POLL: Should Critiques Be Public or Private?

Looking back on how I joined NPN in 2011, I followed the site for some time (>30 days) before taking the plunge. I was able to see what I was going to get by viewing a wide variety of critiques and getting a good sense of who the people were who critiqued. By viewing just the gallery a prospective NPNer won’t get a sense of what the real advantage of NPN is and as @Igor_Doncov pointed out, not everyone wants to sign up for a free trial. I agree with @Ed_McGuirk that it is often difficult to leave a comment in a gallery because the photo still could use some work and NPN is not a site for “attaboys”. I could see a scenario where all posts were critiqued UNLESS the poster specifically checked a box requesting no critiques. That would at least avoid everyone having to click a box. Finally, I am not aware that having the galleries open to public viewing in NPN 1.0 caused significant problems (photo theft will always be an issue regardless of how the site is managed.)

1 Like

Wow, what a fantastic discussion! After giving this much thought, reading everyone’s thoughtful responses, and seeing that we are fairly divided, but lean towards keeping things as they are; I will be keeping the system we have in place where critiques are private unless I hear some really compelling arguments. I still want to hear everyone’s thoughts on this, so don’t let this dissuade you from expressing your opinions. Here are my responses to some of the thoughts given:

It’s imperfect either way, you either have two sections with a ton of categories, or you have one section with a tag that is easy to miss. Maybe someday in the future we can hire someone to create a plugin that would make critique/non-critique in one section more viable, until then we will keep them separated as I agree it would be too confusing.

Agreed. I look forward to talking to you next week in person, I would love to hear any ideas you have!

While a good idea, it’s not possible in this software as the security is done by category, not by tags.

I agree completely that keeping members by providing exceptional value is our number one goal. I’m not looking for rapid growth, in fact I want to keep the growth somewhat slow so we don’t grow too fast and ruin the community atmosphere. I want this to be sustainable long-term.

I have always felt the critiques should be private, there were a number of people that disliked this change from the old NPN and that is why I started this discussion, I don’t really feel a change is warranted but I wanted to see if I was going completely against the members wishes. Yes, it’s my company and I get the final say, but I want to ensure the members are happy to keep them long term.

I will keep the 30 day trial around as long as the critiques are private since this is the only way to fully evaluate the site. I could make a credit card not required, but when we launch the new member discount section this becomes an issue as there will be a host of discount codes from our partners that we don’t want shared all over the internet.

While I think doing this weekly may be a bit overboard, the idea of having some examples of critiques could be a good idea. This is also why I was asking for testimonials as another way of showing the value, but very few provided a testimonial unfortunately, I’ll have to think of a way to nudge them along.

I am very happy with the growth rate and as I stated earlier I want to maintain a healthy growth rate that is sustainable, so I agree that we should keep the current course. I just brought this up to see what everyone thought.

I understand this as I avoid them as well for this reason, but I think it is our best way forward without giving away all the great critique knowledge for free. We just need a better way to show off what NPN offers without showing everything.

It’s a good idea if we could make it more obvious that an image should not be critiqued, but right now that is not possible, maybe in the future as I mentioned above, this could resolve all of our problems.

2 Likes

David, thanks for being open-minded and throwing the whole idea out for discussion and brain-storming. A lot of good ideas and thoughts were contributed.

2 Likes

“The trial even under the best of circumstances is no substitute for seeing what you’re going to get.”

Igor, while I used to be a businessman, please don’t hold it against me :grinning: I know my business related slant on my comments can sound pompous. But I only went that route to make people aware that I spent 20 years thinking through paid membership issues very similar to those facing NPN.

I understand your concern on free trials. At my former company the 30 day trial allowed one to do everything a paid member could, but after 30 days you paid the membership fee or it ended (no auto-enroll that had to be cancelled). I am not sure how NPN’s trial is structured currently. To be most effective it should allow the trial member to actually post in critique for 30 days. Only allowing them to see critique would be good but probably less effective. Another question, is 30 days enough, should it be 60? And as David said, it only makes sense to have a trial as long as critique is private.

I believe that renewal rates of paid members are more important than new members rates, it’s easier to keep what you already have. In a membership business the worst thing you can do is something that devalues the paid membership. In the NPN context, that might be alienating members who want their critiques kept private. That might be paying members who wonder why they are paying when lurkers can get to see all critiques, thus getting a significant part of the benefit of critiques without paying. NPN has something different, the more we become like other photo sharing sites, the more we reduce the value of being a member.

“hiding critiques is really poor marketing. Perhaps instead of opening up critiques we should provide a sample of what the user will get.”

This neatly sums up the problem, how do you make nonmembers aware of the benefits if they cant see them. A full experience trial without auto-enroll is one way.

Both Igor and David have suggested putting up examples of critiques. I think we need to brainstorm some ways to do that most effectively. David, I think testimonials would help and we really should do some, but IMO they are probably not as powerful as seeing samples of real world critiques.

I really just argued for patience before significant change this soon into the evolution of NPN 2.0, or we risk messing with de-valuing the benefits of membership. IMO the membership has definite value to some photographers. As Igor points out, this is more of marketing challenge of promoting what we have, rather than messing with how the NPN model is run.

I agree with many of the posters who would combine the galleries. I “observed” the site for about 2 years before joining. I did not feel I was good enough to put my work out there and a 30 day trial would have been of no interest. I joined because I felt the critiques were very helpful,
I find now, with the different galleries that I miss a lot and I hardly ever go to certain galleries. Navigating back and forth is just too time consuming and robs from the utility of the site. On the old site , I would look at every thumbnail and pick those I wanted to study further. Now landscape and other categories just slide by most of the time without my seeing them. Combining the two would be a step in the right direction.
I know there are some advantages to the new site and people have worked hard on it. I am just expressing what I am finding my current pattern to be. Once I switch between about 6 galleries, I seem to navigate away. So, if the goal is to attract new members, I am wondering if visitors to the site would have the same issue. Perhaps I still do not understand the system and that is my problem, I don’t know. I am just being honest on how the arrangement effects my use of the site.

Regarding the 30-day trial. I don’t want to say much more on this but I anticipated that the response would be that we would structure it in such a way as to mitigate the misgivings of joining it.

Unfortunately one bad apple destroys it for all the others. There must be tens of thousands well structured free trials on the internet these days but if you’ve ever had a bad one it leaves a bad taste in your mouth and you just don’t want to take another chance no matter what the website claims. For example: I took a free subscription to the Boston Globe which seemed a good idea at the time. Within 30 days they wanted to change it to a paid subscription and so I cancelled. It’s been over 5 years now and I get an email from them each day announcing their favorite stories. I have repeatedly asked them to stop with the emails but they keep coming. They all go to the spam folder. So even here when I was able to get off the hook of being financially tied to them I paid a price for my curiosity. I’m fully aware that David wouldn’t do this but for someone, and there are many if not most, who have had such an experience, this is a major turn off for any further “free trials”. They never seem to be “free”.

1 Like

I’m strongly in favor of combining Gallery and Critique forums. It would be SO much easier to see more images and have time to comment that way. I’d vote for opening the critiques up to non-members - I joined NPN over 15 years ago, after seeing enough critiques to know there were people here truly interested in helping others grow. It was interesting to read other critiques, and generally helpful, but I wanted people to critique MY images and help ME directly to learn. I don’t think most people’s egos are so sensitive they would be crushed by a strong critique, and slink away in depression.

I believe the primary draw of NPN has always been honest, helpful critiques, and that should be the default. I also believe most of the pros and semi-pros here already have a vision of what they want their image to present - and MY suggesting that I’d clone out this, or sharpen that would certainly not make them change that vision and alter the image. On the other hand, I HAVE gotten occasional private notes from from major pros here like “I never thought of that! Thanks!” even if i think one of my images is perfect, I still want to see it through other’s eyes and their comments.

I got a good many very brutal critiques early on, and - while they surprised me and perhaps stung a bit, they are what helped me the most to learn and grow. I was going to post a couple, but the old Archives don’t include the critiques any longer - understandably. Suffice it to say I posted some truly horrible images that i’m thankful i was able to remove.

We presently have a sentence on every Gallery post that says “Not for Critique” - why would it be so difficult to have that as a FIRST line on the images people do not want critiqued? It could be the “Default” and people could choose to delete that line when they post. if they forget, it’s easy to go back and edit the sentence away. Alternately, when we post the Title of an image - we could be each responsible for adding a “C” or “G”

If someone accidentally posts a critique on a “G” post, it would not be a mortal sin.

I’d also go one step further in combining Galleries. I’d like to see the Discussions under the same type of heading:

Wildlife

  • Galleries for posting or critiques (All images combined)

  • wildlife discussion

  • Misc wildlife topics

  • wildlife/avian sightings (?) "At Oxbow Bend, there are 3 sets of moose mom’s and calfs this week, browsing on the far shore’ “More polar bears in Churchill this month than I’ve ever seen " (Avian:) Mary Jo’s place is full of Elegant Trogans this week!!” (I WISH)

As it is, there are 9 Wildlife Galleries to open individually to look at, 9 separate wildlife Critique forums to open individually, and 12 different discussion groups, plus a lot more forums. It’s exhausting to visit more than a couple, and I find myself visiting and commenting less and less. there are a large number of unread and “no reply” posts that should be a clue.

To me, it would be MUCH simpler to have ONE place for all Avian, all flora, all Wildlife, etc. There are probably 50 different links to Galleries, critiques, etc etc on NPN2 and I believe that honestly is so complicated it scares people off. more is not better. IMO, concise and easy-to-navigate is better.

Like Kathy, I also sorely miss the old single Gallery of thumbnails showing EVERY image in every categor. I looked at every single one, and loved seeing all the great images, even if I wasn’t particularly interested in that category. Seeing a Photo Art image next to, for instance, a Landscape beauty, peaked enough interest that many people opened the PA large image and commented. Now, one has to specifically open the PA Gallery, PA critique, or PA discussion - and being the “orphan” here, most people don’t bother. similarly, i very rarely venture into the Landscape categories since it requires a dedicated journey there. But I opened almost every single image when the thumbnails were all together. I’m sorry, but most humans are basically time-constrained these days, and making things as easy as possible is a good idea.

thanks to David and Jennifer for reviving this site, and opening many things up for discussion, as the site evolves. All opinions are valid and worth consideration.

One more thing - it would be easy for those of us with websites to add a link to NPN. Likewise, it would also be easy to add a link to NPN in our emails. I have a link to my website at the end of every email (unless I delete it) and I believe it generates a bit of business and certainly a fair number of visits to the site.

Sandy.

I admit that I am participating late in the game and have read that David has made the decision to keep the critique section private. I generally agree with this direction, since I was concerned with combining the critique and the non-critique sections. Saying that, I believe Ed offered a very compelling compromise that I just cannot allow to lay silent. As point 4 of one of his many well considered posts, he suggested “Critique of the Week”. I think this or some iteration of this suggestion should be fleshed out some more.

Here is my thinking. If NPN wants to appeal to new photographers (say those with less skill level in various techniques), then the community has to demonstrate how it helps in the development of those with less experience. If that is a mission (I don’t know if it is), then you must clearly communicate that to the VISITOR. You can post photos on hundreds of sites on the web, is that the mission here? Probably not. Therefore, if attracting new folks is important, let’s think about why they would want to join. Probably to learn and grow. How will they determine a fit?

How about a clear EDUCATIONAL mission statement? How about a focus on how and why we critique. How about more articles focused on fundamentals. Perhaps a section for newbies. Just some thoughts…in light of the ideas I think Ed was trying to get us to think about.

As a final note, this community is unique in that a discussion like this is even explored. Kudos to David.

3 Likes

Ray, I don’t think this is currently the case - it’s still open for discussion. We’ve only had 36 votes, and it’s pretty evenly split - if membership has tripled, as David says (great!) we should have hundreds of votes before we feel we have a representative sample on which to make a decision.

Ray, you’ve made some ex cellent points!
Sandy

@Sandy_Richards-Brown. Ray is correct. Here is what David said earlier in the thread,

–P

Like @Sandy_Richards-Brown, I also voted in favor of allowing all posts to be visible, and like Sandy and certainly others I miss the images grid visible when browsing, and so easily accessible and simpler. Starting out working in the camera store, I have been shooting pictures over 50 years, and yet I never tire of critiques on even those images I think are great. It has been my long considered opinion that art is largely subjective and should be just that, and I’m not too thin skinned to invite opinions of others.

Sandy,

While David encourages continued discussion Preston is referencing the quote that I read earlier. I never meant to imply that the door is shut. While I support his general decision, I was suggesting there are other things that can be done to promote new membership during visits than the site changes that were proposed. I actually voted to make critiques public before I realized it would result in the combination of the galleries with the critique section, which I believe would be a mistake at this point. I do believe however that the site should be more proactively marketed to visitors using other means.

1 Like

Whoops, sorry, I guess I missed that.
The poll has only been open 2 DAYS (posted Jan 17) and only a tiny percentage of members have voted - seems quite early, to me, to have any sense of what a majority would like, and have reached a decision. I bet most people didn’t even see the poll.
I myself only have the time to check the Discussions once a week or so.

56% " yes " vs 44 % “no” , with only a tiny portion casting votes (36 votes out of at least hundreds of members) , is not a statistically significant result by ANY interpretation. ** It’s only a difference of 4 votes! ** (I see now it’s at 40 votes and only a 10 point difference - 3 votes. )

I’d suggest the poll be open at least 2-3 weeks, and a message sent to ALL members (similar to the way the EP’s were announced) to request them to participate.

Just my opinion, as always.
Sandy

@Igor_Doncov I took your comments to heart and found a creative way to change the way the 30 day trial fundamentally works. I made it so there is no credit card required, it does not auto-renew (but auto-renewal can be turned on), and the people in the trial period will not be able to access the vendor discounts section until they are a paying member. They will also have a title next to their name that says ‘Trial Member’, maybe some members will give them encouragement to join seeing this :wink:

I think this is a reasonable compromise to keep critiques private, but allow someone to easily sign up for a no-risk trial to fully evaluate everything the site has to offer, and without giving away the discounts until they sign up.

3 Likes

Early on the vote was overwhelming public (78%-22% I believe) until Ed MdGuirk’s comment. It seems to have influenced many. David himself changed his vote from public to private recently. I’m wondering if comments should have been allowed to begin with. I don’t think some really understood what it meant to go public. Some thought going public meant there was no difference between paid and unpaid membership (that we were giving away the store). Others voted private because of implementation perceptions that would affect usability of one gallery (even an assumption was made that there would be one gallery). In my opinion, implementation has nothing to do with it for there are many ways to make it work.

Ray, thank you for doing a better job than I did of articulating the idea of promoting NPN as a destination for nature photography Education. My suggestion of “Critique of the Week” is likely too unwieldy to implement, but my point was that NPN should do more to encourage/reward/publicize the education that goes on here. And Education does not just have to be targeted at “new” photographers, I have been doing nature photography for 25 years, and I am still learning many things here at NPN. I think we can provide education for both newbies and experienced folks.

To me the thing that sets NPN apart is our emphasis on education. We are not a destination for just seeing “eye candy”, or getting our egos “pulsed”. As you suggested, we need to think about ideas for structuring and promoting NPN’s educational focus. I know this philosophy is at the core of what @David_Kingham and @Jennifer_Renwick are trying to accomplish with NPN 2.0.

The debate here about the nitty gritty details of public/private switch is a healthy one, but it sort of masks the real issue, which is what can be done to attract and retain members who will actively participate in a community focused on education and sharing.

There are likely many ways to accomplish this goal. To some degree, it may not really matter whether Critique is public or private, folded in with Gallery or not, as long as the approach is well thought out, and the result provides a valuable experience to members interested in what NPN brings. I applaud @David_Kingham for soliciting input on this, because it is helping him to think through these issues. For example the change in the Trial is more customer friendly, and better for the long term growth of NPN.

David - these are excellent ideas! The “Trial member” designation would also allow us to personally welcome people and encourage their participation. Feeling vested in the group is very important for new people.
S

Absolutely, we all have a vested interest in the professional growth of the membership. With communication comes buy-in and support. I am so incorraged by what I see here from David and Jennifer.

I’m closing this because I created a new poll that gives more options, please vote again here: POLL: Should Critiques be Public or Private (Part 2)