I’d like to post a public response to the emails that have flooded my inbox overnight. The common theme was my absence from the platform and my lack of moderation had caused people to leave.
All noted and all points made have been taken onboard.
This forum usually manages to police itself (for which I am grateful) as I can not be watching this 24x7 every day.
I recently took a few days out to myself after a major behind-the-scenes project to move away from a UK datacentre who had increased their charges a number of times since end of last year. I simply can not pass these massive increases to advertisers or sponsors so we have rebuilt this literally from the ground up.
It was started on 4th August at 2am and completed on August 24th at 4am in the UK and most of you didn’t notice - that was the plan and it worked.
What didn’t work was the moderation of this forum during this period. Disqus, as many of you know, has never been embraced by me.
It was not designed as a photo gallery but in general it has allowed some amazing captures as we have a truly “follow-the-sun” audience who can capture things as most of us are asleep.
We have a community who use the platform for comfort in their lives and this was one of the main reasons for keeping this platform alive over the last few challenging years and especially important during the pandemic crisis points.
Let me be clear (as our politicians are always saying)…
I do wish you to continue posting images but less is certainly more. Landscape better and please no cropping as Disqus already messes with the quality.
A few awesome shots are so appealing compared to a massive dump…so to speak.
People come and go as is the nature of the internet and our short attention spans however the beauty of the dramatic Shetland coastline continues and there are always new people who join the community.
I am always personally saddened when people who were regular contributors depart. Sadly, we have also lost people to natural causes along the way too and it is often a moment for me to reflect.
Can I please have one last gasp attempt at trying to get everyone to think before you post - that is all I ask.
In return I will try to be a bit better with moderation and as a result of this please do not be offended if your post disappears or you have a period where all your posts are manually moderated by me before appearing.
As I say…I don’t watch the forum all the time so it might be a while before your posts are approved. There have been so many posts recently I am losing the ability to keep up as there are so many images I need to trawl through and I rarely get down to the basement.
I have asked our Development Team to reset the Disqus forum as a way of drawing a line under this unfortunate and self-inflicted issue.
Once again….sorry.
Andy
