[Choc-Ful-A]

And in all seriousness, I would like this to be the first book we publish, not THE book. So my suggestion is ride the buzz we’ve generated, get this fabulous book out, then once the dust settles talk about what we’d as a community learned from the first one and use that feedback to help shape the next one.

In the meantime, minor photo choice tweaks are still possible here without starting over if the people that spent time driving this feel it’s needed. And we could look into the feasibility of setting up a website (and include the URL in the book) talking about the book project where additional photos could be highlighted.

[Choc-Ful-A]

I have no problem at all and won’t be personally hurt if the consensus is to scrap what has been done and go back to the drawing board in terms of asking people to suggest their favorite 3 or 5, and putting that together again.

IMO, no to that. Tweaking the photo selections to addresses real or perceived bias, no problem… But I think the current draft is too good, or yes I’ll out myself and second the “fabulous” tag. I think expectations and enthusiasm is already ramped up too much to start over. Scrapping it at this point will probably kill the project entirely.

And for what it’s worth, I didn’t get any sense that the choices showed any obvious “Elsinore and friends” bias. Maybe I’m being a bit clueless, which won’t be the first time, but I don’t see it. But the fact that a number of my photos were selected shows that at least some people were picked without being in some privileged inner circle.

[Choc-Ful-A]

Today I’m in need of moral support. Do you think we’ve been fair in the manner we used to select content for the book? I know that unless we included every picture ever we’re not going to please everyone and that there will always be critics of your work no matter how good but I’m feeling overwhelmed today. I certainly didn’t take on this project to create enemies or piss anyone off.

It sounds like you find yourself caught in what I call the “lightning rod” scenario. You are the visible, vocal, available person in a large project where complex decisions are being made. As a result, you end up having to relay lots of information about choices to people that don’t have the benefit of all the backstory and full context associated with those decisions. And if people get frustrated or upset, you also are the person that fields that information flow as well. So I think that means you can wind up feeling the tension from both sides, possibly with some extraneous emotional “bonus material” in there because people are passionate about what’s happening.

I have a couple of suggestions that have helped me in the past (including yesterday!) when I’ve found myself in similar situations. First, if you believe choices were made in a reasonable and fair manner, even given that nothing is ever perfect, then don’t question your motives, the choices that the group you represent made, and don’t scramble to adjust or start over. You can still sympathize with how other people feel about what happen, acknowledge their frustration over what they wanted, but that’s different from letting it erode your confidence in your work or your good intentions.

Second, try to keep in mind that you’re really the proxy and communications point for a group effort, even if you are driving it. So the criticisms are not really about your personally, they are about a group effort and you’re just the focal point. Try to hear it in that context, as the Minister of Culture talking to the citizens of the fine country of Farktography. Any legit concerns that come out of those exchanges just needs to get relayed back to the parliament for discussion, it’s not personal.

Finally, if the comment ever do cross the line, get personal, are factually inaccurate, or questions you (or your teams) integrity, just let the person know that’s not acceptable and refuse to engage on that level. You may have signed up to do a lot of hard work, which has been exceptional IMO, but it’s unfair to have to put up with abuse in the process. So draw a boundary that allows you to continue driving this fantastic project without absorbing too much stress or misdirected hostility and be honest when people when they cross that line.

[Choc-Ful-A]

FWIW, the Fark website is unreachable from my home (Comcast SF area) and from the ISP hosting my website either. There’s no info posted on the http://beerspill.fark.com/ site yet and no Twitter updates either.

[Choc-Ful-A]

I wonder how many other people people’s votes were lost because of a different definition of “waterscape” than the description offered. It definitely didn’t say anything about picture orientation. My non-lake-folsom pictures were 10x more original than 90% of the entries (which doesn’t make them better, but should have made them worthy of some thought) and were well executed. Not to say they should have been contest winners, but they were interesting dammit. The algae closing behind the ducks as they swim? Tiny cliffs? Nobody else did anything like it that I noticed. It’s sad to me to think they were blown off because of the formatting when the contest definition defined waterscapes as a a large expanse of water, water being the prominent feature. Oh well, so be it. I’m not pissed off, just kind of bummed.

Trying to figure out why voting works out the way it does for a Farktography contest is a great way to drive yourself crazy. It’s even less predictable then the Fark Photoshop contests, and that’s saying something… I gave up trying to figure out what happened afterwards and 99% of the time post the photos I like the best and don’t worry about it. I find I enjoy the process much more as a result.

And for what it’s worth, I voted for all three of yours. The algae and tiny cliffs precisely because they were creative and stretched the theme.

[Choc-Ful-A]

I love this theme, can we do it again next week? 🙂 There’s an overwhelming amount of great photos in the contest, so b-sides seem pointless. But I had trouble picking so I wanted to at least post the “almost chose it” ones here.

Crystal Springs Resevoir

Alternate Waddell Beach shot

Marin County Lighthouse

[Choc-Ful-A]

Update on layout: http://www.kestrana.com/Farkbookv2.pdf

I love, love, LOVE the sample layouts. Fantastic work!

[Choc-Ful-A]

If anyone else (or you) is willing to help, I have a longer list of the non-regular players that need to be tracked down as well if you want to check their fark files for me.

I’m willing to help look through Fark profiles to see if there are e-mail address you can use. Feel free to post the login names or e-mail me a list and I’ll grind through them.

[Choc-Ful-A]

Anyone know if any of these people’s fark handles match up to a different user on farktography.net or want to claim them (sorry if I don’t know who you are)?

continental_sausage
DARkNikon
Didgeridon’t
dompydude
hackhix
JohnBEsq
keerok35
laststarfighter
MaestroBen
myzdoxae
New Age Redneck
Queen Mab
ratty20
southernbelladonna

Would Drew have their email addresses from them signing up for fark? He may not be allowed to give them to us but you could probably give Drew the list and the email thats being sent out and have him or one of the fark mods email them.

I found some e-mail addresses by checking the Fark profiles of the people listed above. It’s not all of them, but in case it helps, here’s what I see (and I have no special priv’s, this should be visible to any of you with a Fark login). So I don’t think I’m posting anything you can;t get yourself, meaning no privacy issues here as far as I can tell.

southernbelladonna – south?er?nbel?lado?nn?a@totalphark.com

hackhix – hack?hix@gmail.com

Didgeridon’t – cindijaco?by?@gmail.com

DARkNikon – L9?8m?ute?l@sbcglobal.net

continental_sausage – chris@acm-media.com

I had to type the domain names since the Fark HTML for profile pages makes cutting and pasting, uh, tricky.

PS – Got my PM about being included, I’m flattered/excited, send back my e-mail as requested and will look for hi-res versions tonight. Yay!

[Choc-Ful-A]

There’s a whole bunch I would have liked to vote for but voting wasn’t enabled, like Choc-Fil-A’s 3rd picture

Got that one envotinated. Any others that I’m missing?

OK, three posts in a row from me means I’m having “one of those days”. Thanks for fixing my goof Elsinore! I’m going to walk away from the keyboard slowly now… 🙂

[Choc-Ful-A]

There’s a whole bunch I would have liked to vote for but voting wasn’t enabled, like Choc-Fil-A’s 3rd picture

Ugh, that was a mistake! Can I get a vote enabled tweak please?

PS – Thanks for the compliment, it’s even better than a vote!

Hmmm… Things are odd in the InterTubes today, it shows as vote enabled for me now.

[Choc-Ful-A]

There’s a whole bunch I would have liked to vote for but voting wasn’t enabled, like Choc-Fil-A’s 3rd picture

Ugh, that was a mistake! Can I get a vote enabled tweak please?

PS – Thanks for the compliment, it’s even better than a vote!

[Choc-Ful-A]

Soooooo, for those of us that are easily confused by shiny objects, what are the rules this week?

I’m happy to follow any model this time (or any time) but I can’t tell what it is from reading the comments posted. 🙂

[Choc-Ful-A]

For what it’s worth, from PSAEF discussions of the topic, the guideline I’ve heard goes something like, “brown poo is not allowed, white poo is OK”. Meaning, take all the bird guano you like, but no mammal (or other brown) poo.

[Choc-Ful-A]

Also are you guys ok with me pushing this forward? It would be nice to have everybody saying “yeah let’s do this” even if you don’t have the time/energy/motivation to do more than sign the piece of paper letting us use your photographs. Conversely, is anyone downright against this and doesn’t want to be included?

I would love to see this move forward and would be happy to participate however we structure the book. I don’t know what, if anything, I can do to help. But I’ll read all the comments posted here and give opinions are requested at a minimum.

[Author]

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