The Rules

Hi, you guys removed my post in the main sub. Fair enough. But I’m struggling with who this sub is for and how it’s moderated. I’ve posted twice and been removed both times for things i thought were fair topics of conversation for a professional photographer and their workflow. I searched the sub beforehand and didn’t find a lot of info on either. One was a post trying to sus out what professional photographers were prioritizing in building out their computer and storage… maybe I can see the getting shot down, i see you really aren’t that into gear discussions. I thought it was fair though, professional photographers needs are unique. Then today I posted about people’s experience in air travel with tons of bags of gear and how they manage it and that was shot down. That one I don’t understand at all. That’s a legitimate circumstance members of the sub may have questions about and their is no info on the sub about it. Meanwhile endless posts about ‘should I share my raw files’ ‘should I turn my side hustle into a job’ and ‘I don’t love photography anymore’ are seen quite frequently. As a professional I want a sub where I can go for answers and you folks are in control of r/photography but I feel it’s not really a welcome place for the more mundane questions a pro may have. This sub isnt about the art of photography of exposing people to new work and new photographers. It’s not about composition or instruction or tips how to get better. Does the sub flat out cater to hobbyists?is it not concerned with the minutia of running a business? Is this not intended to be a sub for working pros? Is this sub strictly aimed at people looking to start a side hustle? I can’t figure out who this sub is for.

Hi,

I'm curios what exactly can be posted in r/photography ? I understand some questions need to be posted in the big sausage thread, but others do seem to be ok for the sub.

Myself I had some posts that were not removed and sent to the sausage, and others where I was, and to be honest, it seems pretty random. The flairs seem useless in this regards.

I've posted a question in regards with focal distances and pets photography, which to me seems pretty specific (I even searched the sub beforehand to make sure it wasn't asked before) which did't passed the filter. On the other side, some questions about triggers and strobes did pass, or a very technical question I had about soft-hard light and distance was deemed good. I had another question that didn't pass, but forgot the contents right now.

I feel that most of the post are either news, either equipment reviews either philosophical-legal questions about photography, from the "can I get sued if I do street" to the "I am shy how do I photograph" theme. I understand if the purpose is not to be spammed with Nikon Vs Canon questions (even if, I personally think that's why we have downvote button) but what about when asking specific questions, that are based on experience sharing and rare situations ?

Overall, I feel confused about what can or cannot be posted. Is there some guide or guidelines, somewhere ?

I forgot /r/photography even existed. I’m not sure but at some point the no image post rule must have come in. For at least two years I hadn’t seen a single post from the sub in my feed. I’m definitely subscribed. It’s bizarre for a 4.4M subscriber sub. I used to comment on posts here all the time. It’s not unlikely that the new Reddit algorithms favour image posts over self posts but this is ridiculous.

If I think about it I see low upvote posts from small subs in my feed all the time, but for huge subs like this it just doesn’t happen. Reddit must scale your front page items based on an upvote to subscriber ratio to some extent. I’d guess that your contribution or activity to a sub also plays a role (with the exception of r/videos for some weird reason, likely a manually prioritised sub). If so, by virtue of these factors old subscribers who lurk simply won’t see posts from the sub.

I’m sure the mods probably are aware of this, and probably welcome the reduced workload, but it’s a shame to see what was once a great resource just get disappeared like this.

Note: I got redirected here from the main sub almost automatically. The main sub is being over-moderated to death. I don’t even know why I care. I guess nostalgia.

Hi all,

can the mods give me an OK (or not) to make a post about the yearly photoclass starting...?

tnx,

Aeri73

cfr r/photoclass_2022 and the last r/photoclass2021

I've been reading this sub for a few years and this has been on my mind on and off for a long time having seen similar systems on other subs. While a lot of things in photography are the same for all, no matter if one makes money from their work or just enjoy it as a hobby, there are a fair number of important differences in perspective. It becomes really apparent when we talk about workflow, equipment, and storage that it is really important to know the context and perspective of both poster and commenters. People who takes several terabytes of pictures each year, make wall sized prints, and depend on work from corporate clients and folks who are happy amateurs, perhaps use older gear, and don't live their life in the form of art school projects (to take two extremes) will likely have different perspectives and requirements. Since we want to have a forum for all kinds of photographers it would be a great quality of life improvement to have more useful flairs.

If you have any questions about the process of nominating your favourite images of 2020 from r/photographs, please ask them here.

The nomination thread can be found here.

Today -September 24th- I saw a new user (new to reddit) not read the FAQ or buying guide then get burned to the ground in the question thread.

User was in the wrong but it seemed a bit much. People down-voted the new user reaching out and up-voted a more experienced user showing an edge of cruelty.

Edit: search the thread for "waste everyone's time"

This is not an action taken by the mods but an atmosphere that lingers on the sub. It's what people make of a reflect on the read the FAQ attitude.

In looking for positive examples I see u/av4rice make his read the FAQ notices very polite and humane. Puts a lot of links into them.

I looked at the sidebar, and did not see how this fit into any of the banned categories.

Can it be re-written to be acceptable?

Post:

If you have an interest Stereoscopic photography, various clubs have been having meetings online, open to the public.

The Golden Gate Stereoscopic Society website posts a calendar of everyone's meetings. The NY club meets every week, and has offered to mail out anaglyph glasses.

There are several ways to view stereoscopic pictures on your computer, including red/cyan glasses. a small mirror, and a Loreo Pixi viewer.

I've participated in really interesting Zoom meeting held by Kansas State University Photography Department couple weeks ago.

Another good one was Live event from https://canon.ca/labs wit Irene Rudenko.

Can we have a pinned post where we can share upcoming Live events related to photography, like Instagram Live streams or Zoom meetings with people sharing their knowledge and information.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to find those events.

Looking for quality content, not self-promotions "And now I'm offering my list of presets at unbelievable discount to my viewers" :)

Follow up to: https://www.reddit.com/r/metaphotography/comments/bnxf9i/selfpromotion_rule/

So I submitted another lens review (again on Medium, not a premium link, no affiliate links). It was removed by Automod again.

I submitted a message to modmail but I was replied to with a link to Reddit's self-promotion rules. A quick look at my reddit profile should show that I'm not in violation of this rule (unless my images posted straight to reddit as OC are counted as self-promotion, which the reddit guidelines don't seem to suggest).

Want to discuss the voting thread? Do so here. Thanks!

If you have any questions about the process of nominating your favourite images of 2019 from r/photographs, please ask them here.

Here is the nomination thread

I was discussing with /u/onan about why the sub is so slow compared to other large subreddits, and it occured to me that the Community Threads used to be a lot more popular.

Back when it was only twice a week (if I remember correctly), you would save up your stories from the previous few days to share when the new Community Thread dropped, and when it did, you would be sure to see a whole bunch of interesting stories all in one place.

More recently, in response to criticism that there wasn't enough room for discussion of things like this, we set up the various Community Threads so that there would be one available daily.

However, I believe this had a negative impact on engagement: by spreading thin the interesting topics, it made each thread less interesting and thus less active and thus less interesting...

My proposal is that we remove the non-focused Community Thread, and allow people to post brief writeups and, if they want, a link to a photo as a text post, as long as they're not being blatantly self-promotional. (Their own website would be allowed, though.)

I would say the moderation policy should be this: If it's a post about the process or an experience, it belongs on /r/photography, and that's why it's a text post first. If it's more about the result than the process, then it belongs on /r/photographs, where we ask them to at least describe the intent in a comment.

I think that this could encourage a lot more activity without turning into a total shitfest.

Thoughts?

I don't want people posting vacation writeups with albums, though, so how should we draw the line there?

So I posted a question seeking actual advice for technique and equipment on an upcoming (paid) shoot in /r/photography because it was a fairly esoteric area (furniture). The mods killed it because "it's a question, put it in the question thread." So I put it in the question thread, and (shocker) it wasn't answered along with the 100,000 other questions in the weekly thread.

So I rephrased it and it got killed again. The mod says "no questions" but I found lots and lots of questions that weren't deleted. It seems like the question thread is too long with too many questions and too many get no response at all. I mean, I've never made it to the bottom, and I even answer some questions.

Have their been rules changes or changes to how the rules are enforced? The sub seems way more lively lately. I think it’s better this way...

I propose, to further de-brigade /r/photography, we should increase the time scores are hidden from the current 1 hour to 3 hours.

Thoughts?

I've had a review I wrote on Medium removed about a month ago, citing Reddit's self-promotion rule. That's all well and good, but I've definitely adhered to the 10% guideline cited by Reddit and I've submitted several posts on content that is not my own (eg DPReview articles of note).

Also the rule seems to be inconsistently applied, as has been mentioned to me by /u/zellersamuel in this comment thread on an earlier post of mine that wasn't removed. There, a mod also mentions that it might be AutoMod.

When I contacted the mods regarding the removal of my most recent post though, I was just told that it was against the rules with no further explanation or citation of the 10% rule.

Does this mean that as a general rule, posting projects or articles we've created is not welcome at all in r/photography?

I wish we'd been doing these milestone posts previously, I'm trying to remember when we hit 500K and I think it was roughly a year ago.

Our traffic is certainly up over the last year but doesn't remotely match the crazy subscriber growth.

https://imgur.com/a/HAhj88L

(The last month in those charts is always low, i.e. the month isn't over yet.)

Interesting to see the stabilization of old.reddit users, I guess I'm not the only redesign holdout.

I'd love to see a breakdown of that 'mobile web' block of users, it includes all the non-official mobile clients.

I wish there were better stats, I'd love to know how many of our subscribers never visit the subreddit, how many of them never post to any subreddit at all, etc.

I think we need to make changes to the rules for people posting their own blogs.

First off, I think there needs to be a more suitable removal comment than our current

Your submission has been removed from r/photography.

We love it when our users contribute with their own content, but straight-up advertising/self-promotion is against the rules of Reddit, and we have to enforce those rules.

For more information see https://www.reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion

If you are interested in purely advertising your content on Reddit, please see Reddit advertising.

It feels somewhat overbearing, especially mentioning Reddit advertising.

Maybe it should be more like

Your submission has been removed from /r/photography.

We love it when users contribute with their own content, but straight-up advertising/self-promotion is against the rules of Reddit, and we have to enforce those rules.

However, you are welcome to make a new post with your writeup as text in a self-post if you would like.

Any thoughts? I'm not quite sure of the wording in the last paragraph (the new one).

EDIT: Here's the version we're currently considering based on discussion:

Your submission has been removed from /r/photography.

We love it when users contribute with their own content, but straight-up advertising/self-promotion is against the rules of Reddit, and we have to enforce those rules.

If you would instead like to make a self-post with the details of your project, that would be welcome and beneficial to the community. If you're interested in sharing your work, please consider that as an alternative!

Discuss!

It looks like Reddit is getting into the Slack/Discord/IRC 1.5 game, and subs can now have chats. I have no clue how they're set up, but it might be a good idea to have one?

So every once in a while we have some askreddit type questions, like "Has any gear completely ruined your photo" or something along those lines. These threads are great, they drive discussion can be a source of advice, all the good stuff.

But they never last more than a dozen hours, and since the sub isn't as active (less 2000 people at any time) as say /r/AskReddit it is often overlooked and very few people have a chance to reply. These post only get 100-500 upvotes and 100 replies at best.

So I propose that we have a sticked question every week so more people can see it and we get more replies and more discussion.

And the question can be skipped whenever the second sticky is required for important stuff.

Something that caught my eye today: here's a screenshot of the top 15 posts on the front page of the sub.

While it's great to not have the front page flooded with basic questions, having the front page be filled with what amounts to gear ads is almost equally depressing. Maybe I'm imagining this from yesteryear, but wasn't there a point at which we had a gear-related megathread? And if not, is it worth considering one?

I can see that the gear posts have a fair amount of activity, and of course we're all interested in keeping up-to-date on the latest and greatest tools. But photography is about so much more than the tools. I've said it elsewhere, but I wonder if it's like a chicken-and-egg situation: if gear talk is popular, more people feel that they need to fixate on gear, and if people fixate on gear, gear talk is popular. On top of that, I'm sure companies have a vested interest in quietly astroturfing communities like r/photography, which is a ripe marketplace for consumers. Thoughts?

Referring to this query in the main stickied thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/9fr0u4/official_question_thread_ask_rphotography/e641k6b/

If any domains are disapproved, there should be a clear note of that in the sidebar.

I know there is a rule concerning "blogspam", but how would a submitter know if a site is specifically "blogspam"?

rm -rf -- mass edited with redact.dev