The health and well being of Farktography

[orionid]

Mod Note: Continued from discussion in Enter (or Exit) Here.

As for contests with the least votes, orionid‘s right – this is the lowest vote total since the rules were standardized at contest #7. There are actually 5 other “official” contests with lower vote totals than Pinhole, and unfortunately, they’re all somewhat recent. As a matter of fact, except for Pinhole, all of the top ten lowest vote count contests have been since 2012:

Contest #   ContestDate   Theme                                Votes







414       2013-04-10   Enter (or Exit) Here                   170

392       2012-11-07   Close Encounters of the Third Kind     281

413       2013-04-03   Ghost Towns                            299

357       2012-03-07   Instant Inspiration                    302

407       2013-02-20   Office Space                           331

187       2008-12-03   Pinhole Camera                         333

400       2013-01-02   Lights, Camera, Caption                335

399       2012-12-26   Red Light, Green Light                 351

412       2013-03-27   The Onion on Your Belt                 364

368       2012-05-23   Sleeve-faced                           385

When I look at that list, I see a list of tight themes, difficult themes, or themes that don’t have easy creative interpretations. I’d be curious also to see a recent list of both the all time top vote themes and last, say two years worth of themes.

Hmmm…. I’m going to copy and paste this to a new thread… Having lots of thoughts….

So I was scrolling through bibliostats looking for various pieces of info and saw some disturbing trends. We’ve only had one contest so far this year with over a thousand votes. We’ve only had four since last July. There have been previous stretches of several months over 1000 votes in every contest, and at one point, three consecutive contests breaching 3,000 votes. I don’t think it’s the themes specifically, but I know some of them haven’t helped. I’ll also be the first to admit that some of them were my suggestions. But here’s my thought in a nutshell:

I like creative themes, but I don’t think they’re what we need right now. We need simple. We need open. We need the themes that have historically blown the casual participation rate through the roof. We need kittehs, we need blue, we need trees, we need nature. We need a string of themes that will make people say “Hey, I have a photo for that” After several consecutive weeks, some of those casual submitters will feel the urge to step up their game and come back next week, or even start shooting specifically. I consider myself a regular, and there are some weeks that I just feel kind of meh and don’t even bother archive diving. Yeah, I’m working 72-hour week nightshifts right now, but I took Wednesdays as my day off specifically for Farktography. And I’ve played once.

At one point, there was a time where myself and a few other regulars would go into a theme wondering “How can I beat U-Man this week.” I’ve also seen and heard things like “I can’t wait to see how Orionid interprets this one.” I feel like those days are long gone. Metaphorically, our river level is dropping. We need to open the spillway gates and let fresh blood come crashing in. If that means finding more people like Aspidites to show up for animal/nature photo themes with bengal tigers and wild wolves that make the rest of us look like we went to the local petting zoo, so be it. If we need a TChau to post the most beautiful half-naked women flinging flour with their hair that we’ve seen in, well, ever while the rest of our portrait photos look like a fifth-grade yearbook, so be it. Nothing lights a fire under my ass like a little competition. Who knows who might be lurking, looking at the feeds every week thinking “Man, I’d love to submit something, but I feel like I’d be beating up some kids so I’ll just hold back.”

I don’t think attracting great photographers will hurt us. We have a strong, open, and friendly community that has always been willing to share ideas and teach rather than hoard knowledge for competition sake. I’m a numbers geek. I want to see numbers. I want hoards of participants, casting hoards of votes, and generating hoards of discussion. Let’s light this shit up like the fourth of July.

*gets off soapbox*

Now get on your soapbox and discuss.

[ennuipoet]

There is much wisdom here!

I admit my enthusiasm has waned of late, the themes have not moved me to even dig around in the archives for material. (Not that I think the themes were bad, the submitters provided great themes! It’s not you, it’s me.)

I think there are several things in play. First of Fark, as much I love it and feel like it is my home on the Interwebs, isn’t drawing a lot of new blood in general. The King of Forum based Communities is obviously Reddit, Fark is bit dated. While it still draws a decent number of page views to keep Drew’s bar tabs paid, viewers aren’t participating in the Community side of Fark. Farktography and Photoshop threads have become a closed circle with the same people participating constantly. It’s not that we aren’t welcoming of new people, new people just aren’t coming in.

Second, casual photography contests like Farktography have been supplanted by Facebook and Instagram as places to have your work seen. Prior to the advent of these services, if you wanted to showcase your work for a large group of people to see you needed a Farktography. Now, everyone has a built in audience without the need of competition.

Third, competitive photographers looking to win certainly aren’t participating because winning at Farktography is about a feeling not a concrete prize. Farktography doesn’t land one in a position to capitalize a win into bigger and better things.

Fourth, the current generation of Farktographers are either moving up on on with their photography, seeking a pro or semi-pro career in photography or have job and/or family that requires more and more of their time. In some cases all of the above. In my case, the past three weeks of paid shooting has cut my personal shooting to the bone. Hell, I WANT to get out and shoot, but I am weary and unmotivated by the time I get home.

How do we fix it? I don’t know that we can. I agree broader themes, open to casual submission will bump the numbers in the short term. I believe there is a finite pool of Farktographers and we may be past the Peak Farktography Threshold. We could expand our outreach to social media, but that means someone needs to administrate a Facebook Page, a Twitter Feed and (God help us) an Instagram feed. There is a Pinterest board for Farkotgraphy ( http://pinterest.com/Fark/farktography-masterpieces/ )that someone is pinning too in the vein of what we would need. We need a broader outreach to the world to bring new people not just to us, but Fark in general. I hate to say it, but something like that is a full time job, and might just be more effort than it is worth.

I know I sound like Johnny Doomsday with my incessant killing of the buzz, and I want someone to come along and show me I am wrong!

[staplermofo]

and I want someone to come along and show me I am wrong!

You’re wrong!
The non-porn internet is about learning and fun. Yes, the internet cool kids have moved to reddit, but reddit still suck at photography. I mean, look at http://www.reddit.com/r/photoclass
I say the future is in being fun a place to learn. And yeah, that means busting out and making farktography.net more than a forum. Which is totally doable. I suck at photography but I’d be willing to do a proof of concept.

But first and foremost, the fun. Again, going beyond the contests, I think we ought to have a forum based photography display, in a non-contest format. Contests have deadlines, and that’s limiting. I think people could really get into themed wackiness. We’re enough to create critical mass for certain things, like photos of “girly socks living better than entry level programmers” or “buildings being assholes to sidewalks” or whatever. There are other ways to give context and an audience to photography on the internet than contests. I think people would look at a gallery of girly socks living better than entry level programmers.

There was a joint fark/reddit party in Chicago this weekend. Fark, being a teenager, has a much more established presence in the real world than reddit, and the redditors that showed up liked it. I’m sure Drew wouldn’t mind if farktography threads got posted to reddit. Reddit likes linking to things.

Primarily I think this is a matter of acceptable participation and disappointing spectatorship, er, um… spectation? Giving the internets what it wants while continuing to give content creators what they want. What do we want anyway?

SHUT UP I TOTALLY ENTERED A CONTEST THIS YEAR SO I AM TECHNICALLY STILL PARTICIPATING!

[Pope_Larry_II]

I’m glad I’m not the only one thinking about this.

I agree with both of you on this.

I think that Fark in general is not attracting new people, not just Farktography. There are a lot of ex-farkers that communicate through Facebook only now, they rarely visit the site (usually for the “EPIC” threads). Maybe we can focus on getting those people back participating/voting. There is a photo walk group in Toronto I go out with occasionally and I talk about Fark (and farktography), mostly I get the blank look and “I’ve never heard of it” response. It’s a shame because some of these people would like the challenge of it.

As for the themes maybe we could have regularly scheduled themes. Right now we always have a Halloween and Christmas contest, maybe a spring and summer contest could be added. That way people now it’s coming up and can participate, especially the casual ones.

I know my participation has been spotty recently, mostly due to odd shifts at work. But there have been a few themes that I’ve drawn a blank on (hell, I drew a blank on one of my own themes). Maybe a string of popular “classic” threads might help.

/the above is just random thoughts.

[fluffybunny]

All valid points so far, especially the Fark.com aspect. I only have anecdotal evidence but I think fark is quite possibly dying with a whimper not a bang. We had historically high voting in farktography just because statistically, the large fark population produced a large farktographer population. I myself am burdened in exactly the same manner as orionid right now, 72 hour weeks of night shift. It’s killing me to not have a camera in my hand. But enough about me, I’ll be back.

The way I see it, we have the dwindling farktography and at the opposite end of the spectrum the chaotic and unfocused world of social media. I don’t know facebook, twitter and so on, but I joined G+ a few months ago. I imagine the rest are similar. The questions forming in my mind are these: Where do we want to fall in the spectrum? How do we inject the energy into our orbit to push us there?

I don’t think a change in theme policy will get us far. It might gain us a few more regulars but in the end, we’re still in near fark orbit. There are scattered references to farktography around (pinterest, g+,..) but they all seem to whither. G+ has the infrastructure and audience, but it certainly would not be the learning tool that farktography has been for me if I started there. It seems like more of a “look what I can do” environment. Voting and feedback seem unfocused, therefore less useful (again, I am a noob there so maybe it’s just me).

I know a handful of amateur photographers of various skill levels. I have tried to convince them of the benefits of this community but they must see it differently, or not understand my point, or are too busy or just don’t care.

So, I have nothing but questions at this point. Are we SpaceLab? Past our prime, mission complete and doomed to burn up in the atmosphere? I hope not.

Do we start a marketing campaign? Vote whoring the internets to come play with us? Is that even possible?

The more someone has to do to participate, the less likely they are going to. For fark, you must register (yes it’s simple but I know it has dissuaded some people). Same for G+ and so on. Is there a way to make participation easier?

The newness of fark has worn off, as it will with G+ and anything else. Honeymoon over. How do we make it in the long term?

(not very organized thinking, just woke up, still drinking mah coffee).

[Yugoboy]

I’m with fluffybunny on a lot of points. I’ve tried to get local RL friends/acquaintances to check us out, and I can’t seem to get much response.
I also get the whole “Fark is dying” argument, because the photoshoppers have been feeling that way for a while now. Frankly, I think Drew needs to write another book 😉

As for making this a more going concern, I also like the idea of staplermofo‘s that we host some open-ended photo threads here and try to get some traffic to them. I may not have his appreciation for obtuse themes, but I like the idea. We already have a Gallery section, but that’s for individuals to do one-offs (usually) or continuing things (caradoc‘s kid thread for one). A second forum of open-ended themes would be easy to set up (I think… I don’t actually know) and would allow us to contribute whenever we found something particularly awesome that isn’t won’t be on Fark for a while/ever.

Anybody here got more DeviantArt experience than I? I have a profile, but that’s mainly to be able to see stuff anonymous users can’t. If there were some way to get a Farktography presence we might get some traffic from there as well.

Just a few ideas. As with Fark, and Misfit Squirrels, I’ll be around like foot fungus until they turn out the lights. The atmosphere around here agrees with me.

[orionid]

So, I have nothing but questions at this point. Are we SpaceLab? Past our prime, mission complete and doomed to burn up in the atmosphere?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some interesting if not sobering thoughts above. I’m still mulling on some of them but want to say two things real quick.

G+ is nice, but like has been said, it’s cliquish. Your feedback tends to be based more on who you know and how many followers you have rather than the quality of the photo. I’m not going to call anyone out, but some of the “top” G+ photographers are merely meh in my opinion, but have thousands of followers because they are young, attractive, and female. I’m also not entirely hip on the weekly themes. I’ll post stuff to them every once in a while, but not with regularity. It’s more like if I’m posting something, I’ll ask myself “does this fit one of today’s themes?” I like Farktography’s format. Each week has a lead-in, a beginning, middle and end. It’s a story that developes in front of you that you get to be part of. It’s FUN. I don’t get that from G+. FB, Flickr, DA or anywhere else.

And Speaking of DeviantArt. I strted putting photography there, but got burnt out on the one-at-a-time upload and the constant need to uncheck “sell prints” on every upload. Why can’t I just share and be shared? The fact that it’s also open to all art and misclassification runs pretty rampant is a suck, too. So I started using to host my Warhammer and Warmachine model conversions so I wouldn’t clog up my flickr with non-photo photos ( http://saiphson.deviantart.com/ if you’re interested).

[staplermofo]

some of the “top” G+ photographers are merely meh in my opinion, but have thousands of followers because they are young, attractive, and female.

I don’t think we’ve been considering our audience enough. The question everyone on the internet must ask, “Why would I look at this instead of porn?”
Clearly we should be doing porn. Now, we know the audience likes U-Man‘s kids…

*runs out of the thread*

[orionid]

*double checks to make sure his gun safe is locked before U-Man reads this.* *Remembers the road from Peoria to Chicago doesn’t go through Virginia, stops worrying, and grabs popcorn*

[Yoyo]

I’ve been out of the loop this year as well. I think for myself, it’s just a general malaise that comes from being unemployed.

I don’t think Fark will be relegated to the /dev/nul of history anytime soon. Other sites have come and gone (or peaked and faded), yet Fark seems to have remained (or maybe I’m just hanging on far past the sell-by date). I recently befriended lots of the FarkCon attendees on the Facebook and have been sucked into various threads in the TFark group, but it’s just not the same, so I’ve turned off notifications.

I have no idea where this essay is rambling off toward, so I’ll just end it now.

Maybe Farktography should buy an ad at HuffPo?

[Yugoboy]

I honestly don’t know what the numbers are for Fark in general, but looking at the past usually helps illuminate the present.

When do we see the most (numerically) creative people come out of the woodwork and produce? When people are confident and the future looks bright – Italian Renaissance, Jazz Age, Housing Bubble of the 2000s. Creative people don’t shut down when times are tough, but it seems like people are forced to spend a bunch of that creative reserve making ends meet, or their souls get worn out observing misery. I don’t give a shit what the stock market does… the economy’s still in the dump for many Americans (and other global citizens). Until somebody besides the bankers begins to feel optimistic and hopeful for the future, I honestly believe that peoples’ creativity will continue to take a hit. Most of our great Depression art was commissioned by the government. As much as I have a problem with the long-term results of the New Deal, the Federal Artists’ Project and Federal Writers’ Project within the WPA allowed creative people to create with some measure of security. I’m not suggesting America (or any other nation) needs to be providing financial assistance, but the point is that I think things will turn around, but only after somebody besides Wall Street begins to feel the “recovery.”

In short, we’re in a national creativity deficit, and only when things look financially brighter will we see an uptick in participation in amateur art (that takes more than a quick pass through Instagram and that requires more effort than Facebook).

[ennuipoet]

Please don’t take my comments as meaning “Fark will go dark within the next six months!” this is clearly not the case! Fark remains a go to for many people who never step past the Main page for odd news and amusing stories. If they happen to drop into a Farktography thread along the way, so much the better!

My comments were meant toward the long sense of community that characterizes places like Fark is trending downward, people are becoming “Regulars” like they used to. The Internet is fickle and the nerd herd migrates from one watering hole to another. (Just think of me as Marlin Perkins* hovering in a helicopter over a swarm of sweaty, portly men traveling in search of Star Wars action figures and microbrewed beers. My assistant Jim is being thrashed to death by a pack of angry Politics Thread lions, hope he paid his Mutual of Omaha premiums!)

*God, I’m old

[nobigdeal]

I’m all for simpler themes that offer wide participation. Maybe we should drop some of our stick in the mud processing rules and let the instagrammers come in and compete with the real cameras!

[ennuipoet]

I’m all for simpler themes that offer wide participation. Maybe we should drop some of our stick in the mud processing rules and let the instagrammers come in and compete with the real cameras!

You said that just to get a rise out of me didn’t you? 😯

Well, it did. What I am about to say may shock you…and everyone else…I agree.

I’ve come to feel that good photography will stand out above the kitsch, the crap and trendy. And if my work loses to some Instacrap POS, then one of two things has happened: My photo wasn’t as good as I thought it was, or people have really shiatty taste.

Most likely it will be the latter.

[nobigdeal]

I’m all for simpler themes that offer wide participation. Maybe we should drop some of our stick in the mud processing rules and let the instagrammers come in and compete with the real cameras!

You said that just to get a rise out of me didn’t you? 😯

Well, it did. What I am about to say may shock you…and everyone else…I agree.

I’ve come to feel that good photography will stand out above the kitsch, the crap and trendy. And if my work loses to some Instacrap POS, then one of two things has happened: My photo wasn’t as good as I thought it was, or people have really shiatty taste.

Most likely it will be the latter.

HAHA! Totally thinking of you when I wrote that.

[Author]

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