POTM November 2008 POTM - Sponsored by OCZ -

If you wouldn't mind, that'd be great thanks

Now we'll just have to see if anyone takes up the challange of the unofficial POTM!

Dan

 

ofcourse they will... but probably in the end of the month... when the real christmas spirit comes up ^^

 

Apparently no POTM for January either as where halfway through it. Is this going to start up again or has it died?

 

It saddens me that I often sense an incongruity between the attention from mods/staff and users willingness to keep PotM running and on the beat.
I guess I simply just don't agree with the prioritizing of PotM and I believe contributing users are being put off that way.
And no I'm not very good at accepting it being run as a "friendly competition" where deadlines and administration is being run half-heartedly. Even though I applaud the presence of the institution of PotM.

 

Died for now, I just don't have time. We've got a move to Dennis to organise and I've got more work on my plate than ever. I'm still sorting MOTY stuff and since Hiren left us to work a more general role within Dennis we've no person doing competitions to help any more.

If we do it again, we want to do it properly with proper prizes etc. Like you said - it started off as a friendly way to get people out an using their cameras and it's sort of turned away from that. I can't give it the attention it requires and if I'm brutally honest with my "business hat" on: I it doesn't bring traffic and it doesn't satisfy a hardware/game partner for content to the site either, which has to become a factor in spending my time on *anything*.

Although doing stuff for community benefits are always pushed as an investment in you guys (MOTY compo, hardware for modders, competitions in general, keeping the forums a nice place to live.. etc), but compared to hardware, games and modding, photography has not been a critical priority up until now. We're talking a dozen, maybe 20 hardcore people in this sub-forum versus well over 1M who read bit-tech a month.

However, given the fact we can in theory start reviewing cameras and equipment (Dennis owns these mags - we can freelance the pro-photopher/writers, or, even perhaps use you guys! Commissioning guides, Photoshop tutorials etc? what do you think??) it could be an opportunity to have a whole new section, with PROPER support.

There's no promises of anything - we're still in a "plan stage" for us Editorially and there are major decisions still to come.

 

I can understand your reasoning behind it, and especially with the change in publisher, they are probably wanting you all to be efficient and stuff >_>

It's a shame that POTM won't be on for the immediate future though as I was just starting to get into the swing of off camera lighting and hoped to make good use of it in near future POTM's.

I would definitely enjoy a new section of bit-tech reviews for photography, and I'm sure there would be more than a few willing forum members to go freelance reviewing

Dan

 

LOL not really, I've just got more work to do because we've just had CES, CeBit is early march, IDF is in April and then Computex is in July. Plus "house move" sometime soon + new people to get to know and understand how a new company functions = lots to do

Well, we've yet to get out of the planning stages for new stuff yet, but if people are interested to suggest features they want to see or contribute to, of course we're all ears. Surprisingly it's EASIER for me to put something on site + edit + fix pics because that's a half days content (time we budget for) than it is to manage POTM + do news post :| (that's "extra" and competes with other things like email, PRs, admin... etc)

 

I would guesstimate there to be a 5-15% room for photography/photoshop on the site. I would of course love to see it no matter what. It sounds very interesting in my ears.
Just like the articles on building your own server etc. I think articles on getting started with photography and photoshop would be a great addition. Especially if they were themed around the needs of modders/product photographers et al.
I guess it really depends on how wide you wish to take the site. I think you guys have been doing an awesome job at being a modding and tech site so far. If you can stretch further then that would be cool but please don't compromise what you do best.

Wrt. PotM: Can't you hand over some of it? It would be my pleasure to keep the potm site ticking and keeping POTM threads running... I don't think anyone here is partaking for the sake of the prizes. We just want a theme of the month, a deadline and voting... Mention of the winner on the site is of course a great bonus in that it helps draw more people to participate.

 

Another vote from me to make the POTM "unofficial".

At least for me it wasn't about the prizes, but about the inspiration and fun.

 

We've been talking about making it official since.. ages ago, but were restricted by certain conditions. Now we're under Dennis which has a pro-photo division it could far more easily be applied - after all, we know from the reader survey last year that there's plenty of pro-sumers out there.

It's all working around the fixed factor of time, as always. For this and other ideas (video?/podcasts? for example) and more modding between all our other current commitments - something we have to work out.

There are so many factors - site design to stand up to more content, organisation, funding etc. It's better to get 1 thing right, then 5 things half assed, but doing new things takes time to work out the kinks.

Yea, sure. I'll speak to Nath about getting someone else admin'd on the POTM site and if you need new threads stickying just PM me.

 

I agree with this

 

Exactly!

Cool. Thanks.

 

No promises this will be very soon - I haven't spoken to Nath in months, I'm not even sure if he frequents MSN any more even I have left him a message though.

 

Considering he posted this on December 10th I reckon he should be reachable

I have contacted Silver51 wrt the theme for February and if everything goes to plan I'll make the thread soon.

Cheers!