It is my understanding that replies to posts in this section are expected to be not critical of an image and that criticisms of photos are restricted to the “Critique” section where posters solicit negative as well as positive comments. I understand the thinking that such a forum is designed to be a place to display work one is proud of and looking for ego stroking, but it troubles me that 3 pages of “great shots”, “ 👍s” and “well dones” in response to clearly inferior photos may do the poster more harm than good. I’m not talking about subjective analysis of a particular image. Rather I am referring to photos that are unintentionally out of focus, over sharpened to the point where the halos become the subject, unintentional skewed horizons, unintentional color shifts and other technical issues like a tree growing out of the subject’s head” that are NOT subjective. If a member posts a photo he/she is proud of looking for affirmation and experienced photographers clearly see that the image lacks sharpness, commenting “nice set” will not allow the poster to learn how to improve.

Again - I understand the desire to be supportive of such posters and the reluctance to say something “not nice” as my mother warned me not to do, but reinforcing demonstrably poor technique prevents a shooter from improving. I really don’t have a great solution for this problem, other than to say nothing in response to a post. Anyone else see this as a problem preventing growth in photography skills?

This is what it must feel like to bang one’s head against a wall. Reminds me of kiddie sports teams that give no trophies for first, second or third - just participation trophies for everyone who showed up so no one’s feelings are hurt.

People - the purpose of my original post had nothing to do with photographic perfection or subjective evaluations. The intent was to caution people that oohing and aahing over awful photos offers the person who uploaded the poor photo no opportunity to become better photogs and to further suggest that it would be both kinder and more beneficial to the person who posts an obviously poor photo to SAY NOTHING, rather than blow 3 pages of smoke with unwarranted 👍’s. Stop the nitpicking about what constitutes a “poor” photo. I am referring to the too many photos posted that are obviously just terrible. C’mon people - you’ve all seen photos that fall into the “terrible” category. Let’s stop pretending that every shutter click results in a photo that should be afforded the benefit of the doubt as to any measure of quality. It ain’t so in the real world!

It is my understanding that replies to posts in this section are expected to be not critical of an image and that criticisms of photos are restricted to the “Critique” section where posters solicit negative as well as positive comments. I understand the thinking that such a forum is designed to be a place to display work one is proud of and looking for ego stroking, but it troubles me that 3 pages of “great shots”, “ 👍s” and “well dones” in response to clearly inferior photos may do the poster more harm than good. I’m not talking about subjective analysis of a particular image. Rather I am referring to photos that are unintentionally out of focus, over sharpened to the point where the halos become the subject, unintentional skewed horizons, unintentional color shifts and other technical issues like a tree growing out of the subject’s head” that are NOT subjective. If a member posts a photo he/she is proud of looking for affirmation and experienced photographers clearly see that the image lacks sharpness, commenting “nice set” will not allow the poster to learn how to improve.

Again - I understand the desire to be supportive of such posters and the reluctance to say something “not nice” as my mother warned me not to do, but reinforcing demonstrably poor technique prevents a shooter from improving. I really don’t have a great solution for this problem, other than to say nothing in response to a post. Anyone else see this as a problem preventing growth in photography skills?

Pray tell why does an image always have to be technically correct. Not everyone on here is a professional photographer where they are making a living photographing a model or going on shoots to the wilds of Africa or the mountains of North America for a magazine, but they are trying to tell a story with photos of where they have been and what they saw. I have photos from fleet week last year that I did not post because the aircraft was on the edge of the image, if that had been the only capture of that aircraft I would have posted it with a caption such as I barely caught this aircraft as it was leaving the show area, but since I had others I left it out. In your opinion that would have been a technically crummy Image, but for me it was telling a story.