Well that was... interesting.

[sheila]

I have mentioned this before, but I'll give it another go For those who don't treat their work as "a hobby", why doesn't PBase split into two sites: keep the PBase for photo sharing and add another, say, PBase Pro Stock whose contributors would pay a higher annual fee for a more professional site, with a greater choice of style sheets, printing for clients/customers, embedded watermarking, and PayPal shopping carts. Also bring in the ability to use software such as FotoQuote (which PhotoShelter Collection incorporates into its site).

PBase has a huge collection of images which is really going to waste. There is still a huge market for stock images and there are many excellent photographers on PBase to supply them. Its time for PBase to move on and upwards!

Sheila

[andrys]

Sheila, the 2-tier thing seems to work for Smugmug. But they charge
quite a bit for it. They're definitely a family that sees the company as
a business though.

shawnkraus,

Working on things doesn't help us at the current moment now does it?

Nope, but eventually it will. To a degree.

And it's just not realistic (and not possible and very unwise) to give
any exact date.

I agree with you that it'd be nice if Slug cared about letting us know
what is going on, what they've been working on, or when the servers
went down for what seemed a few hours last night with wording that
it'd be back in 10 minutes when the database was fixed.

But that's definitely not Slug. He just doesn't care to let us know.
I think it's all he can do to keep the place running and think of
how to maybe 'modernize' the interface. I think that just the way it is,

It's the most beautiful (in content) photo base on the Net and I wish
he was interested more in our list of items we hoped for the last few
years he'd work on.

But for him it must be like, "Those People Are Out There and I Hope
They Just Chill. I'll Do What I Can, or What Interests Me, and That's It."

Besides, NoOutlet tries to help by answering some questions
and letting us know what he himself is working on and he's clear with
us that he is a programmer and not hired for tech support but he
still tries to let us know more when he's able, on his own time.

He tells us explicit details of the problems he's having with some
things; which browser is giving that difficulty; what issues are still
to be worked out, etc., and then the emotions get higher because
things aren't completed and we don't have exact dates.

So, which is it. We have said we'd be happy if they just told
us Something. NoOutlet did that. And with your response, you prove to
Slug that Slug may be right about it being better not to respond at all
and that NoOutlet may be wrong to try.

Sheila came up with a positive plan.

And, as long as the pictures display and don't display too slowly,
that's actually all I care about a lot. The rest would be nice but
for people like me they're secondary. But we're a varied bunch,
which is what Slug has to consider.

What we have on PBase is a high level of quality that you can see in
the choices for the front pages. And the 'galleries' feature leads us to
some really amazing sets of images.

In the meantime, the photo magazines and websites that talk about
photo hosting seem to be unaware anymore that pbase.com exists.

Well, with the problems we still have sometimes, that might be better
until Slug can do some changes that Windows/Mac click-and-drag-to
folders or to-positions people apparently do want and which they have
on other sites that are listed having many members and creating a
presence.

NoOutlet, sorry to read you've been sick. Al lot of that has been
going around this Winter. Hope you're on the mend.

[akmc_in_au]

Besides, NoOutlet tries to help by answering some questions
and letting us know what he himself is working on and he's clear with
us that he is a programmer and not hired for tech support but he
still tries to let us know more when he's able, on his own time.

He tells us explicit details of the problems he's having with some
things; which browser is giving that difficulty; what issues are still
to be worked out, etc., and then the emotions get higher because
things aren't completed and we don't have exact dates.

So, which is it. We have said we'd be happy if they just told
us Something. NoOutlet did that. And with your response, you prove to
Slug that Slug may be right about it being better not to respond at all
and that NoOutlet may be wrong to try.

Just to clarify my own view on this, I for one don't expect exact dates; just a roadmap, SOMETHING. Quarter 2 2008, quarter 3 2008. And perhaps an outline of what Phase II is supposed to be. (Does anybody know? Annnnnyyy-bodddyyy???) As things stand the impression that's given is of a place without any plan at all. And if there's no plan, and things are just done as and when they attract the attention or whims of the powers that be, issues (whether enhancements or bugs) tend to drift into "mañana". The flash / EXIF issue seems to be the most egregious example of this, but a scan through the forums will doubtless reveal a bunch of others.

When users sign up to pBase they probably haven't looked into its history and don't much care what Slug's personal mindset is. For the most part they pays their money, and they expects their service. I think that's where frustrations like Shawn's (and he's by no means the only one, as a stack of other posts will attest) are born from. I can get where he's coming from.

Yes, NoOutlet HAS been making an effort to tell us what he's working on... and plaudits for that. But that's a subset of the overall pBase service, and it's a subset which probably has limited impact on most users. (As I said yesterday, I think that sales will affect a very distinct minority, and while the Forums could do with a couple of new features which would be nice, they're peripheral to the core function of displaying images.)

In the meantime, the photo magazines and websites that talk about
photo hosting seem to be unaware anymore that pbase.com exists.

Yeeeah... either that or they're only TOO aware. When I first joined pBase , I did so because it displayed images better than any other site I'd found. It's the reason that I'm still here. Back then, if anyone asked me for advice about which photo sharing site to join, I'd give them one unequivocal answer. Then I started to notice... issues. Reliability issues. And when something DID break down, "you usually don't get told about it it just goes away eventually" issues.

Late last year a photographic magazine down here did an article on photo sharing web sites. They didn't even MENTION pBase. They recommended Flickr (Flickr! Gods, I can't believe it!) but didn't even MENTION pBase! Ohh-kay, that's it, I'm writing in to their letters section and... oh, wait, what's this?

Yup, that was the very day of the Great Red X Plague of December 2007.

Needless to say, I didn't write that letter.

Even when NoOutlet refers to one of my ideas as "ridiculous" (which does cause me to get more than a tad testy), my feelings toward pBase are predominantly positive. I WANT it to succeed. I WANT it to do well. I WANT it to become recognised as the home of some of the best imagery on the Web, if you exclude my galleries.

But ME wanting it isn't going to make it happen, and regardless of any goodwill I'm not going to stick my neck out endorsing pBase when I can never know how much of a prat that would make me look the next time something falls over without explanation. ("But you said it was a good site!" "Uh, yeah, it IS. When it works. And it USUALLY does...")

I'm wondering if the people who write those articles are thinking along the same lines.[/quote]