Comments I Missed

I've been off my game lately. Here, remedially, are some comments to recent posts that I meant to publish but didn't.

About the Vocal Range video, from Doug Anderson: "There is an important vocal range missing from the video. Just as baritones (like me) are those men who can not reach either the lowest notes of the bass range or the highest notes of the tenor range, mezzo sopranos are those women who can not reach either the lowest notes of the alto range or the highest notes of the soprano range. Baritones and mezzo sopranos are the most common vocal ranges of men and women, respectively."

Comment: Thanks for this clarification. I assume the guy making the video is a member of an a cappella group and was either concentrating on the normal makeup of a cappella groups generally or maybe just his own. But I don't know.

About watching the Wimbledon Final, from James Weekes: "1. I am really sorry that you missed it. A match for the ages. Well worth finding online and watching [assuming I can find the time —MJ]. 2. Have you explored ways to stream events like this? I'm pretty sure that it would have been possible, even up there in Possum Holler by the Lake. 3. The indoor version of tennis, better known as court tennis, is still being played in the U.S. and in England and, possibly, France. A good friend of mine, Haven Pell, is heavily involved and still plays at age 77. It is not played because of the cost of building a court. I grew up on Long Island and my father played in one of the remaining courts, Greentree. It is now idle. I also recommend you look up Haven's book on court tennis, Around the World in 50 Courts [link added by MJ]. Good fun. The game was invented by monks who strung a net across the interior court of their monastery. So there are windows and pitched roofs. I tried to play, having been a decent lawn tennis player, but I am left-handed and couldn't hit a decent serve."

Comment: Seems a bit like three-cushion billiards, which was one of the most popular sports in America in the 1920s and is now vestigial. It's fascinating to watch, though. At least to me.

About not watching television, by ritchie thomson: "Yes, some years ago I largely stopped watching film and TV. I maybe see two or three films/movies a year and then usually old ones. This was for two reasons. The primary being the formulaic and clichéd story lines and scripts (I wouldn't be surprised if we discover that AI has been churning out Hollywood scripts for several decades already). The secondary one was the routine depiction of explicit and sickening violence. I understand that video games take this even further. I know that many psychologist will say that this exposure doesn't lead to acts of violence (at least for most people), and that may be true, but surely at best it desensitises (people are no longer shocked by images which they should be shocked by), and at worst in infects their psyche. Images cant be unseen and come out in dreams and nightmares, thoughts, and feelings. We need international regulation of the internet, games,films and TV."

Comment: This reminds me of my decision when my son was very young to not allow him to watch TV. We watched an episode of Wheel of Fortune, a game show, and, during the half hour, saw seven guns, and saw or heard about four murders and one rape: the murders were in advertisements for TV shows that would be on later, and the rape, which was the worst of all, was an advertisement for the local news program! It actually featured a 911 call by the victim screaming and begging for help. Of the five portrayals of violence during that innocuous game show, it was the worst, disturbing even to me. Awful. So that was it. Until he was five or six, Xander watched only videos of movies for kids on the VCR. And I'm not saying children as young as five or six should watch violence, but there comes a time when you can't protect them from it.

Very curious thing about the Mennonites and Amish around here: they've never been subjected to fictional depictions of violence.

About cameras we missed, by nextSibling: "I prevaricated over getting a [Ricoh] GRIII for quite a while. Wasn't sure if I could justify the cost for a viewfinderless APS-C camera. Having had one about a year I wouldn't be without it and it's by far my most used camera because it's so easy to set up just how I like and to carry and use, and produces images of such lovely quality that such a small camera has no business making but somehow does. So now I'm just another fanboi. Recommend you try it if you get a chance sometime."

Comment: I've heard comments like this for years! Certain cameras are more beloved by users than you would guess, and certain others are less well liked than one would guess. The GR series is in the former category.

About me taking time out to work on my book, by Keith Cartmell: "Writing can be a very circular or recursive process. In order to write it, you have to know the story, and in order to know the story you have to write it. Many writers like doing the first draft. They flail away, putting in everything that comes to mind. They don't care about spelling or grammar or plot holes or anything. They barf it all out onto the page. Then they revise, (and revise and revise and revise) which typically means fixing things and boiling the words away, till you have the exact number of words to tell the story, and not one more or less. It is entirely possible to write it out so you know how it ends and who does what to who, and how, and this version is essentially an unreadable mess. Which is fine. Then you take the same material, and write the actual story."

Comment: I seem to do exactly that with every chapter! Write it once, then throw all that out and write it again like I know what I'm doing.

About the 'Mennonite Boys' photo by David Drake: "Mike, I really like his image! Such a great mood you have captured. The image reminds me of ET or Close Encounters. The two kids on bikes (of course from ET) looking up at those glowing orbs of light. I love mysterious images like this!" 

Comment: That's very nice, and thanks to you and to others such as Lisa O. for the kind compliments.

About the "enshittification" of the Web, by Geoff Wittig: "It's very much worth digging further into your quote above from The Verge. That link in turn links to a brilliant analytic article by Cory Doctorow detailing the 'Enshittification' of TikTok. Doctorow uses 'enshittification' as a technical term. In my humble opinion, he nails what's wrong with web platforms from Google to Amazon to Twitter, and the problem is most definitely not the rise of AI.

"Rather, it's the depressing inability of the owners of these platforms to resist the gravitational pull of terminal greed. He plots their identical trajectory from creating a useful function, attracting a critical mass of users to that function, and linking their users to eager marketers and advertisers. This is followed by a pivot away from providing a function toward feeding their users to their marketers, intentionally corrupting their searches to prioritize the desires of their advertisers, and strip-mining users by selling their data. Doctorow notes that the owners carefully judge how aggressively they can abuse their own users without quite inflicting enough pain to drive them to flee the platform. All so depressingly accurate."

Comment: Very astute like most all of your comments, Geoff, and spot on...unfortunately.

Thanks to all these commenters!

How such great comments get lost is that when I moderate comments late at night when I'm tired, I reserve certain ones to "Feature," but I don't edit them and load them into the post right then because I'm too tired—and then I don't get back to it the next morning as I mean to do. In other words, SNAFU.

I'm not trying to make excuses, but it's not entirely my fault. People complain that comments don't appear quickly enough, but that's partly (only partly) because comments don't come in as quickly as they used to. It used to be that every post on TOP would get a lot of comments right away, so I developed a workflow of putting up a new post in the morning and then, directly afterwards, doing the Featured Comments for the previous day's post. If a great comment came in later, I might add it to the Featured Comments if it was really good—or I might not. Many readers aren't looking for updated comments for older posts, so, when posting Featured Comments late, there's less benefit for readers in general.

Now, however, more and more readers are checking in with TOP at longer intervals, meaning that comments come in more slowly, and great comments can arrive three, four, or even more days after the post is published. Some of these are so good that I reserve them for use as "Featured Comments," but if I don't publish them right away (because it's late and I'm tired) they're outside of my usual workflow and it's easy for them to get overlooked.

I just haven't quite worked out how to handle this yet, is all. I will point out that a daily blog with moderated and Featured comments like this one is a lot to handle, and also that I'm still using a workflow that I developed when a.) I had more energy, and b.) I worked more hours. I'll keep working on this, and thinking about solutions.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Richard Parkin: "Maybe comments are dwindling because they don’t get posted quickly or not at all. It’s a negative feedback loop I think. That will never improve, as you acknowledge in this post I think, unless you change the method of posting or editing comments."

Comments

[Keith Cartmell]

I had wondered if my comment had been eating by internet trolls. But I get it now that I see what you said about workflow.

I don't get many comments on my blog, and moderating is easy. But what I do periodically is respond to the comments in a blog of their own. Maybe something similar would work for you. A really good comment comes along a bit after the blog post is published, drop it into a draft blog, and comment on it. Do that till enough come that it's worth hitting the publish button.

[Robert Roaldi]

We've been going round and round on whether TV/film violence breeds violence seemingly forever. Of course there's no direct 1-to-1 relationship but if we were not affected by what we see, the advertising industry would not exist, would it.

I'm so tired of moronic public "debates" that always seem to end up at "Is it this or is it that?" as if the extremes are the only choices when pretty much everything we ever do is grey.

[Richard Tugwell]

FWIW, I check in with TOP less frequently precisely BECAUSE comments aren't updated regularly. I.e you get fed up checking in regularly when you suspect there will be nothing new to see.

To be honest, you should have some kind of model where regular contributors don't need to be moderated. If they transgress, you can always suspend them

[Jeff]

I think the comment moderation issues stem in part from your more recent topic selection (broad ranging), and from the frequency of posts. I lost count, but after July 4th until earlier this week, I think I counted something like 9 out of 10 of the subsequent posts unrelated to photography directly, albeit interesting and thought provoking topics. And since these were published daily, or close to it, readers barely had time to shift gears and formulate comments.

I mentioned a few months ago that I thought TOP was evolving into a more general blog, although still with an emphasis on photography. Maybe you might consider spreading out your posts over a longer period, and concentrating more on topics directly related to photography. This would give more time for you and readers to engage in discussion before moving to the next post, and without bouncing around so much between subjects.

This is, after all, The Online Photographer, not “Mike Johnston’s Daily Journal.” Unless of course you prefer it that way. You’re the boss; although a seemingly frustrated one.

[Grant]

My name is Grant and I'm a linkaholic. The links that both you and the commenters provide take me down many endless rabbit holes.

Right now I'm further behind than you are. Can anybody tell me how the 9 of clubs gets to where the 9 of clubs gets to?

[James]

Yes, it is possible to get on streaming. But now streaming is more like cable was, where you have to buy a whole bunch of stuff you don't want with the stuff you do, and with commercials to boot (at least, it is basically impossible to escape them for live sports) You can cancel after a month more easily, I suppose.

Among the majors, the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open are on ESPN, which only comes as part of an expensive bundle.

The French Open is on Peacock, which you can get by itself. And as for unforgettable tennis, the French Open semifinal between Djokovic and Alcaraz was much, much better tennis for three sets. Then Alcaraz had cramps, and it became very bad tennis. Alcaraz couldn't move, and Djokovic stopped having to try.

[c.d.embrey]

You're blog your rules. You can change them 🤔

[MikeR]

I had to smile at "Possum Holler."

Where I live in SE PA, in a Philly exurb, there's a Possum Hollow Rd near a large outlet mall. And very close to where I live, there's an Opossum Lane that leads to Woodchuck Lane and Pheasant Alley. Oh, and we're adjacent to the county park, with a large lake.

[Terry Letton]

I don’t mean this as a criticism, just an observation. I think the late commenting you speak of is a reflection of the phenomenon of posts sitting stagnant at the top of the blog, often for several days. When new content is posted regularly (daily?) there is more incentive to post a comment quickly lest it become old news. I know that I am more likely to consider a comment several days after the original post than I used to. Whether that is a problem is for you to figure out. As my grandmother used to say, it’s your little red wagon.

[Steve C]

Thanks for highlighting these, Mike.

Geoff and Corey's are right that the huge, underlying driver of enshittification is the advertising business model. Early on, we assumed that the algorithmic feed and programmatic advertising would deliver content that we "like", paid for by ads we actually want to see.

Sometimes it works that way, but at the macro scale, what grabs attention isn't the stuff we like. Our attention systems are evolutionarily primed to detect threat and prevent loss, so what consumes us are the things that make us upset, angry, anxious, or othered; and the ads we get are a function of who wants to pay the most to get their message in front of us., and the ads we're most likely to "convert" on (buy from) are the ones we're most likely to impulse-buy.

When private platforms IPO, the investor class that buys tech stocks for their growth potential demand it. From that point forward the race to achieve ever more scale is forever on.

It's not all bad (most platforms and networks still have amazing niches — to greater or lesser degrees) and there are other models (user pays). The challenge there is providing enough of any thing that's good enough to keep enough subscribers subscribed.

Nothing lasts, and the great majority of our suffering comes from wishing that it would.

[Helcio J. Tagliolatto]

Excellent comments!
Everything on this site is top-notch, and it consoles me to know that the procedure I adopted with my children about watching TV, criticized by my friends at the time, in the 1990s, has also been adopted by many readers of this blog, not to mention the creator himself :)

[Mark Sampson]

I'm an on-time reader and late commenter. My last three comments have not appeared. That's all right; you've other things to do, and my comments may not have been worthy. But I'll continue to post (as here) when I think that I have something to add. Keep up the good work!

[First of all, thank you for your mature and humane attitude. Much appreciated.

However, only one of your recent comments was not published: the one which began "I suspect that a news photographer at that time...". I have the ability to see a list of everyone's comments in order, most recent first.

Your impression may be correct, however, if for some reason your comments are not getting uploaded. For instance, if you write them but fail to send, of if you write them under the wrong post and then don't see them where you expect to see them. (I'm just guessing here, not saying you'd do those things.)

I posted the missing comment now! And, I offer my apologies for missing it. I've been very scattered these last few days, for what reason I do not know. --Mike]

[Richard Parkin]

I support Richard Tugwell’s comment that the solution to more timely posting of comments is to change your method. I don’t think “moderation” is your problem but your desire to “edit” the comments before publishing. It’s very laudable and what you do well but if it slows the commenting, and has a knock on effect of leaving you less time to write posts, it needs to change. I’ve no idea how Typepad works but I would have thought there’d be a method to whitelist some commenters (frequent/Patreon supporters/friends/etc) while holding back others for moderation. Unfortunately Typepad does not have a system that allows updated comments, as opposed to posts, to be detected by the likes of IFTTT — I know because I’ve checked.

[Richard Parkin]

I read the blog of your fellow pool enthusiast in Austin TX, when one posts a comment there it appears immediately. It may get deleted later if he gets upset and he sometimes turns off comments due to getting a lot of spam or trolling but I’ve only seen occasional spam comments so maybe Google is helping — it’s on Blogger.

[HaJe]

In my opinion Jeff has hit a nerve, at least partially. He mentions TOP evolving into a more general blog. As c.d.embrey said: "You're blog your rules. You can change them 🤔". Do so, if you want to write about other "interesting and thought provoking topics" than photography. You are of course under no obligation to write only about photography. However, your readership may not want to shift gears. Instead, they may not want to comment at all. It's not unreasonable to assume your readers come to read about photography. They would go elsewhere to read about plant-based diets or tennis. "More and more readers (...) checking in with TOP at longer intervals" may have to do something with that.

[Andrew Sheppard]

I think Jeff's comment might well be the most pertinent detail responsible for a drop in readership - 'I lost count, but after July 4th until earlier this week, I think I counted something like 9 out of 10 of the subsequent posts unrelated to photography...'.

This has been the case, maybe with a slightly different ratio but content-creep all the same, for quite some time - essentially since you retired to the woods to talk about pool (after talking about a larger house 'up North' allowing the taking on of an assistant [the original reason for house move, if I remember correctly] - hmm, what happened to that? It seemed to turn into an old house in the lakes with no assistant and no further mention of that idea pretty quickly). I subscribe to 'Black & White Photography' magazine in the UK, but if 9/10 articles were now about cookery, gardening, jogging and tennis, it would no longer be a photography magazine and they'd lose a subscriber - and I suspect I wouldn't be alone either. THAT would be the issue, way before being behind with comments about beans...

Please (please, please etc), photography brought us here, not horticulture and bar sports. If you want 'MikeJohnston.com' so you can talk about anything (maybe it's that your interest in photography as a subject area is waining?), create 'MikeJohnston.com' instead. At the moment the stray towards product description >cough< 'discrepancies' would be the problem. 'Just sayin', as you say.

[nextSibling]

No excuses needed. The quality of commentary here is a large part of what keeps me coming back. There's always plenty to explore in earlier posts so if the latest get a little delayed it's no big deal. I just wish I had more time to browse.

[Richard Parkin]

I’ve always held that there’s a distinction between “online photographer” and “onlinephotography” that justifies your “off-topic” posts but I don’t think many of your readers see it that way. Your posts about food nearly always produce a comment thanking you for posting helpful stuff but I think that may mislead you into thinking they are generally popular. I’m glad you have found a diet and method of food preparation that suits you but for anyone who enjoys food and cooking the posts are of no interest. I don’t read any of your music posts and few of the snooker posts.
I think one answer may be to have a sectional format (like for example bythom.com) where the first is photography related and another is “lifestyle” (food, health, snooker, music).