Wed C&C "No Theme - No Brand" Thread – A suggestion for simplification

Roel starts Wed C&C "No Theme - No Brand" thread #781 and posts the first photo.
We only reply with our comments on this photo.
If I want to share a photo with you, I'll start a new thread : Wed C&C "No Theme - No Brand" Thread #781 – Kumsal.
Or: Wed C&C "No Theme - No Brand" Thread #781 – minniev.
That way we would know who posted a photo to the weekly thread.
And the comments on each photo would be coherent.
What do you think about this idea?

I feel your pain and completely agree about a need for visual simplification. Adjusting to flat view is driving me crazy. It is very hard to see what we have and have not responded to. Unfortunately, there is not a section heading for those threads to go "under"if we all post separately. Right now, C&C is a thread itself, under the general heading of Oly SLR, cameras, which is strange, but it is where we were in the old forum, thus where we are in this one. If each of us posted a separate thread, each of our threads would be floating "loose" on the Oly SLR forum under no particular heading, intermingled with any other threads about other matters under that general heading. Even if we labeled them as ours, they would make a mess of the general OLY SLR heading for other people who might want to use that section for other things. So instead of being too crowded up as we are now, we would be too disconnected if we did what I think you are describing. Tell me if I've misunderstood your idea. There is a thread about Critique in general that went up Monday I think, and there was some conversation about proper housing for us there. Admin was involved. At the end we agreed to stick it out where we are for a while and see how it goes. Please look at that thread and come back to this. We need to come up with a way to make sense of it, and thank you for bringing this up.

This is actually a complex problem.
On the one hand, we would want every image to have a clear set of comments.
On the other hand, you want to maintain the sense of community (and the option for a sideways discussion to arise, like in this week's thread the very interesting conversation between Minniev and Jim Kasson: such a conversation only arises from a bigger well, than just the C&C on one image).
Having a separate thread for every image would result, IMHO, in too much isolation.
Having multiple images in a thread has other additional benefits: * a person interested in diverse kinds of images and C&C, can open the single thread, scroll down and pass multiple images and multiple comments until he/she finds an image he/she wants to say something about, and/or a discussion worth participating in - this would be less the case if every image gets its own thread: who is going to open all of those. * sometimes (like we have had multiple times in the other place), a coincidental theme arises, and there is opportunity to compare and refer * or if someone is not really inspired to put up an image, browsing through the weekly gathering may spark a sense of "hmm, I could post something in that vein too".
There you have it, I have used the word: "gathering".
A C&C thread with multiple images and comments that are mutually exchanged, is a gathering.
A bunch of individual threads, in which every time a single member invites C&C without reciprocating (unless in another separate thread) would not feel like a gathering, but like a bunch of individual requests. Many question marks, less dialogue.
The bottom line is, that our previous formatting was perfect (for our purposes): we had the sense of community associated with a single thread as a weekly gathering. And we had threaded view, to make the experience of watching and commenting well structured.
In this forum, threaded view is (not yet) implemented. It may come.
For me, currently, the main thing is to maintain our sense of community.
And that, in my personal conviction, is better served by struggling with the inconvenience of many images in a single thread, than by the visual convenience of individual threads...
Just my two cents, of course.
Roel

Not having a threaded view is the major problem these larger Threads are experiencing. The "Weekly" thread has just passed 100 entries currently goes 4 or 5 pages that have to be scrolled through. Not all posts are easily related to the entry they are responding to .. finding responses to entries by the poster can be time consuming and awkward....

Keep an eye on the “weekly M4/3 Talk” sub-forum where we are trying to substitute that sub-forum for the Thread … I have suggested that we post pictures in a single thread and then start a separate independent thread for each picture that wants more of a reply than a “like” Maybe it will get a try … who knows ... not my say … but we need to simulate that threaded view some way until an actual threaded view finds its way to these forums.. I do agree that the coherence of the communities is the main goal and will be difficult without the threaded view and the conveniences we found in the old DPR …

Just thinking on line ….

WhyNot

I am really glad that you are joining us in the brainstorm about how to guide this ship towards calmer waters.