Medium Format melt down

DPR Forum, Had to happen sooner or later, still no one has mentioned its a sales site, and i doubt they will.

Link?

Edit: I'm guessing its this thread: www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4789315

Hi,

Greg7579 wound up banned. Again. He needs to be taken with a grain of salt sometimes. Mainly for the view that Medium Format FuJi and Hasselblad is all that and everyone needs to view their shots on a 6k screen - don't bother to print. Stuff like that.

He was banned before DPR announced it's demise,.and was let back on until the end. Well, the end never came and he stayed on....until now. A pretty good run, actually.

Not a big deal, really. Perhaps he will turn back up here again. He was on here until DPR didn't keel over - as others were. I think I'm the only one from that MF forum still here. I'd like to see others return here. I can't talk to myself....well, I can and I do, just not on a discussion forum! :P

Stan

That saying is arse about.

My version is that if I couldn't talk to myself I would go crazy... 😳

I wonder how many more members will be banned after that thread, i did respond to a post and it got deleted as i expected. im curently sandbagged, and have no idea why, which i think is the main reason why all the turmoil on the forum. no reasons are given.

Found this too:

www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4788836

Hi,

The MF Forum Moderation Policy thread is in response to the Did Greg Make It To South America thread.

There were several threads where Greg's content either got snipped - part of what he posted was removed - or entire subthreads were removed. It wasn't one thing, it was several things over time.

Where it flared up is that we knew Greg was on a trip, and he always posts photos during his trips. And, nothing. Folks began to worry.

Stan

Hi,

I don't frequent that forum, so I had no idea who the beleaguered "Greg7579" was.

He PM’d me that he had been banned. I posted that info in that thread. My post got removed immediately ( I don’t know if anyone but Mods saw it.) for violating the “rule” against posting about any moderator’s actions.

The only moderator I have any respect and fondness for explained in a PM that Greg’s situation had become untenable. He really rubbed some people the wrong way. Not everyone likes the class clown. And when his behavior drives people away . . . Well . . .

I can accept that Mod’s explanation (but only his) but think that the still extant ban on any discussion of Mods’ actions is terrible. I thought such policies would die with the “old” DPR. New management obviously doesn’t see things my way.

The site was going really good for while, i had only been posting on the sony and macro forums, and was in a discussion about the a1 from another member
was not as accurate as the a7iv he had, i proceded to post some more examples other owners were having and bingo i got sandboxed instantly. i was only
pointing out others having the same issue.

One of the Admins removed the sandboxing put in place by one of the more irrational Mods there, after I complained in a reply to an article on the front page. I never found out what my crime was. But surly we all know the beast.

But I just do not find anything of interest on DPR anymore. My camera gear is still more than enough for me, and I quess like a lot of us, new models that come out are not interesting enough to waste money on an "upgrade". Now and again a new lens is tempting.

All the most interesting people have disappeared from the various forums I followed there. The change in moderation policies some years ago killed debate and all the interesting stuff. It is even less useful for answering technical questions that one might have.

This and Nikon Café ,is about the only photo forum I follow these days.

Hi,

One of the controls on that site is the Complain radio button at the lower right of each post. Anyone can use that. Once someone does, then a Mod has to go take a look. When any user gets too many of those hits, they get sandboxed. Or banned.

And the site rule is no discussion. From either end. Meaning the Mods and the users. Ignore the whole mess as best you can.

There is quite the discussion being allowed about this on the MF board right now. That's fairly unusual site wide. But the MF board and the Pro Talk board are a bit different than the other boards when it comes to this.

In fact, that discussion has progressed to the point where I am not following all the subthreads. Seems like a bit too much, which is the reason behind the No Discussion rule. Such discussions used to be allowed in the early days and it was discovered that they tend to take over the world.

As the site grew, more forums were added and it became difficult for the Admins to moderate them all,.so volunteer Mods we're added for each forum. And they don't want to have to add to their work with distracting discussions.

I read somewhere a few weeks ago where the site was looking to hire some assistant Admins to oversee the Mods. Perhaps that happened and now there is an additional resource to help with these situations.

Stan

Stan

Makes me sad to be almost 85 years old.

That explains the current situation. the new mod supervisor, must of been a long time member and didnt hesitate in my sand boxing 🤣😁, but as NCV said, im the same much better discussions on other sites now, all the fun members have gone, im about to pull my extensive gallery from DPR and set up an Instagram extreme macro page.

DPR played a clever game some years ago when they changed the terms of service rules. They took a good lead from the Social Justice Warrior world, and decided that the only rule that users needed to follow was that posts needed to be "nice". Sounds cool, tolerant and "nice". But that left the door open to infinite interpretation. It is not "nice" to tell the user of a Canon Camera on a Canon forum ,that his camera is junk. Or from personal experience. It is not nice to tell sombody that the best way to take Architectural photographs is to use a shift lens, if the other person does not own that lens. It is certainly not "nice" to remind M43 users about the concept of "equivalence". And so it goes on. It seems from what I read on the link, that clowns are certainly not "nice".

Reading a couple of comments by Mods on the link, makes it clear they are personally interpreting the "be nice" rule.

Thank goodness we do not have that bullshit here.

Yep. I got banned on MF for stepping on Doppler9000 ego several months ago, due to hypocritical application of the rules by Doppler9000.
Admin team unbanned me because they couldn't find confirmation of the accusations that Doppler9000 made against me, but he later banned me again as soon as he got the news.

So much for Jim's "but you can appeal our decisions" nonsense.
I love how Jim recently said that no one was banned for simply disagreeing with the mods - an obvious falsehood.
It is also obvious that many see through this deception.

I got the feeling that Doppler9000 and Jim are doing it on purpose per "discussion control goals", as was stated on Sigma forum by other users (before that thread got nuked).

Otherwise it makes no sense why would one deliberately stifle the conversation on a forum one dedicated his/her unpaid time to keep clean .. the forum that one supposedly loves to continue to exist in the future. I think they are doing it deliberately since neither Doppler9000 nor Jim are stupid enough to not recognize the problem and its consequences. So, it is either a large ego/dishonesty or some form of soft sabotage.

There is obviously a crisis of trust in the Mf mods, hence why they had to write that "mod decision non-explanation" MF thread.
If they were honest and just stroked their ego a tad too much, then they should step down as mods. Third mod that was brought in, will do nothing as 2 of them will always outvote him, even if he was against them. And I dont even think he is playing a more neutral side to Jim/Doppler9000.
I don't even think that third mod is any different in the rule application process.

Jim pretty much confirmed that they have additional hidden rules that no one outside of mod "community" knew about, and that the rules are so vague they interpret them as they please. At the same time he said that they are bound by the Rules of DPR so they have to ban people. This is yet another contradiction.

These chutzpah levels of gaslighting is what made a large portion of users flee/cool off their engagement with DPR and Mf in particular. I know, it certainly "worked" for me.