NEVER listen to Ken Rockwell

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kev2010 said:
Nah. I was surprised to get a response but it is not right to post that here.

At the time I thought it appropriate to alert the guy. Now I am not saying I agree or disagree with what he writes, but there is a difference between disagreeing with someone and being verbally offensive. What he was being called was appalling. I just thought the guy should know about what he was being called so sent the link to these comments.

Mind you, I do find the comments here about him being dangerous quite amusing, but i really appreciate the safety warning. :) I am pleased to be alerted to this danger so that I may avoid serious injury or worse! :)
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I'm quite interested in this from a sociological point of view- do you email famous people often when you see insults about them? I can think of the comments on the BBC website directed towards politicians or from football fans forums directed towards fooballers. I've also seen a fair amount of hatred towards Obama but haven't felt obliged to email him to point it out- does that make me a bad person or is it good enough that I am opposed to what's been written?
A lot of the time these people will be shielded from these comments by their teams/ friends so it seems specifically highlighting things goes against the grain? Clearly if someone called a person out for being say a rapist or something equally morally repugnant then action may be needed but a collection of swear words is really all it is- yes/no?
 
Dr_O said:
I'm quite interested in this from a sociological point of view- do you email famous people often when you see insults about them? I can think of the comments on the BBC website directed towards politicians or from football fans forums directed towards fooballers. I've also seen a fair amount of hatred towards Obama but haven't felt obliged to email him to point it out- does that make me a bad person or is it good enough that I am opposed to what's been written?
A lot of the time these people will be shielded from these comments by their teams/ friends so it seems specifically highlighting things goes against the grain? Clearly if someone called a person out for being say a rapist or something equally morally repugnant then action may be needed but a collection of swear words is really all it is- yes/no?
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No wrong. There are far too many keyboards warriors who are very brave when they can post comments anonymously. They would not be anywhere near so brave if they had to say it to someone's face. Cyberbullying is rife on the social media websites. No-one can ever condone such behaviour.
 
valb said:
No wrong. There are far too many keyboards warriors who are very brave when they can post comments anonymously. They would not be anywhere near so brave if they had to say it to someone's face. Cyberbullying is rife on the social media websites. No-one can ever condone such behaviour.
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Absolutely Val. I completely agree.
 
Dr_O said:
I'm quite interested in this from a sociological point of view- do you email famous people often when you see insults about them?
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There is right and wrong. It was correct that I advise another person about the hate that I had read about him. Simple. Whether or not I would do this often is an irrelevance. There is nothing deep and meaningful from a sociological point of view here. :) What I was reading on the forum had stepped outside of what I think are normal values. What I read was not even an insult. I would describe what I read a month or so back as hatred. So I elected to share this with the person the venom was directed at. Simple really. Easy to post hate on the internet and attack another human being anonymously. But it is right to stand up to this internet bullying and hatred. The more folk do a little something about it, it may make some individuals think twice before they type out the hatred on their keyboard. :)
 
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I think it is too often overlooked that a lot of what is being written on those Websites is personal opinion. The authors should from time to time include a little disclaimer pointing that fact out. It would put it all in the right perspective.
 
RAW is equivalent to FLAC, JPG is equivalent to MP3. If you don't understand that analogy please read up about it.

RAW is a lossless compression algorithm, JPG is a lossy algorithm.

How it may or may not affect you I cannot say.

JPG is derived from RAW. RAW cannot be derived from JPG. JPG is a heck of a lot more convenient than RAW...the list goes on, it has been done to death.

I use RAW for astrophotography as it contains all of the original data that was captured by the sensor when the shutter button was released, nothing is thrown away. I also happen to use RAW for pretty much everything else.

There is no right or wrong.

What is wrong is the peoples attitude on threads like this. Basically stating that if you don't agree with "me" you are an idiot.

The right format is the one you are most comfortable with.


Both 'Fro and Ken must be loving this...more clicks.
 
There is a right answer to RAW or JPG. You use the format that best suits the circumstances (and have the knowledge to make the decision)

Far too reasoned to get controversy and hits to a website of course....
 
ernesto said:
There is a right answer to RAW or JPG. You use the format that best suits the circumstances (and have the knowledge to make the decision)
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Can't say it any better than this.
 
posiview said:
There is TP meet in May, wonder how many will be going along to exchange opinions face to face ;)

Cheers.
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I've never said anything online that I wouldn't say to the person involved in the thread/conversation face to face, either in this thread, or anywhere.

I won't be going to the TP meet in May because I don't have the money to. And with regard to this thread, I doubt KR will be there either, ;) though I would enjoy discussing some of his writings face to face to see whether he really believes what he writes, or would admit that it is his 'sense of humour' coming out to garner internet traffic. :) And discuss whether he thought some of his writings may actually hinder less knowledgeable photographers like I think it could.
 
redhed17 said:
I've never said anything online that I wouldn't say to the person involved in the thread/conversation face to face, either in this thread, or anywhere.
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I am not sure conducting a conversation and calling someone the name that you used in post 27 of this thread would be appropriate for a friendly discussion though?
 
Nod said:
I don't think it's a "technician at Canon or Nikon" that decides how JPEGs are processed, I would think that it was a Group of Joint Photographic Experts who laid down the standard and generally they've done a pretty good job!
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No. JPEG defined the compression algorithm, not the way the camera processes the image before doing the compression.

One thing for sure is that if someone says JPEG or raw is the only way to shoot - they're wrong. What is true is that for most people starting out JPEG will give a better image than processed raw as you have to really understand what is wrong with the image and then how to process a file to do better than the camera does. That takes time and effort and may not be what some are interested in doing.

As others have said, the conditions you shoot in and the number of shots you take may also suit JPEG so you may decide to stick to that going forward.
 
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I can imagine a quick conversation between the two of them,"How your traffic flow been lately" "oh down a bit" "tell you what i will say something really conversational about you,that should get the traffic flowing better"
Yep we should get a lot of hits from it :D
 
Hmmm, I've never had a post deleted before. Not sure why it was deleted. The point I was making was having a debate on an online forum is problematic. The reasons are obvious.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that.

Cheers.
 
valb said:
No wrong. There are far too many keyboards warriors who are very brave when they can post comments anonymously. They would not be anywhere near so brave if they had to say it to someone's face. Cyberbullying is rife on the social media websites. No-one can ever condone such behaviour.
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No one is condoning it- I’m asking if you should always alert someone to something they will never see- there was a girl in England a few years ago who killed herself after her friends pointed her to comments she would not have seen. There was other history but that incident pushed her over the edge and her friends have to bear some responsibility for her death- would she be alive now if they hadn't done that? My other point was why contact one famous person and not another- is it based on net worth to society? Why contact them at all, especially if they will never see it- why not just report to moderators of forums/facebook/twitter etc.

Agree with you that there are too many keyboard warriors although there are equally as many of them that would say it to your face- when I worked on the doors there were plenty of people who said they'd kill me compared to the minority that I at least had some respect for for trying so plenty of 'brave' people out there whether at a keyboard or not.

kev2010 said:
There is right and wrong. It was correct that I advise another person about the hate that I had read about him. Simple. Whether or not I would do this often is an irrelevance. There is nothing deep and meaningful from a sociological point of view here. :) What I was reading on the forum had stepped outside of what I think are normal values. What I read was not even an insult. I would describe what I read a month or so back as hatred. So I elected to share this with the person the venom was directed at. Simple really. Easy to post hate on the internet and attack another human being anonymously. But it is right to stand up to this internet bullying and hatred. The more folk do a little something about it, it may make some individuals think twice before they type out the hatred on their keyboard. :)
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Was it correct though? If I’m on the forums and I’m feeling the love then a couple of people start posting negative stuff within a thread that I will never see like ‘have you seen Ozone’s latest PP- garbage’, ‘ aye, he’s total p*sh at it’, ‘Dr O’s an as*h*le’ etc etc, then if you alert me to this I suddenly go from feeling great to feeling suicidal because of you- I was in total ignorance and would never have known- nothing was directly to me but indirectly you have shattered my world. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t write it- indirectly you have turned my world upside down- so how do you feel now- was it still the correct thing to do? There is a consequence to everything- whether you think you are right or not. Ken would likely never have seen the article- what if he killed himself because of it after you pointed it out- part of that would be your responsibility whether you like it or not. As I pointed out above there was a teenage girl who did kill herself because of similar circumstances where she was alerted to postings about her so to dismiss it all as 'simple' seems a touch naive. These are complex issues.

It is relevant to question why you contact one famous person and not others- especially when you say you have a set of moral values as it would then appear that you are not applying them consistently.

I think your stance is admirable so don't get me wrong, that's not what I am questioning- I've had an instance of abuse here- turned out to be a prankster I know but I did appreciate that people were willing to stand up for my rights. I was directly involved though- if someone writes something about me on a paint forum do I care? I'm never going to be on a paint forum (fingers crossed anyway:p) so why direct me to it- why not just contact the site moderator and deal with it that way?

All quite interesting but the thread seems to have moved on to RAW vs JPEG:LOL:
 
Dr O. Yes, I believe it was correct. There is always a consequence for everything. Doing nothing can also have a consequence. But just to sit back and do nothing condones the behaviour. Remember, the extreme consequence that you talk about has occurred by no one acting also. Stating that I could be held responsible for someone's death is a touch absurd. :) The guy thanked me for sharing the link by the way.

Personally, I believe a forum should not condone such aggression through its moderation. There should be a consequence for such behaviour. It was clear that this behaviour was being allowed. Hence my decision to not just sit back and do absolutely nothing. So your question is irrelevant. What I read was inappropriate. Indeed on post 27 of this thread, a person is being is referred to as an a******e! Is that appropriate? Not really. But a complete lack of consequence condones the behaviour. I may agree or disagree with what another person writes on the internet, but, should I then be just allowed to abuse that individual as I see fit?

What really is crap, is the fact that a photography forum has so much ill feeling. It just amazes me that there is so much intolerance around here. The amount of disagreement on TP that results in name calling and abuse is incredible. Its meant to be an enjoyment. Whether you shoot JPEG / RAW. Who cares one bit? Does it matter. Should it really result in fighting and abuse? Behaviour follows behaviour I guess and shapes the culture of the place today. :)
 
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kev2010 said:
I am not sure conducting a conversation and calling someone the name that you used in post 27 of this thread would be appropriate for a friendly discussion though?
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I stand behind everything I have said. This is not just a Jpeg v RAW thing, it is all the things that KR has written that in my opinion would steer an uninformed/inexperienced photographer to take pictures, and set their equipment up which could give them less than the best picture they can, and why? To start, I assume, discussions like this to generate traffic his way to make money. Great for him, but not something I would do.

Saying that a basic Jpeg is fine as long as the picture is in focus and sharp is not giving out the right message. Those that shoot only Jpegs would you shoot on the basic Jpeg setting by default, because that is what he says? If you shoot RAW and Jpeg, would you only use RAW for Landscapes? If you had a 24mp camera would you only shoot Landscapes at 24mp and lower the resolution for everything else?

Someone saying any of that here can have a discussion about why those things are right for them. A website that is seen as run by an expert may have such things taken at face value. Yes, you may eventually realise that some of the things he has said are wrong, and not for you, or him joking (generating traffic) but by that time you have ruined, or at least not got the best picture you could have, in many photo opportunities.

It is all right saying he does it for a laugh, but there have been one or two on here that hadn't seen the statement about the content he posts that may not be accurate or even serious. If you just follow a link to his website you take it at face value that it is a site trying to be helpful, and indeed if you initially found the reason you sent to his site useful, your guard is down to anything else you may read there. While it is playing into his hands, there needs to be threads like this every so often to highlight what his site is there for, and also to point out that all information there may not be accurate, or even there to help anything other than his bank balance.

For the title of this thread maybe it shouldn't have been 'Never', but maybe 'Be Aware', because there is apparently some good and useful stuff on his site, but get everything you read verified at a few other places you trust. And that doesn't mean Wikipedia. ;) :LOL:
 
I'm probably not expressing myself clearly enough- I didn't say you would be held responsible for someone's death- I effectively said that you should at least feel some guilt if your actions inadvertently led to someone killing themselves- moral responsibility not criminal.

If Person A writes 'Person B should do us all a favour and kill themself' and person B was none the wiser nor would ever be until Person C shared the post with them then if Person B kills themself because of that post then there is some moral responsibility on Person C. It was Person C's actions that led to Person B taking their own life. Yes Person A wrote it but if it wasn't for Person C then Person B would not have known and still be alive. Person C should accept the part that they played.

I'm not suggesting we do nothing, I'm just highlighting consequences for taking a particular approach.

The use of industrial language is a tricky one- you only need to look at the BBFC to see what language is now permissible as being offensive and how it has changed over the years in film classification.
 
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