traderjohn Loc: New York City

I agree with you. My question is why is there an Attic section? What purpose does it serve? What would be lost if it was removed?

Rongnongno Loc: FL

And yet another coming out of the wood work. UHH is full of those self sanctimonious folks.

This one has an excuse: He is insane, so forgive him and wish him him the best, every day, not only during this so-called season of good will.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Revenue as many have already tried to explain.

Quantus5

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Yes -- I hope this message will resonate, although I went through the posts and did not see any of the people I usually ignore on this thread. :-)

I find this site pretty tame, compared to YouTube forums and other public forums, but then again I have a very thick skin. It helps if you realize these are just words. Yes, I realize words do hurt some people, but words don't hurt me at all. It really depends on your personality, but I do empathize with the people on this thread. When some topics are very subjective you get different opinions, and some people are naturally very emotional about their opinions. The real technical stuff I find very clean. Some advice I give people is learn to avoid the "subjective" posts if you don't want to see the nastiness -- or just ignore the people you find offensive if you can. The technical stuff I feel is pretty clean.

So for example, someone the other day started a thread with the title: "Why do you fear subscription software?". Heck, you already know there going to be some stuff flying on this thread. So my advice is to avoid those kinds of "subjective" threads if you don't want to see some "rough" posts. You already know it's just going to be everyone's opinions from those that are Pro-Adobe subscription and those that are Anti-Adobe subscription.

On the truly nasty side -- I think they do block some people -- like using nasty language is completely not acceptable at all, and we all need to report that so that it does get blocked.

gessman Loc: Colorado

I am not making an attempt to be the thought or grammar police here with what I'm about to say but I'd like to address the importance of good, clear communication with correctly spelled words. There are a ton of total newbies come on here trying to learn and if they are hit with a bunch of regular English terms that have already been hijacked for photography use it's often already confusing enough and if we then misspell those terms to the point that they cannot even be looked up the way we offer them, it only creates mass confusion in the mind of a person who does not know what someone is trying to say. It is not only confusing but it can be so discouraging as to leave a total beginner with the idea that they'll never understand this whole thing and cause them to want to give up. Often, while it would be nice and beneficial for everyone, many folks who are just beginning have no idea where to start when it comes to reading the multitude of books out there on the subjects of photography and cameras and even though they may not be inclined toward self-directed study, it's about as confusing as any subject I can think of and there really isn't any way to know what's the best starting place when you know nothing. Many turn to places like this to try to get a feel for where their interests lie so brief, terse, unclear, unexplanatory comments that are full of misspelled words can do a lot of harm and the thing is that you have to know what those words mean in order for what a person says to make sense. It's little different from anything else and is why we were hammered in school to get it right - so we could be understood and not do more harm and cause more confusion than we fix. We need to take our time and write in complete and clear sentences with the words spelled correctly in order to effectively communicate. Otherwise, the world would often be better off if we just remained quiet.

tdekany Loc: Oregon

Just because I call out on your mean personality, doesn’t make me insane.

Stop being pathetic at least on Xmas day, but it looks like you can’t do it. However, if it prevents your family from having to deal with you, by all means, spend as much time here as possible.

jack schade Loc: La Pine Oregon

Jack

gessman Loc: Colorado

Go back and read my response to you.

grandkids6

I take the ..an old man setting around in their underwear etc. as a slap to old men setting around in underwear.... If I was to say that I think old woman sitting around in their underwear, I would hear all kinds of negative comments. I don't think it's a fair statement just to say that, you don't know who is writing the replys.. I think it's young kids who know everything{another dumb statement} don't make blanket statements....Merry Christmas, Grandpa[who is setting in his underwer]

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

That is true. Perhaps for many reasons, some good, or well intended, some not so. One thing that would help is if people considered whether they actually knew anything about the topic in hand before responding. Trying to be 'kind' or 'helpful' while demonstrating ignorance of a topic or question is neither kind nor helpful.

This happens a lot in the brand discussions. Comments such as "I don't know about this but as a long time <brand> user, I think this might possibly be what you need..." seldom have any value. I do know quite a lot about Canon equipment, Alan Myers (Amfoto1) knows a lot more and is very generous with his contributions, very occasionally he makes a mistake, but they are very few and far between. I don't know that much about Nikon, Pentax, Sony, or mirrorless cameras so generally try to avoid commenting on specifics.

Then there are the discussions about jpeg versus raw formats. I find it quite amazing how many people express strong opinions while demonstrating considerable ignorance about the topic. It is more complicated than some people think, yet less complicated than some of those same people realize. Again some people try to help, and in doing so proliferate misinformation. That does not help anybody achieve understanding, no matter how well intended it is.

Then there are the computer discussions where we have some very well informed individuals, but many that have very limited expertise, yet they happily give uninformed advice.

Conversations wander, and a discussion forum is about conversations, UHH is not strictly a technical support site, so off topic things can sometimes be valuable, or at least entertaining. However, it is always possible to keep things civil, even if the topic is contentious.

As a former colleague once said in response to the comment, "You Southern women are so nice.", she just shot the guy down with "Honey, we ain't always nice, but we're always polite!"

Quantus5

Yes, let's please not make blanket assumptions and statements! I did think it seemed a little strange for the OP to ask us to be nice -- and then put that comment about old men in her post.

grandkids6

Dear 5.......Thank You, Merry Christmas.....Grandpa6

Quantus5

I agree with you. It's like I said when the topic is very technical it stays on target -- the problem is that there are many topics that are "subjective" and then it just gets down to people's opinions, and then some people get really emotional about their opinions. It's usually all the brand discussions, like Camera models, What Post Processing software to use, What brand of computer to use, etc... Many people get really emotional about their brands. Nothing wrong with that. The one thing about subjective topics, is that there really are no wrong or right answers.

ronichas Loc: Long Island

I was trying to justify to myself about the mean comments.
If you read my note, it said "I tend to picture an old man, in his underwear, alone, lonely and posting negative comments.

I didn't mean to offend, it wasn't a blanket statement, I wasn't being mean to anyone.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Well said, Sir.