At the excellent site dpreview there are discussion forums with some very knowledgeable people who can help you with hints to get better photos and advice when it comes to cameras, lenses, tripods and so on.
However, not everyone at the forums is knowledgeable. Just like many other mildly moderated internet forums, it has its share of space wasters. The remedy at DPReview is the wonderful Ignore User button. If you click on that one for a user, all his/her entries will be collapsed to just a title. In addition, threads that are started by ignored users are greyed out and shown at the bottom of the forum overview.
The tricky thing is how to choose which users you should ignore. It depends entirely on what kind of posts you want to read, of course, but if you want some inspiration, these are some of the rules I apply to determine whom to ignore:
However, not everyone at the forums is knowledgeable. Just like many other mildly moderated internet forums, it has its share of space wasters. The remedy at DPReview is the wonderful Ignore User button. If you click on that one for a user, all his/her entries will be collapsed to just a title. In addition, threads that are started by ignored users are greyed out and shown at the bottom of the forum overview.
The tricky thing is how to choose which users you should ignore. It depends entirely on what kind of posts you want to read, of course, but if you want some inspiration, these are some of the rules I apply to determine whom to ignore:
- People who ask for rumours, like "how many pixels do you think cameras will have next year?"
- People who give overly definite answers: "You will never need more than 10 megabytes." "That camera (lens, printer, computer, motorcycle...) is simply useless."
- People who think everyone else is just like them: "Carrying 15kg of camera gear wherever you go may seem heavy to start with, but you'll soon get used to it."
- People who use swearwords. (I do not mind swearwords actually. It just seems to be a very strong correlation between people who swear in writing and people who are space wasters.)
- People who use the expressions like "lol" or "awesome". (Same thing as swearwords. The words should be allowed, but a lot of the people who use them in writing are space wasters.)
- People who claim to already know the strong and weak points of new cameras before the camera is actually released.
- People who start off-topic threads. "I hate the parking facilities at Best Buy. Don't you?"
- People who try to start brand wars. "I heard that Nikon has much better zoom lenses than Canon. Why do you think that is?"
- People who are wrong. "Increase the shutter speed to get brighter pictures."
There are some things that do not trigger my Ignore User button - perhaps surprisingly.
- Beginners asking for trivial advice. Most questions, no matter how trivial, can generate some interesting answer from people who know the subject well.
- People who write lengthy essays as answers. A good answer is usually just a few lines, but sometimes a writer with a lot of experience has a lot of interesting things to say.
- People who claim film is and always will be superior to digital. I do not think film is inherently superior to digital, but the arguments for film are often varied and interesting, and they may make you think about how you take digital photos.
- People who feed the trolls. If one person trolls with some idiotic opinion, and another person insists on trying to rebut the idiotic opinion, it may seem logical to ignore both writers to avoid long uninteresting threads. Indeed, I often ignore both of them, but it is not automatic. Both writers have to show individually that they are time wasters before I ignore them. Sometimes a very sensible writer falls into the trap of feeding the troll, and it would be a pity to lose his input in other areas.
The last rule I apply is not to follow any rule blindly. Every now and then, I read what ignored users write to see if it has some value. In most cases it does not, but there are exceptions, and then I usually gnore (un-ignore) the writer.
