Photography is for everyone! Build skills in a fun and diverse community.
Some History of photopigs
This community is a "reboot" of one originally founded on newsvine.com. It's still in existence (rebranded) but the platform degraded heavily and the redesign didn't go over well with long-time users. In fact, the overall resistance to any change was pretty ridiculous. The site-wide environment was far too negative for a community to progress and remain productive, so a concession was made and it was placed into the hands of new owners.
We were founded on [what was supposed to be] a platform aimed at engaging citizens in journalism so its original purpose was to serve as a directory of photographers willing to contribute stock photos and collaborate with citizen journalists. The site's Flickr functionality broke and quietly disappeared so the pool was out. There wasn't much interest in collaborating with photographers either - most people want the immediate gratification of publishing their content right away.
Photographers, and wanna-be photographers, however, were still eager, so we developd a weekly feature called Foto Friday to develop that community. The activity became popular throughout the site. Monthly challenges were added. Eventually, we raised money to purchase a subscription to GoToMeeting where there was meta discussion, show and tell and one-on-one processing software tutorials (alcohol + Photoshop + screen sharing + random collaboration = side-splitting laughter).
It was successful because it was all-inclusive. Ability and equipment did not matter. The community worked very hard to encourage others to continue shooting and offer any possible advice so we were all working to improve. It became the site's respite from political garbage and was extremely diverse as a result.
Many passionate people worked hard for multiple years to make the community great. There were many long discussions but it seemed the only choice was to let it go. It was collectively difficult because of the history and the need for meaningful discourse.
It seems there may be another hope, though.




Hey jammin, Do they have anything like the Convo Tracker here on imzy???
Yay! You made it!
Yes, there's a little bell on the top right, next to the username you created for the community.
Unless I am missing something, the links that show up when I click on the bell take me to the article, but not to the specific new comment. Is that how it works for you??? If so, I think adding a link directly to the new comment would add tremendously to the site functionality!!!
Yeah, I think that's supposed to happen. I think I remember it jumping to the next comment, or at least partially. There's not a ton of commenting happening in the communities I joined, so I'm still watching it.
You can head over to the Imzy community and ask questions, or there's a chat option too. The staff have had 100% response rate with me so far -- and you know how I like to incessantly bug people with shit.
It does seem to, however, pull up the correct comment thread, and then the text on the browser tab says "MalamuteMan commented ..." so I'm able to figure it out at least.
I think it's probably worth bringing up the conversation in the Imzy community.
I left a suggestion on the Imzy community... They responded very quickly.
There are also some really good privacy options. You can create a private community but you can also create a username specific to that community so no one would ever connect the two and leak private information in another community.
Hi Guys. I hope you don't mind me joining. My photography skills are severely lacking (as you know), but I hope for improvement. Mostly, though, I look forward to the interaction from familiar friends--and new ones. Looking forward to figuring this out. I'll keep the KO nick for now, if only to give people a clue as to who I am. xoxo
You are MORE than welcome here KO.
I have 25 invites for the group and have contacted several people to see if they'd be interested in beta testing. Let me know if there's anyone you'd like invited. You'll also get five invites if you haven't already.
Check out the 'About' and 'Rules' section of the community. I think we've captured the essence of the brand (how we used photography) on Newsvine. Again, let me know if you have any input.
So good to see you here!!!
Great summary! I hope we can rebuild an energetic and creative community here. :-)
I think the platform definitely addresses some of the issues we faced on Newsvine, especially around moderation. It has all the same functionality for the most part. And it's fresh and exciting.
Tipping also seems like it would motivate people to provide quality content because it's ultimately based on doing good work, not how many page views.
Yes, the tipping concept is interesting and could work out very well. Obviously, it will depend on whether people are willing to tip on a regular basis. I'll be curious to see how it evolves.
It will be very interesting to see develop, especially since it also applies to articles, links and comments. I think I read there was something like 20,000 people on the waiting list to do the private beta testing and plenty media coverage, so there is a lot of potential.
Well it applies to articles, links and comments if the community is set to allow it.
[Mal wanders in dragging his travois... Looks around... Blinks... rubs his eyes...]
Wow!!! This looks sort of like that viney photography place where I used to hang out...
[Mal unhitches himself from his travois... starts shooting photos...]
Yeah, man, it's really not that much different from the viney place's redesign! There are some really great features here that build on it too!