600+ members on FOTR forum

[John Ashworth]

Today the FOTR forum passed another milestone when we activated our 600th member. It's difficult to say exactly who was the 600th as I activated 3 at the same time today, giving a total of 602, but a warm welcome to all of them.

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

We have come a long way!

I remember arguing that a Forum was a good idea - to a generally unconvinced audience at the time!

[John Ashworth]

We've noticed a bit of a decline in the number of posts over the last couple of months, despite the big increase in membership. Seems a lot of members read but don't post, which is fine, but it is in the interests of the forum to have as wide a spread of posts as possible, so get posting, folks! You'd be surprised how interested other members are in all aspects of railways, no matter how arcane.

[Stefan Andrzejewski]

I know our trains (Shos Meyl) have not been running, but the photo's have also dried up.

[John Ashworth]

True enough, Stefan. We've posted a lot of Nathan's recent photos of railways in Thailand/Cambodia and mine of railroads in USA, plus some old photos of steam in Sudan, but nothing new from South Africa. Where are our photographers?!

[Luca Lategan]

I know, they are all on the new Facebook group "SAR trainspotters"!

[John Ashworth]

Thanks, Luca. Interesting. I had no idea there was such a Facebook group, but then I don't use Facebook myself. I hope the FOTR Forum will continue to provide a niche for those of us (of whom there are many) who don't dabble in Facebook, and of course our Forum's remit goes far beyond "SAR trainspotting" into all corners of the world and all facets of railways.

[Steve Appleton]

I was signed up a few weeks ago to that facebook channel by someone (can't remember who). Initially my email inbox was flooded with notices of new picture uploads, too many to follow and look at each and every pic - actually I could not look at the pics at the office anyway, because corporate/IT policy has access to facebook blocked here. Since that initial flurry I have noticed a drop off in postings to that facebook channel too. Perhaps there are only so many unique pics one can take of trains in SA before the subject becomes repetitive and boring. Perhaps the mere act of selecting, resizing, captioning pics becomes a chore after a while. Perhaps after a while, photographers exhaust the contents of their collections.

Whilst the FOTR forum has captured a very large number of pics over the time it has been operational, it was never really designed (or envisaged) as a picture library; certainly not on the scale it has become. The PHP Bulletin Board software is designed as a subject- and topic-driven, word-based medium permitting attachments like pictures and documents. This index-less, thumbnail-less format does not lend itself particularly well to finding specific pictures nor to easy picture browsing. I know because I have tried to find odd pics I know are in the forum, but without success - then I have come across them later by accident whilst browsing for something else. As a result of this deficiency, maybe some photographers have become wary of the less that optimum exposure their pics will get in here.

I personally still prefer the best site of them all, Railpictures.net, which is mounted on a picture-centric web application and which, through its stiff selection policies, only boasts top quality pics. This reduces the clutter and eliminates mediocrity. A nice platform for the viewer but perhaps not so nice for the start-out photographer who is trying to get his efforts noticed.

By being non-descriminatory, this FOTR forum has freely hosted pics by new and arguably less skillful amateur photogs with low-rent equipment, in the process providing a free platform not only to the unusual and to the mundane, but also some very significant and interesting pics. This forum also hosts some stunning pics taken by experienced railway photographers that serve as models for newbies to aspire to.

Perhaps we need to re-evaluate this forum's relevance to pictures and maybe think about installing a proper picture library application to host them.

What say you, the forum members? Your comments and suggestions would be welcome.

[Luca Lategan]

I agree with you, Steve, there are about four relatively active Facebook groups at the moment about more or less the same subject, although some might cater more for the older, Afrikaans users, another for specifically steam and yet another, the new one for supposed SAR-trainspotters.

Although all of them have their merits, it's difficult to follow them all and there is only so much photo's of an 18E you can bear...

On the other hand, the FOTR forum has become quite active on a number of very different, yet interesting rail related topics, including photos and the associated comment they might stir. I don't know about the other users, but I feel that the internet speed (and cost) in South Africa has evolved well enough during the last 3/4 years to allow for a greater number of people better access to bandwidth extensive applications like photos and to some extent low-res videos. Hopefully in another 3/4 years newly introduced competition and bandwidth expansions will allow for the timely transfer of HD videos to our part of deepest, darkest Africa as well :)

Unfortunately the current PHP software doesn't really cater for 'photo albums' and the easy uploading of photos (perhaps small java programs that are stored on the computer and automatically reduce the resolution and size (compression ratio) of the photos / videos being uploaded). If another solution is available to solve these issues, it will be marvellous!

[Ian Roberts]

I am on Facebook, but only as a means of keeping up with children and grandchildren scattered over the world.
I find it is almost impossible to recover any history and is just useful as a immediate source of recent news.
The various forums are more to my liking, although they can, if poorly moderated, give rise to flame wars.
I think an album for photos would be useful, although sometimes the photos in with the text are useful in giving bettercontext than the album format.

[Derek Walker]

I saw there was a trainspotters group on FB, but I have been having problems cross posting my images to various groups on FB so will probably stop posting pics up there unless its for my own use. By the same token I like a forum style system like FotR uses because of the reference material I have found on it, ease of use, and a lack of useless spam ads. I do tend to think we should start some sort of library of at least 1 pic of each class of loco/wagon etc, but it may not work that easy on this format board, plus I know bandwidth is a problem.
I have my own foto gallery hosted at fotopic where I keep a lot of my pics which I use because a php or open source based one that came with my domain had a nasty tendency to die and it could never be fixed. I see quite a few members use the same facility.
I also have my own webpage where I stash a lot of pics which I may need for some sort of explanation or theme. Bandwidth on that one is cheap so I can load it down with goodies.
One of the reasons I do like the FotR forum is the lack of flame wars and the very good info that comes out of it. And its true, the posts have dried up lately, but it could be that there is so little active material to photograph and discuss out there. But I suspect there is also a seasonality about these things. A few suggestions is to really push that Photograph of the Month, and look at some of the more quiet sections of the board and try to push them a bit, that railway modelling section would be great to expand upon, and maybe we should start looking at how people like Steamtube runs their site, there is a lot of good material there, especially in the video side of things.
However, the one thing not to loose sight of is that this forum is very much to do with "Friends of the Rail" the organisation, and the trick is to find a way to keep one eye on that and have everything else not so much as a sideline, but as a way to inject new members.
I will root around amongst some of my other more obtuse things and see what I can add. I havent been posting much in the line of pics myself because realistically I dont have too much new to add that somebody else hasnt already photographed better than I have.

[Stefan Andrzejewski]

I agree , the Face Book page is like a photo journal where a forum is a discussion point on various topics relating to Railways in general. I have learned a huge amount about Railways, Locomotives. South Africa in particular. The way you run FOTR in Pretoria. Here in Cape Town we are struggling to get off the ground because of red tape. Our Class 24 and volunteers are ready to run. I am afraid that the enthusiasm will diminish if nothing happens soon.

[Andreas Umnus]

I didn't visit this forum some weeks because I had holiday and when I returned I was surprised that there were only two or three new postings in the South Africa diesel and electric section each. That was really not much.
But I hope that now where you have almost summer new pictures will come especially in these parts of the forum.

Derek wrote: " I havent been posting much in the line of pics myself because realistically I dont have too much new to add that somebody else hasnt already photographed better than I have. "

Maybe more of the photgraphers think that way and that maybe might be the reason that here so less new pictures in the forum? Maybe you should post your older pictures too.

I posted today new pictures I took while my last holyday in South Africa. I for myself decided already last year to post not too much of my few South African railway pictures in a short time (like Steve mentioned in his post about facebook) because I want to share the less pictures I have over a longer time with you.

Forget to ask: Is there no picture of the month for October?

A second edit: What Steve wrote about Railpictures.net is true. I also tried sometimes to publish some pictures there. - All pictures I send them were declined. It is really not easy to get a chance to share the pictures there with the world.

[Dylan Knott]

I am admin for the Facebook pages. Its a great way to communicate and share info. Most people prefer FB as you can comment on photos etc.
Having said that I check this forum as often as I check FB. I would prefer photos on here as they are of far better resolution.
Yes, have noticed a lack of posts and very few photos on here.
Perhaps we should encourage members to post anything and everything to do with railways! My interest ranges from points locks to the massive Class 39 Diesel-Electrics.

[John Ashworth]

Andreas - good point about old pictures. Apart from being interesting, they are part of history.

Responsibility for picture of the month seems to have passed to Stefan...