to be focused on selling advertising.

http://www.photo.net/info/about_us#navstop-advertise

Considering how small the active user base was on the old Photo.net site in recent years, I can understand why someone might try a different interface. The downside is that without the archival material, and with the negative reaction from remaining user base, I don't see very much potential to make money from advertising. Time will tell.

Maybe the people who don't like the new site should complain to the advertisers, if there are any?

 

[dmanthree]

I sent the site owner an email asking to have my account deleted. He replied and said that all their resources are going towards getting the forums working again since they're "not responding."

I'll wait a month, and ask to delete again.

 

[The Davinator]

I sent the site owner an email asking to have my account deleted. He replied and said that all their resources are going towards getting the forums working again since they're "not responding."

I'll wait a month, and ask to delete again.

 

[dmanthree]

I posted a negative comment there, and got the same treatment.

This is, without question, the worst redesign of any site I've ever seen, and I've seen some real screw-ups. Monumental, really. The old site wasn't cutting-edge, but it was useful. The new one is totally unusable.

Oh, well. I've dumped the bookmark, and will delete my account on that site. Done, over, and out.

I wouldn't panic quite yet. I find it to be odd that they dumped so much archival material with the redesigned site, so maybe it's a glitch?

On the other hand, the redesigned site seems to be focused on selling advertising.

http://www.photo.net/info/about_us#navstop-advertise

Considering how small the active user base was on the old Photo.net site in recent years, I can understand why someone might try a different interface. The downside is that without the archival material, and with the negative reaction from remaining user base, I don't see very much potential to make money from advertising. Time will tell.

Maybe the people who don't like the new site should complain to the advertisers, if there are any?

I wonder if the new design was done on purpose to ratchet up the click counts? Time will tell, and the advertisers will eventually drop out. I still can't believe how bad the new design is.

 

[beachwalker2007]

Has anyone here considered that the threads disappearing may just indicate that the new version of the site is not stable and that rollbacks to the time of the rollover occur? In other words, that the deletion of threads is not deliberate but accidental.

Yes, it started with the Help forum but by now all the threads posted since yesterday have disappeared. And the site keeps login me out, which I take as in indication that it actually crashed.

 

[The Davinator]

Has anyone here considered that the threads disappearing may just indicate that the new version of the site is not stable and that rollbacks to the time of the rollover occur? In other words, that the deletion of threads is not deliberate but accidental.

Yes, it started with the Help forum but by now all the threads posted since yesterday have disappeared. And the site keeps login me out, which I take as in indication that it actually crashed.

No. They have already admitted to deleting threads.

 

[beachwalker2007]

Might be - and entirely possible for the Help forum. But why would they delete benign threads like the Nikon Wednesday or Canon Thursday or Monday in Nature threads. Not to mention the many "No words" ones that were started yesterday and today?