The health and well being of Farktography

[fluffybunny]

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’m on board with this idea and have been for a long time. The way I have vocalized it in the past is “The Great Depression was not just economic depression, people lost the will to do anything.” Those with any will were over worked and under paid.

(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!)

That right there is some funny shiat, old timer.

[ravnostic]

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 resent being referred to as ‘female’. NTTAWWT.

[ravnostic]

I don’t think we’ve been considering our audience enough.

I don’t think we’ve been considering how to increase our audience enough.

Fark was a beacon of light 10 years ago, it’s common fodder now. Plus, there’s all these FB and G+ distractions; everyone’s connected to everybody, all in real time, there’s only so much you can do with a 24 hour day, etc.

The real issue is fark traffic; the next is increasing the portion of fark traffic that knows of and looks for farktography.

[CauseISaidSo]

I’m late to this conversation but wanted to comment on several points, so please excuse the multi-post blast you’re about to read.

First, the latest charts. You can see that everything took a nose dive right around the 4th quarter of 2011. What I find interesting is that even though the number of participants and entries has been on a gradual decline since the beginning, the average number of votes actually grew up until Q4 2011.

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.

If you’re looking for quantity (total votes), here’s the list of all contests with 3000 or more votes:

Contest #  Date        Theme                                      Votes







169     2008-07-30  I Tawt I Taw A Puddytat                     5520

316     2011-05-25  Puddytats 2: I Did! I Did See a Puddytat!   4183

161     2008-06-04  Trees                                       4090

246     2010-01-20  Sunrise... Sunset...                        3691

128     2007-10-17  Wallpaper This                              3665

150     2008-03-19  Nature Photography                          3559

301     2011-02-09  It's On The Travel Brochure                 3301

168     2008-07-23  Blue II (Farktography Classic)              3282

299     2011-01-26  Weather                                     3141

15     2005-08-17  Night Time Photography                      3117

281     2010-09-22  Green 2 (Farktography Classic)              3067

285     2010-10-20  Travel Photography                          3047

231     2009-10-07  Black and White 2 (Farktography Classic)    3031

300     2011-02-02  Vote Whoring                                3017

118     2007-08-08  Abandon All Hope                            3002

244     2010-01-06  Animals                                     3000

If you take it back 2 years (4/1/2011), all you get are 2011 contests:

Contest #  Date        Theme                                      Votes







316     2011-05-25  Puddytats 2: I Did! I Did See a Puddytat!   4183

335     2011-10-05  Where The Wild Things Are                   2841

338     2011-10-26  Graves 3: Return of the Land of the Dead    2796

313     2011-05-04  Cloudscapes                                 2668

330     2011-08-31  Pathways                                    2454

314     2011-05-11  Happy Farktography Anniversary 6            2402

337     2011-10-19  That's No Moonà                             2242

320     2011-06-22  Volcanoes, Waterfalls, and Mountains        2195

331     2011-09-07  Black And White 3 (Farktography Classic)    2193

332     2011-09-14  Summer Daze                                 2184

If you limit it to 2012 and later, it looks like this:

Contest #  Date        Theme                                      Votes







350     2012-01-18  Straight Out Of Camera                      2024

373     2012-06-27  Birds 2: Boid Watching                      1957

348     2012-01-04  Desolation                                  1923

365     2012-05-02  Wow! Nice Wood!                             1633

351     2012-01-25  Stoned                                      1611

359     2012-03-21  Curves 2: Recurves                          1562

406     2013-02-13  Pets                                        1557

352     2012-02-01  Go Out and Get Some Strange                 1447

370     2012-06-06  Vehicles                                    1402

363     2012-04-18  Sun In Frame                                1398

BUT, what if we look at quality instead of quantity? Here are the top 20 by average votes per entry:

Contest #  Date        Theme                                              Votes/Entry







85     2006-12-20  Barbie (and Ken)                                         26.35

300     2011-02-02  Vote Whoring                                             18.62

297     2011-01-12  Five Is Right Out                                        18.08

214     2009-06-10  Tilt-Shift Faked Miniature Scenes                        17.38

342     2011-11-23  Triptych Portraits                                       16.90

299     2011-01-26  Weather                                                  16.19

343     2011-11-30  Dungeons & Dragons                                       16.07

202     2009-03-18  Tableau                                                  15.89

301     2011-02-09  It's On The Travel Brochure                              15.72

225     2009-08-26  Training Documents                                       15.41

368     2012-05-23  Sleeve-faced                                             15.40

335     2011-10-05  Where The Wild Things Are                                15.36

314     2011-05-11  Happy Farktography Anniversary 6                         15.30

316     2011-05-25  Puddytats 2: I Did! I Did See a Puddytat!                15.10

345     2011-12-14  Mandatory Procrastination                                15.08

338     2011-10-26  Graves 3: Return of the Land of the Dead                 15.03

239     2009-12-02  Win, Fail, or "I Like Where This Thread is Going"        14.95

291     2010-12-01  The Song Remains The Same                                14.80

304     2011-03-02  I'm Beginning To See A Pattern Here...                   14.52

125     2007-09-26  Everything's A Dollar/Pound/Euro                         14.36

I think the common denominator in a lot of those themes is that they allow for truly unique content, the type of thing someone’s going to facebook or tweet or otherwise forward. And I think that (unique content) is probably one of the only things that will drive more traffic to our contests. The problem, and I KNOW you all know this, is that unique content isn’t something you just pull out of a hat; it takes time & creativity, both of which are quantities with definite ebb & flow.

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 like the way you put that. I agree.

[CauseISaidSo]

It’s not that we aren’t welcoming of new people, new people just aren’t coming in.

There’s some truth in that, but I’m not entirely sure about it. There have been 24 newbs since 2012 that have participated in at least 4 contests:

UserName                 First Contest  Last Contest  # Contests







billc226                      354           412           44

hunches                       354           411           41

emiliogtz                     359           412           30

Missed It                     350           390           18

Mitt Romneys Tax Return       395           410           12

random.nic                    369           396           11

prickle27                     379           414           11

Robert Goulet                 359           405           11

w11113                        363           387            9

schuylkill                    350           409            9

nmzp                          352           362            8

ChronoSTALKER                 380           386            7

D_PaulAngel                   365           390            6

Wogus                         370           375            5

cakeboss                      370           379            5

Kenneth Snow                  359           400            5

eyeoftheaxis                  351           412            5

Amish Animal Scientist        406           413            5

Moriel                        373           410            4

it's lisa e.                  351           364            4

EatTheWorld                   350           363            4

Spanky McStupid               360           383            4

Sio                           408           414            4

A few on that list have popped in here, but many haven’t. The first post always has a link to the forums and Els welcomes the newbs & kotters, but is there anything else we could do to make sure that everyone knows about the forums or otherwise feels appreciated for participating?

Second, casual photography contests like Farktography have been supplanted by Facebook and Instagram as places to have your work seen.

I think that’s a big part of the drop in casuals. Used to be, posting in a Farktography contest was a fairly unique way of being able to say “Hey, look at me, I’m on the interwebs!” That’s no longer anything close to a unique experience.

[CauseISaidSo]

The non-porn internet is about learning and fun. 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 think that’s a great idea. It ties in with what I was saying about unique or original content. And we have a LOT of great educational material already here in the forums; I think it just needs to be organized & presented in a more accessible way.

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.

Another good idea. That’s actually kind of like one of my long-term wishes for bibliostats (assuming we’re all around long enough for me to get to it). I’d like to add an “About Me” profile page for each participant with a gallery to show non-contest stuff with commenting; kinda like a mini-flickr.

It’s also mostly already present here with the Gallery section, but again, it could probably benefit with a little organization and promotion.

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.

Good luck with that. I tried promoting farktography in the “Can I Get A Show of Hands?” contest with my An Experiment in Cross-Site Vote Whoring entry. I posted it to the pics subreddit along with a description of farktography and an invitation to join in and got no response. But maybe photo-specific subreddits would be more receptive.

[CauseISaidSo]

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.

I’ve always been curious about that. When you really look at it, there are a LOT of regulars that no longer or very rarely participate. Have they just moved on? Is there something that drove them away, real-life stuff getting in the way, or has the allure of the contests just faded for them?

[CauseISaidSo]

I don’t think we’ve been considering our audience enough.

Well, here’s something: I was looking at the relative traffic for fark vs reddit (fark gets about 7% of the traffic that reddit does) and I noticed this:

So, fark is more relatively popular in India than the US and almost as relatively popular in Pakistan. Should we all brush up on our Hindi & Urdu? 🙂

[ravnostic]

Urdu-ing it wrong?

//haha. Wish I had something relevant to add. I’ve tried promoting farktography at FB and G+, hasn’t seemed to help. Has anyone noticed if Drew has switched to domestic beers? That would be a sign that something’s wrong…

[orionid]

//haha. Wish I had something relevant to add. I’ve tried promoting farktography at FB and G+, hasn’t seemed to help.

The last time I mentioned Fark/Farktography on G+ was to another farktographer (who hasn’t been around as of late). The next comment was from Thomas Hawk “LOL. People still go to fark?” That made me feel about an inch tall, and frankly a little pissed. I guess I suck at teh interwebs because I’ve never been to reddit. I probably couldn’t even spell it.

[Pope_Larry_II]

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.

I’ve always been curious about that. When you really look at it, there are a LOT of regulars that no longer or very rarely participate. Have they just moved on? Is there something that drove them away, real-life stuff getting in the way, or has the allure of the contests just faded for them?

It’s a bit more than that. my wife used spend a lot of time on fark, she was a photoshopper and TFette, she indroduced me to fark. But now she communicates with her Fark friends soley through FB. There are lot of other people in the Tfark FB group that rarely visit Fark too. The ironic thing is my wife also organizes the Toronto Fark Party…

There was a shift in how things were run a while ago, something about parody threads in TFD, that drove a lot of people off because a few stupid and offensive people took over. (or that’s my take on it).

Maybe we can start to advertize (link, cross-post etc) the Farktography threads in the Fark related FB groups that we all belong to. In ther short term it might bring more voters and maybe some regulars will return or we may get some newbies. I’ll volunteer to start posting the threads for the TFark group starting this week.

[CauseISaidSo]

The last time I mentioned Fark/Farktography on G+ was to another farktographer (who hasn’t been around as of late). The next comment was from Thomas Hawk “LOL. People still go to fark?” That made me feel about an inch tall, and frankly a little pissed. I guess I suck at teh interwebs because I’ve never been to reddit. I probably couldn’t even spell it.

Well, I don’t know who Thomas Hawk is (guessing a pro photographer?), so his opinion doesn’t mean a lot to me. Maybe a good response would’ve been, “Well, only the cool kids.” 😉

As for reddit, meh, unless you’re an ultra-liberal, US-hating, militant atheist with a houseful of cats (no offense meant to any here that might harbor any shade of any of those views, unless it’s the “US-hating” part, in which case, F you), you’re not missing anything. I mostly browse there just to keep up with the latest memes so I have some idea of what my kids are talking about. 🙂

Edited to add: Perhaps I should clarify that last paragraph. I have absolutely no problem with anyone having those opinions (except as noted); it’s just the in-your-face nature of the presentation of those views that’s so prevalent there that I don’t care for. The majority of the user base seems to be late teens who are in that “I’ve just figured out the universe and I know the absolute truth” phase.

[clouddancer]

I haven’t been doing Farktography much at all because I’ve just been checked out mentally. Work changes and kids and all that. Add in that my pictures never seem to go very far and it became I wasn’t getting much out of it. I’m happy for you all that consistently do great and have all kinds of wins or high places. Honestly, I’m happy that you are great at your craft and it shows. I don’t think I’ll ever get there, and I’m not sure I want to. I take pictures because I want to, because I think macro shots are cool, and because I scrapbook heavily it seems and I have 14 scrapbooks for the last 7 years, nearly entirely devoted to the kids because I love looking back at old pictures and seeing what we did. Even if I don’t remember the outings or all the details, I know I was out with my family and I know we did things, we explored. I want my kids to have that, and I like doing it.

As for garnering participation, what if there was a reminder post somewhere on Facebook or on Fark at the beginning of the week just for discussion of it, what the next theme will be so those who are thinking about participating might go out and take something instead of coming to the thread on Wednesday night/Thursday morning and realizing they don’t have anything that will work. After the weekend, who really remembers? What if the day of the contest starting was changed? When is traffic generally heavier on Fark? Would putting Farktography on that day help?

I honestly don’t go to Fark much anymore, but that’s because I’m trying to limit distractions for work. Working from home has its drawbacks, and easy distractions is one of them.

[Yugoboy]

clouddancer, so sorry you weren’t getting much out of Farktography. While I finally scored a win, it took 2 years. I’m always thrilled as hell when I score a top 10. But this doesn’t mean I don’t have a bajillion things to learn from the people ’round these parts.

The reason for continued participation isn’t to win, it’s to get better personally. That’s why a continual stream of no-cost contests are nice. It’s just practice practice practice, and when you shoot enough you find a few good shots in the mix. “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while” as they say.

I haven’t spent any time looking at your bibliostats profile, but even if your shots center around your kids, U-Man is proof positive that you can do that continually AND get good results.

---

Separate note:

On the theme of somehow showcasing our work independent of Fark proper, it occurred to me that a “Theme Forum” could turn into a kind of stock photography thing. Each thread could be headed by a boobies post indicating rules for use (example – free for non-commercial with attribution and link-back, contact artist for commercial use). It might raise our profile to an audience who wouldn’t stumble over us otherwise.
Y’know… or not… whatever.

Hmm…
This post started as some sort of encouragement to clouddancer to keep trying different stuff and took a left turn… oh well…

[ravnostic]

clouddancer You have gotten better with time; we’ve all seen it. You have a full life and priorities (family is always a priority) that dictate how much time you have to spend reading, learning, and executing in the photography world. I’m sure you have better pictures of your kids and your life than you may have had, had you never participated at all. And those scrapbook memories last a lot longer than this contest will (realistically speaking, assuming your kids grow up, and have kids of their own, etc.)

//digress One thing I miss, CISS from the old stat forum is the little graph showing growth in votes over time. Though given today’s numbers the NVC average would better display that.

[Author]

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