I’ve attended quite a few of Photographic sites and I’ve observed the same kind of behaviours among members. People are the same everywhere and in any nation of the world…

Sit-backers

Do you know what a sit-backer is? It’s a member who posts a photo and then sit back in his/her chair in front of the computer and waits… waits for other people to comment/vote his/her photo. The sit-backer is never the first to comments other photos. He/she is either a very proud person who thinks is below him/her to take the initiative or a very lazy person. Probably the two… (:-)
Sometimes when I see that a site is very slow I have the tendency to sit back too…

The over enthusiast

Fantastic! Great! Amazing photo! Wonderful! I’m sure you all have received this kind of comments. Often I find this kind of comments below mediocre photos..

The over enthusiast could be simply a person who has no fantasy or no linguistic skill, or just a kid who only knows 500 words of his/her own language. Often he/she is not capable of assessing properly a photo so uses superlatives. Sometime and for some people it could be flattering and ego-boosting to receive those superlatives but any decent people after a while get bored of them. They don’t say anything about the features of the photos and why looks fine. Composition, sharpness, colours, light, content, perspective, graphism, etc, are unknown words for these people who never read anything about what’s in a photo.

But often in all the sites the over enthusiast is someone who is hunting for votes, likes or favs, or simply comments. He/she knows that flattering the others he/she will get comments or votes in return. Sooner or later we learn to spot these people and we don’t get fooled by their superlatives… (:-)

A click is enough

No time to waste, I’m a busy person so I just click the “like” or “fav” button. Who has never done that? OK, sometimes is understandable, we’ve had a tiring day at the office and no decent comment comes out of our heads..

Adding a person to his/her favourites or contacts

It sounds a nice thing to do, especially when one is a new comer but experience taught me that it may not be a sign that they like your photos. A lot of people set me in their contacts/favourites by their own initiative and never voted or commented a single photo of mine. At the beginning I was puzzled about that but after a while I understood what’s was behind that supposedly offer of friendship: it’s just a way to attract your attention to them so that you vote or comment them first. They are a variety of the first category: the sit-backers; only they are more cunning.

When I first registered in this site I was immediately added in someone contacts and so asked to do the same. I wrote a short message to the person saying that being new I needed some time to evaluate the site and the relationship with the other members and that I was used to add someone in my contacts only when that relationship was already established: i.e. I liked his/her photos and she/he liked mine. The person, needless to say, never replied to this message and never commented a photo of mine.

Running alone

In some sites there are plenty of them, I don’t know here – I still don’t have enough experience. The lone runner never comments or votes anyone. (Or nearly so) He/she simply posts her/his photos and keep on going without turning back. It fails me why these people chose to post their images in a photographic community. I hope someday one of those will be kind enough to explain it to me.