Before I Reply to the quotes below - please note, while I AM answering as a moderator on the forum, informed by knowledge of certain behind the scenes intricacies of running this place, the opinions I give are mine, rather than an official TP "Party Line" - I don't own this place, I don't make the rules, and I'm as subject to their strictures as any other member...
I am interested in how we have reasonable grown-up debates on art related subjects with out all the trolls and people who have a low opinion of anything that isn't figurative painting. One idea might be to accept that such a section would be heavily moderated and make this clear at the top of the thread. Anything that does not add to the debate in a reasonable way (may be as indicated by a consensus of the thread) just gets deleted, along with anything referring to the deleted posts.
Problem with "heavy moderation" is that the only things we have to use as a "punishment" for trolling or being a cockwomble are "withdrawal" constraints... either "threadbanning" someone, or handing out "warning points" which can rapidly end up in getting sent to sit on the naughty step for a few hours/days/weeks... Now - I don't actually like doing that for people who basically just "don't get it" - because they are EXACTLY the people who NEED to be in the thread getting the education that their schooldays failed them on. Okay, there's always going to be a few utter philistines for whom getting sent to their room to think about what they've done is probably the best option - but I always kind of look on that as a failure on "our" part, in that we've simply not been able to get through to them...
Not sure how it would work tbh. It runs the risk of alienating folk or some being seen as elitist etc ... (the usual de-crying of the educated I think ... not that I am in matters relating to art).
If it was heavily moderated, then by who? The mods are already struggling from what I can see (no offence intended to them, I've done this and it isn't easy). If it was by invite only, how would that work? Who would decide they were fit for an arty discussion?
As above, I don't really like "heavy moderation" - and - lets face it, who's to say that the Moderator "on duty" at a given time isn't as big a philistine as the person who's "gobbing off"... We're a broad church in the staff-room, and reflect a fair amount of the spectrum of the membership (as we quite rightly should) - and I'm fairly sure a couple of my fellow mods have mentioned that they don't "get" a lot of the "arty stuff" - for my own part, I freely admit - there's a whole raft of stuff that I simply "don't get" - mainly "street photography" - but I've tried over the years to limit my responses from being "that just looks like someone pressed the shutter by accident whilst standing in the bus-stop" (which most street stuff looks like to me tbh!) and now I'll simply ask "what WERE you trying to say with this picture" - the problem is, some pictures DON'T work without a few words on WTF was going around the photographers brain as they pressed tbe button. I guess it's all tied in with the "losing the vocabulary" that was mentioned by Alastair in the thread this one spawned from...
Although I suggested it on the other thread, it was half tongue in cheek as I've already said in the past that I think there are far, far too many sections in the forum and the more sub-divisions that are created the more cliquey they tend to become and the poorer the forum is for it. I forget who it was said that there were only three genres in photography - people, places and things.
However, there are certain topics/subjects that are either orphans within the current set-up or seem to automatically attract what Oddball would call "negative waves" when discussed in the relevant section.
- the art and/or philosophy of photography
- discussion of some subjects/techniques falling under the forum banner "creative photography"
- what might be called artistic processing, i.e. looks-like-film and other techniques frequently derided as shallow/temporary trends/fashions whenever they are asked about
- phone photography and social media photography
- the use of adapted lenses
But I'm not sure ghettoising the forum any further would be a positive step. I'd much rather tear down some of the existing walls, perhaps make better use of prefixes/tags to identify certain types of discussion without entirely removing them from normal forum conversation.
A better interim solution might be an "Caution - Art" prefix available in Talk Photography, to be understood as a flag to indicate that thinking before commenting is expected and moderated accordingly (i.e. with friendly behind the scenes nudges). It would also make such discussions easier to find/follow (or it would if we had decent system for searching/reading by tag/prefix).
I must admit, there IS a slight "lack of symmetry" in the omission of a "Talk Creative Techniques" to accompany the "Photos: Creative Techniques" - which would pretty much "sweep up" all but the "phone and social media" side of things (Sorry, I refuse to admit that applying an instagram filter or preset "faux film/polaroid"effect to anything suddenly makes it something creative... it just makes it.... "processed" ... and not necessarily in a good way.)
I do think that you're right though about the "ghetto" problem - there's a whole sub-section of members who barely emerge from certain sections (I'm thinking Film and Conventional as one area this is rife...) - and it's a shame, because they're really knowledgeable people who could be assets to the wider community.
I like the idea of an ART prefix (whilst I understand the "Caution - Art" may have been slightly tongue in cheek, saying that Art needs a Warning Notice is almost as depressing as how often these threads degenerate.)
I'll admit, I've little or no formal artistic training - the basic 3 years of art lessons back at the Grammar School, before I was shuffled off into a heavily science orientated "stream", nearest to anything artistic I did for the next couple of years being Technical Drawing (I wanted to be a "design engineer" at the time, and knowing basic draughtsmanship and understanding tech drawings was "a good career move") - the two things that slightly saved me from a complete non-artistic outlook were a 2 hour per week "art appreciation" class as part of my General Studies A Level - a hour of slideshow and lecture and a hour of study in the Art Class Library (or, looking through big picture books...) and having a best mate and climbing/mountaineering partner who was doing Art A-Level with a view to going to Study Film, Photography and TV for his degree... So, every walking/climbing trip became a photo-shoot, or a film-shoot, and, I became 2nd Cameraman (stills or film depending on what we were doing) - and, by doing this, in a situation I enjoyed (the climbing), I absorbed it, and learned things about it, and went out and studied for myself - partly for the joy of learning something new, and partly not to look a complete dork to my mate...
And, the learning side of it stuck with me - as did the appreciation of "classical art" and the references that you can bring into photography... Which is why when I was ill a few years ago, and unable to get out of the house much, I decided to go for still-life photography - and - quite naturally for me - I went with "classical references" - and got heavily into the whole Dutch "old masters" style of work - mainly, I'll admit because I loved the whole idea of being able to build in so many hidden references...
As to the creation of a "new section" - I'd be honest and say I think that there AUGHT to be a new "Talk Creative Techniques" to mirror the photo-section, and that possibly the "Art" discussions could find a home within this area... Though I'd still if I'm honest say that I don't entirely like the use of "Creative" in the section title, partly because a fair proportion of what's in that area tends, as often happens, to be a "Me too" attempt at a technique they've seen in there already... Often this CAN be a creative twist, but also it can be simply derivative... But my MAIN bugbear is that adding Creative to that forum sadly hints that perhaps the rest of the forums body of work ISN'T creative - and - I don't really like that idea... I'd hate to think that whatever I've posted outside of that "ghetto" has no spark of creativity, and I'm sure others think the same way...
As I say, my opinions only, not the views of "Da Management"... Probably not even representative of the majority of the Mod Team if I'm honest, but this whole debate is something that DOES matter to me...
