Food for thought for each of us. Yes this is photography related.

This is one reason I question my decision to remain a part of UHH. Practically every single thread or post always end up in a rant or a mess of remarks totally unrelated to the subject at hand. Each person thinking they are better than the previous poster. I thought this forum was meant to be constructive and helpful.

All I see is bickering, running down this person or that, condemning the poster for some unforeseen or unrelated thing, and playing favorites when posting a pic.

Why cant each of us act civil, answer the specific question at hand and overlook the inaccuracies and inadequacies if the individual. We are not all perfect as some believe they are, some of us may have special needs and use photography as a release of the pressures of life, or we are getting older and may be early dementia. We are only looking for help.

Isn't it about time to get on with the purpose of this forum....to give advice and do it constructively?

Admin, please repost the guidelines of this group. If you cant live with them please leave and let the rest of us help each other.

I've had enough of this garbage lately.

If you cant response to the question, picture or topic and do it constructively....don't do it at all.

While photography can be done in isolation, our presence and participation on this site indicate that for each of us, we do not desire to take that approach. As we get older, a truth of life is that friends and relatives die or move away, families get distracted and don't have as much time for us, and as a result, we have less opportunity for interaction with other adults. And conversation by its nature is two-way communication. If we just want to expound our knowledge or show our photographs to others, we could just each set up a website and call life good. So we have conversations here. I like them. And it does not bother me a bit that the subject sometimes shifts a bit (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) as the conversation progresses. That's how they work.

I don't know how old we are as a group, but based on comments that some have made and information that others have shared, my guess is that there are a lot more of us that are 70 or 80 than there are that are 40 or 50. I'll tell you that I will be 68 as of the day after tomorrow, which probably puts me in the younger half of this group, and I already fairly regularly receive notice that another member of my high school graduating class has died. For most of us, we are at the point that our community is getting smaller, not larger.

Some have said that as we get older, we get crankier and more opinionated. Others have said that they don't believe that's true...they say that maybe it's just that folks just haven't ever grown up. My belief is that either case is a rather weak excuse for treating other people badly, whether those people are sitting across the table from us or whether they are sitting at the other end of a long pair of wires.

My dad is 92. He has gotten so opinionated and bossy that he has run off all of the people in his small town who would be willing to mow his grass for him. My father in law is 90. He has gotten so cranky that all of his old friends refuse to come to visit him and so opinionated that his grandkids refuse to bring their kids to visit for fear that they will learn and repeat something from him that would get them in trouble at school. Getting cranky and opinionated is over rated.

So yes...let's share what we know. Let's answer questions...even if it seems to be the same ones over and over. (Many of the crankiest and most opinionated of us fuss all the time about hard it is to find answers using the site's search feature...and most of the best and most interesting questioners don't know yet that informative subject lines are important.) It's most likely the first time for the questioner.

By the way, I don't require that you agree with me, and I don't know you well enough to commit to always agreeing with you. (We used to say at work that if we all agreed on everything that some number of us weren't needed.) But I will commit to not being ugly to you. And I expect the same from you.

Let's work to elevate the tone so that folks won't be prompted to think about leaving us. We are part of a shrinking profession, hobby, and discipline. Let's don't accelerate the shrinkage.

What is the purpose of this forum? Why was it established and who's paying the bills?

It costs money to operate this forum. There is very little advertising. So what is the
funding source? It doesn't say.

Just a simple, down-to-earth question. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Some of what you are seeing, Jim, may be deliberate and related to the funciton of
this forum---if, as may be the case, that function is to market gear.

The nature of marketing is to put out a message -- "Drink Coca-Cola!" -- and to disrupt
and silence any competing message or anything that undermines the status quo.

Millions of dollars are spent by corporations every year on marketing -- some of it on
overt advertising, some of it on influencing opinion. I used to write for a tech
industry trade journal, so I'm personally aware of how this works.

Maybe you are using a browser extension that suppresses the ads? My UHH feed is littered with Google Adsense content. I see ads for whatever sorts of things I might have looked up on Google recently, or even not so recently.

Over a year ago, I needed some audio gear — a compressor. I was looking at them on sweetwater.com and gearslutz.com. Today, up popped an ad for audio mixers, audio accessories, and guitars from Sweetwater. But I also got ads for bikinis (!), drones, a novel, a movie, some sort of Daniel Boone-ish hunting knife, and some other stuff I can't recall because I ignored it.

Here's one sample of a multi-link ad that changes all the time. Below that is another random Sweetwater ad. Below that is a shoe ad. Then an insurance ad...

These all appeared in the last 20 minutes or so.

So far as I know, everyone's Google Adsense feed is different... based on their surfing habits. And so far as I know, THAT's how the site owners make their money... from participation in Google's partner programs. It's a lot like YouTube, which is part of Google. If you have enough subscribers, they pay you in exchange for feeding ads to those subscribers. But you, as a site owner, have no control over that ad content. Some folks are making six figure incomes (and more) from this sort of stuff.

These reactions are emotional, not understanding the underlying mechanism.
They reminds me of calls for "bipartisanship" in government.

Just because we all want something doesn't mean that calling for it
will make it happen -- or could possibly make it happen. Things
are the way they are for a reason.

In a winner-take-all system, you won't get a lot of bipartisanship.

Nor will you when the political parites are Nikon and Canon
(though they will combine where they have a common interest,
such as in preventing discussion of standardization).

I guess as well-intentioned photography lovers, we assume other
speakers are the same as us. It never enters our head that it could
be a guy paid by the post.

For some this is a discussion, for others it's a marketing opportunity

Marketers will join in the call for "harmony" because they don't
want anyone to question their assumptions or point out how they
are manipulating opinion.

This is the world that we live in -- and the Internet has made it
so much easier to do covert marketing. Younger people tend to
understand this.

Effective Internet Forum Marketing
https://www.outsourcestrategies.com/blog/2007/05/effective-internet-forum-marketing.html

8 Do's and Don'ts for Marketing on Online Forums and Message Boards
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223900

Forum Marketing: Steps to Getting Free Traffic
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/successful-forum-marketing-2531792

I couldn't agree more. But, considering that the White House Correspondents can't manage themselves, let's give us some slack. I never appreciated the little scrolling wheel on my mouse more that when I open a thread or when I scan threads. Most of the trolls and impolite posters are consistent and are easily avoided--or obvious if you're in the mood to be amused.
Like any other forum, it is easy to jump away from a troll. SKIP THEM. They won't go away, but so what. You are in control. When a thread turns bad, EXIT. You're better than that. C

I ran a couple of searches on electronic flash gear- to research some specifications I was asked about. Since then, I do get some ads form some of the New York dealers for this kinda equipment. I certainly don't mid keeping up with what's available- prices, sales and some of the latest features. I have also searched for many othere services and products and received surprisingly little and in some cases nothing in the form of ads.

Sometimes I get ads for vacation packages, food products and othere merchandise and services that I have never inquired about online- just random stuff. I have never found any of the ads on this forum to be annoying or obnoxious. Besides, most of my commercial photography business goes to advertising- it's hard to knock it. I enjoy looking at all kinds of ads to see how the are using images- lots of ideas out there. At the end of the day, nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything. The advertisers hope to create desire for or interest in their products. They hope to influence us- why not?