what are the best flickr groups to join?

rampanthamster

rampanthamster

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hi all, i'm fairly new to flickr and i've become quite addicted to it. I fell into the early trap of joining lots of groups and then adding my pictures to loads of these groups. However, after the initial buzz of getting lots of comments, i soon started to get annoyed that a lot of these comments were just copy and pasted 'awards' without even a couple of words of genuine feedback about the picture. Pretty annoying and pointless.

So, i'm going to delete these forced comment type of groups and try and hunt down some good ones where people are encouraged to actually write a few words about a picture that catches their eye.

Can anyone recommend some groups for me to get started with. Obviously i'm already a member of the tp group! :)
 
I didn't even know they had groups!

But I'm interested to know. I can see the problem as I've seen the same type of issue elsewhere.
 
It depends on what your interests are. I won't join any post 1 award 2 type groups. Stick to groups based around your interests but don't really expect any meaningful feedback.

If you want meaningful feedback post on here, one piece of good feedback on here is worth 100 nice shot comments on Flickr.
 
I find I'm most likely to receive meaningful feedback if I give it out first. Browse some peoples stuff and tell them what you really think. Maybe they'll give the same back. Be prepared for people to get a bit ****y with you though. Some can't take crit.
 
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Small (<250 members), active (multiple thread posts per day) with good moderation, challenges, assignments, etc are the best if you want constructive support on Flickr. They're hard to find though, and ones that become succesful at this rapidly run into size-related problems. But in general, you get back what you put out.. spread some good comments around (particularly to contacts) and you'll get good comments back in time.

Avoid the ego spinach groups (compulsory comment/favourite/invite/etc) unless you you really get something from that sort of thing..

Groups on Flickr that I have found useful include Never Professional, Self-Taught Photographers, Strobist.com (unusual in that it's a very big group but generates a lot of comments and views), a couple of local/regional social groups. Try a few, avoid the dump-n-run groups with no active discussions.. every so often review your groups and you'll usually find that fewer than twenty are worthwhile. To be honest.. looking at my group list the TP group is the second from the bottom on activity, so probably about to get culled.
 
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I'm a newbie so I generally join groups based on lens or equipment, just to give me ideas on what i should be looking to achieve (and possibly how crap I am).

I do however, avoid those groups where award spam seems to be rife.
 
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