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Author Topic: What happened?  (Read 30052 times)

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« Reply #50 on: February 26, 2014, 08:25 »
+3
The vast majority of the criticism I saw was purely destructive, and in no way meant to help. It was based in slandering, lies and misinformation.
It makes no difference. There are always going to be disagreements. You cannot blame people with different opinions for you not doing a thing. You should treat all criticism as positive.

Look at other open source projects. If people are going to learn from this then they need to start defining their goals and sketching out a roadmap. Then you need to look at what issues need to be solved, how you can get people with the right skills involved, how much funding the thing needs and how you can raise that funding. Instead of blaming one or two people for falling out on a forum.

if the thing is serious then take it seriously. Pick up what Leo has started and make it into something. And don't hang on to anything you have so far including existing code - treat that as maybe the beta.


Goofy

« Reply #51 on: February 26, 2014, 09:33 »
+4
:)



Your idea of value and mine are two different things. But thanks for affirming my decision that i am better off elsewhere. I already knew it, tho.  ;)

Hasta la vista, baby

« Reply #52 on: February 26, 2014, 09:48 »
-6
:)



Your idea of value and mine are two different things. But thanks for affirming my decision that i am better off elsewhere. I already knew it, tho.  ;)

Hasta la vista, baby


Not going anywhere.  :)  Just not using SY software.


Many issues related to SY are relevant to other wordpress sites.
« Last Edit: February 26, 2014, 09:51 by cathyslife stockphotos.com »

« Reply #53 on: February 26, 2014, 09:58 »
+11
Hasta la vista, baby

I would suggest to ignore her. For some reason her personality needs this kind of attention. Why should we give her what she needs?

« Reply #54 on: February 26, 2014, 10:21 »
-11
Hasta la vista, baby

I would suggest to ignore her. For some reason her personality needs this kind of attention. Why should we give her what she needs?


Really? I would say the same about some of you people here. After all, what started this whole thread was a newsletter that went out to all SYers, then the removal of the SY forum, then leos big long post. I havent even been around much the past couple of weeks. I would say that it is someone else who requires the attention.


I am merely responding to the events, just like you all. Just not woo-yaying.
« Last Edit: February 26, 2014, 10:27 by cathyslife stockphotos.com »

« Reply #55 on: February 26, 2014, 10:40 »
+10
The vast majority of the criticism I saw was purely destructive, and in no way meant to help. It was based in slandering, lies and misinformation.
It makes no difference. There are always going to be disagreements. You cannot blame people with different opinions for you not doing a thing. You should treat all criticism as positive.

Look at other open source projects. If people are going to learn from this then they need to start defining their goals and sketching out a roadmap. Then you need to look at what issues need to be solved, how you can get people with the right skills involved, how much funding the thing needs and how you can raise that funding. Instead of blaming one or two people for falling out on a forum.

if the thing is serious then take it seriously. Pick up what Leo has started and make it into something. And don't hang on to anything you have so far including existing code - treat that as maybe the beta.

I agree with almost all of what you are saying here with a couple of exceptions. I am pleased that you realize that Symbiostock is a collection of individual sites. That seems to elude a lot of people. I grew up and was educated in a constructive criticism culture. It made me better and I fully understand its value. The problem here is you are mudding up the subject. What I am talking about is not constructive and the criticism was directed at an individual person, not the project. It is the equivalent of walking into a gallery, looking at a painting and then turning to the artist and saying "I don't like it, and you're fat!" The first part is OK the second part is not.

Leo is not Symbiostock. He was it's rocket fuel. About once a month he offered up some extremely useful piece of information or upgrade or the like. I am certain that a month from now a plug-in or some other useful thing would have appeared from him. My site works very well and will continue to do so for a long time. Nevertheless I am poorer and will make less sales because of his absence. Also indirectly you will be poorer too. Any method of contributors standing up together in a small way slows the abuse of the agencies. I know you know this, and perhaps your royalty rates will remain unchanged for a bit longer because of Symbiostock. Unfortunately probably not as long as they would have if Leo was still involved.

« Reply #56 on: February 26, 2014, 11:18 »
-11
If Leo is not SY, then it can continue on, hopefully to be something positive for all involved.


I never called Leo fat, but i most definitely criticized his sense of humor AS IT RELATES to web developing. He threatened to hack into peoples website and mess with them because they were "misbehaving". To me, thats not funny. At all. And that is a lot different than calling someone fat. I paid for software, and i dont want the developer threatening any kind of hacking. Thats just not cool.

« Reply #57 on: February 26, 2014, 11:21 »
+1
@chromaco i think you are much too much focused on personality clashes. Far too little focused on why some projects fail and others succeed. Exactly the same as the stupid personality driven arguments and protests about the stock agencies. But worse in some ways because nobody has moderated the thing or taken charge.

A project like this needs a development budget. And it needs developers. The people developing the project need direction - agreed strategies, common design policies etc. A plan.

Ask yourself whether as a business you would today commit to paying for services from the team behind Symbiostock so far. Where is the rest of the team? Who looks after versioning? Who speaks for the project ? What is the roadmap? How are decisions agreed? Who is in charge of communications, security etc?

This is all way more important surely than some forum argument. You've all had ages to start putting a team together and working on strategies.

ETA: sooner or later there will be a big issue and nobody on hand to fix it.

« Reply #58 on: February 26, 2014, 11:27 »
+12
If Leo is not SY, then it can continue on, hopefully to be something positive for all involved.


I never called Leo fat, but i most definitely criticized his sense of humor AS IT RELATES to web developing. He threatened to hack into peoples website and mess with them because they were "misbehaving". To me, thats not funny. At all. And that is a lot different than calling someone fat. I paid for software, and i dont want the developer threatening any kind of hacking. Thats just not cool.
No, you called him a liar, a cheat, a fraud, and a Ponzi schemer. I used the metaphor to avoid this exact discussion but alas like everything else you broke it down into irrelevant minutia. Perhaps Leo's sense of humor was ill conceived but I really don't understand your seemingly never ending ire towards what was in essence an act of altruism by him.

« Reply #59 on: February 26, 2014, 11:35 »
+1
@chromaco i think you are much too much focused on personality clashes. Far too little focused on why some projects fail and others succeed. Exactly the same as the stupid personality driven arguments and protests about the stock agencies. But worse in some ways because nobody has moderated the thing or taken charge.

A project like this needs a development budget. And it needs developers. The people developing the project need direction - agreed strategies, common design policies etc. A plan.

Ask yourself whether as a business you would today commit to paying for services from the team behind Symbiostock so far. Where is the rest of the team? Who looks after versioning? Who speaks for the project ? What is the roadmap? How are decisions agreed? Who is in charge of communications, security etc?

This is all way more important surely than some forum argument. You've all had ages to start putting a team together and working on strategies.

ETA: sooner or later there will be a big issue and nobody on hand to fix it.

Perhaps, but the misconception that this was a business is the problem. That was never the plan. The plan was to build a large network of sites, say 1000. At that point individual coders (including Leo) could write add ons and plugins. The idea was to create the market and then ultimately serve that market. Yes I think a smart businessman would see the logic in this plan. Ultimately this plan is still working. As far as no-one being around to fix-it that is not an issue. The question is whether people will be willing to pay for something that used to be free.

farbled

« Reply #60 on: February 26, 2014, 11:39 »
+5
@chromaco i think you are much too much focused on personality clashes. Far too little focused on why some projects fail and others succeed. Exactly the same as the stupid personality driven arguments and protests about the stock agencies. But worse in some ways because nobody has moderated the thing or taken charge.

A project like this needs a development budget. And it needs developers. The people developing the project need direction - agreed strategies, common design policies etc. A plan.

Ask yourself whether as a business you would today commit to paying for services from the team behind Symbiostock so far. Where is the rest of the team? Who looks after versioning? Who speaks for the project ? What is the roadmap? How are decisions agreed? Who is in charge of communications, security etc?

This is all way more important surely than some forum argument. You've all had ages to start putting a team together and working on strategies.

ETA: sooner or later there will be a big issue and nobody on hand to fix it.
While I agree with a little bit of this, where would the budget come from? The entire point of this was a guy who wanted to put something good out there for other people to have an alternative to the agencies. That he did it in the face of a lot of naysayers is remarkable.

I think Leo did an astounding job and the software itself is a work of art. I will be using it for a long time to come. On the network side, I just don't know. This thread alone shows everyone has wildly different ideas of what it should be. The good side of it is, its open source. The comments above could be easily implemented for a network if someone had the time and budget and interest. Nothing stopping them. Nothing stopping someone else doing it on a shoestring or for free. As well, I can start my own network and so can anyone else.

It seems like everyone is fixated on only one network. Why? I really don't get it? What if I use the software to sell music or other themes, or ebooks (it would certainly do that)? I'd want a different one and it would be up to me to create it. As it stands, if I had the time and knowledge I would very well consider building my own network for stock photo sales.

I am no where near as eloquent as Leo or Chromaco though, so I may be phrasing this poorly. But the gist is:

No one is stopping you or anyone else from realizing your own vision of what this should be.

« Reply #61 on: February 26, 2014, 11:47 »
-10
If Leo is not SY, then it can continue on, hopefully to be something positive for all involved.


I never called Leo fat, but i most definitely criticized his sense of humor AS IT RELATES to web developing. He threatened to hack into peoples website and mess with them because they were "misbehaving". To me, thats not funny. At all. And that is a lot different than calling someone fat. I paid for software, and i dont want the developer threatening any kind of hacking. Thats just not cool.
No, you called him a liar, a cheat, a fraud, and a Ponzi schemer. I used the metaphor to avoid this exact discussion but alas like everything else you broke it down into irrelevant minutia. Perhaps Leo's sense of humor was ill conceived but I really don't understand your seemingly never ending ire towards what was in essence an act of altruism by him.


Nope, those are your words. Seo is based on links to and from sites. The more links, the more advantages. A few in SY have a ton more links than most. No where in there did i use the words you are saying. That is you and your buds doing the name calling.


My never ending ire...i am merely defending myself, just like you. No ire. This board keeps getting bombed, after leo himself encouraged all to go over to the SY forum. Why do the bombs keep showing up here, why not over there? Im ok with it, i thought it kind of rude when people would ask questions here and get sent over there.

« Reply #62 on: February 26, 2014, 11:57 »
0
I will be using it for a long time to come. On the network side, I just don't know.

Software always needs to be developed maintained. Otherwise it inevitably quickly becomes incompatible - perhaps an issue with Paypal, or perhaps some php or Wordpress upgrade will break it. Or there will be some security issue. This always happens with software. It needs to be managed and monitored.

Well it might get to 1000 sites. But almost none of those sites will ever sell much at all. In which case what is the point ? Not unless the thing starts to look like a single destination with common branding. Because most of the portfolios are not strong enough, on their own, to be viable standalone sites. And unless the thing makes money there will be no economic incentive or momentum to support further development.

Sites which can do well without being part of a greater whole would have done well on any platform - including many which currently already look much better across many different devices etc.

« Reply #63 on: February 26, 2014, 12:05 »
+11
I stay with my opinion that Symbiostock is one of the best ideas that came up in the last years.

But of course, like all other software that has to work on so many different computers, there are problems showing up. When even the specialists at Microsoft are not able to solve all the problems with their software, what can be expected from others?
When searching the big plugin database of Wordpress you often see: (this number of) people say it works.(this number of)people say it doesnt  Nothing works for everyone , or works for everyone the same way, unless you use an Apple computer. Apple narrowed the use of hard and software to get stability at all circumstances. That is simply not possible when using Windows. Too much different hardware combinations and too much different software combinations. These days the stability of the software and hardware is already better then it ever was before.

Therefore, when website building isnt your specialism,  the best is to keep your Symbio website simple and cheap. At least for the moment. Over time there will come up a database with software and plugins that are proven to work well with each other. It is too early now for that.

The strength of Symbiostock is that everone is fully independent. You are the only one to choose what to do with it. Build a website or not, network or not, try to sell your work, or choose to only show your portfolio.
There was a problem with tax rules in the EU. It affected me too. In short time there will be a plugin for that. These crazy rules force people living in the EU to run a complete administration of their sales. Not every one likes to do that. You are free to choose  to do not. Also in some Eastern European countries it seems to be difficult to sell direct from your website. But in that situation you are still able to build and run a website of your own at low costs and with great seo. Some people choose to link to agencies like Alamy or Stocksy. Everyone who is not able to sell direct from his website can choose this path to get more visibility of his work. You are fully independent and free to make your own choices depending on your situation. Only future can tell what will come up next, people are endlessly creative!

What has be done in less then a year from scratch by only a few enthousiast people is unbelievable!
And what will happen when thousands of people over the whole world will pick up this idea and give it their own swing, no one can tell

Be pig-headed, dont listen to negatives, think out your own ideas and make your own choices!

When Symbiostock was like a young plant or tree, growing from one central point, it could be easily be broken at this stage, but just for the full freedom that everyone has worldwide to make his/her own choices and find his/her own way to work with it, it will be succesfull.

« Reply #64 on: February 26, 2014, 12:07 »
+4
I will be using it for a long time to come. On the network side, I just don't know.

Software always needs to be developed maintained. Otherwise it inevitably quickly becomes incompatible - perhaps an issue with Paypal, or perhaps some php or Wordpress upgrade will break it. Or there will be some security issue. This always happens with software. It needs to be managed and monitored.

Well it might get to 1000 sites. But almost none of those sites will ever sell much at all. In which case what is the point ? Not unless the thing starts to look like a single destination with common branding. Because most of the portfolios are not strong enough, on their own, to be viable standalone sites. And unless the thing makes money there will be no economic incentive or momentum to support further development.

Sites which can do well without being part of a greater whole would have done well on any platform - including many which currently already look much better across many different devices etc.

As Leo said above he "will maintain Symbiostock with every Wordpress release."

« Reply #65 on: February 26, 2014, 12:10 »
-2
As Leo said above he "will maintain Symbiostock with every Wordpress release."

And what if he decides to go on holiday for a few weeks and there is a significant security issue ?

Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #66 on: February 26, 2014, 12:20 »
+3

Nope, those are your words. Seo is based on links to and from sites. The more links, the more advantages. A few in SY have a ton more links than most. No where in there did i use the words you are saying. That is you and your buds doing the name calling.

You can call something a Ponzi scheme without actually using the words "Ponzi scheme."

"One only has to look at the massive amount of links the top few people have to your site in Webmaster Tools to see what is going on...It sounds an awful lot like just another internet scheme...get a whole bunch of people to do your selling for you so you can live off their backs."

That's a pretty clear description of a Ponzi scheme, IMO. Your words.

« Reply #67 on: February 26, 2014, 12:27 »
+1
You can call something a Ponzi scheme without actually using the words "Ponzi scheme."

Don't people understand that the more you blame and whine at each other the less likely it is that your project survives and prospers ?

It's as if you are deliberately avoiding the business and technical issues because bitching at each other is easier.

« Reply #68 on: February 26, 2014, 12:31 »
+7
Theres no shortage of troops to come in with the minuses, thats for sure! As for actually doing something constructive for the project, its much easier to blame someone else than to actually give up ones time or money to help out.  ;)

Cathy, I'm afraid you have really talked yourself out of the credibility of "actually doing something constructive". I'm beginning to suspect you really like the drama, and at any cost. We get it, you think SymbioStock is a failure. So come up with a solution because the minuses on your posts indicate people are tired of hearing the same old vitriol. Yes, when you post without thinking, I WILL vote your post down. Fortunately for your minuses I don't come here very often.

So I get your message. There is no need to keep on ....

farbled

« Reply #69 on: February 26, 2014, 12:33 »
+6
As Leo said above he "will maintain Symbiostock with every Wordpress release."

And what if he decides to go on holiday for a few weeks and there is a significant security issue ?

Well, anything could happen. What if he doesn't. What if someone else decides to improve the theme for themselves (again, open source). If Leo completely walked away tomorrow some of us could conceivably keep our own sites going and potentially release fixes. We could "what if" for everything. Being fair, Leo has demonstrated many times that he is conspicuously reliable in fixing anything that goes wrong.

Really, this whole thing seems to be two parts to me. The software, which seems after a full year of testing and improving, very stable. Certainly compared to other Wordpress themes I've used.

The other part is the network side. To be completely honest, I really have less interest in this side because my main niche doesn't really work with most of the other sites. So I'm happy to go alone. Also, sales are just one reason to have my portfolio on it's own website. I've gone over those a few times here in the forum and I stand by them. Even if I never recoup my (negligible) costs in setting it up, I'm happy to do it.


« Reply #70 on: February 26, 2014, 12:40 »
+21
As Leo said above he "will maintain Symbiostock with every Wordpress release."

And what if he decides to go on holiday for a few weeks and there is a significant security issue ?

And what if there's an earthquake and what if there's a flood and what if...

Clearly things can and do go wrong. The major "businesses" of our existing stock agencies have, with a few exceptions, had major software disasters (I'm thinking Fotolia V2.0, iStock's disambiguation after the Getty CV was introduced, most of iStock's "improvements" in search and every fall for the last several years at iStock) that rendered their site, slow, insecure, subject to credit card fraud (think that Christmas/New Year at iStock where no one was home for about 2 weeks).

These disasters happened with paid staff, corporate structure and in some cases parent companies with deep pockets.

What all the opining by those who don't have Symbiostock sites reminds me of is the type of comment and advice non-parents give parents about how they should be raising their kids. If only you do A, B and C, everything will turn out just fine. It's easy for them to say because other than being a kid, they have no experience on the subject - on the other side of the fence, as it were, as a parent.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but some are informed opinions and some are just hot air. Life is messy and sometimes you have to take that leap and give things a try - if I weren't willing to jump of a cliff now and then I wouldn't be married, I wouldn't have kids and I wouldn't have a Symbiostock site.

I'm well aware that everything could go tits up. I worked in software organizations for a lot of years and I understand most of the issues and risks involved. But listening to a bunch of know-it-alls sitting on the sidelines with nothing at stake just lobbing criticism and doom-and-gloom is irritating.

Let's just stipulate that the critics are wonderful sooth-sayers who have it all figured out and the rest of us with Symbiostock sites are the naive kids who just wont listen to your sage advice. You go and get on with whatever else  it is you have to do and let the rest of us work on our sites, or not, in peace.

Find someone else to bless with your great wisdom - please!

« Reply #71 on: February 26, 2014, 12:47 »
-8
You can call something a Ponzi scheme without actually using the words "Ponzi scheme."

Don't people understand that the more you blame and whine at each other the less likely it is that your project survives and prospers ?

It's as if you are deliberately avoiding the business and technical issues because bitching at each other is easier.


Yep.

« Reply #72 on: February 26, 2014, 12:51 »
-11

Nope, those are your words. Seo is based on links to and from sites. The more links, the more advantages. A few in SY have a ton more links than most. No where in there did i use the words you are saying. That is you and your buds doing the name calling.

You can call something a Ponzi scheme without actually using the words "Ponzi scheme."

"One only has to look at the massive amount of links the top few people have to your site in Webmaster Tools to see what is going on...It sounds an awful lot like just another internet scheme...get a whole bunch of people to do your selling for you so you can live off their backs."

That's a pretty clear description of a Ponzi scheme, IMO. Your words.


Good one Shelma. So you disagree with the statement that the more links a site has, the more seo advantages? And do you disagree with the statement that the more people recruited, the more links that means for those people? In a way, seo is pretty much a ponzi scheme (if thats what you say is a ponzi scheme). The games that have to be played to get any traction with seo is kind of a game.

« Reply #73 on: February 26, 2014, 12:55 »
-11
Theres no shortage of troops to come in with the minuses, thats for sure! As for actually doing something constructive for the project, its much easier to blame someone else than to actually give up ones time or money to help out.  ;)

Cathy, I'm afraid you have really talked yourself out of the credibility of "actually doing something constructive". I'm beginning to suspect you really like the drama, and at any cost. We get it, you think SymbioStock is a failure. So come up with a solution because the minuses on your posts indicate people are tired of hearing the same old vitriol. Yes, when you post without thinking, I WILL vote your post down. Fortunately for your minuses I don't come here very often.

So I get your message. There is no need to keep on ....


Dont care what you think. Who emailed the newsletter? Who posted the big long post with big giant type? You are mistaken, that wasnt me creating the drama. Yep, i will defend myself. Dont care about the minuses. Everyone knows the troops have been gathered once again.

« Reply #74 on: February 26, 2014, 13:00 »
-11
As Leo said above he "will maintain Symbiostock with every Wordpress release."

And what if he decides to go on holiday for a few weeks and there is a significant security issue ?

And what if there's an earthquake and what if there's a flood and what if...

Clearly things can and do go wrong. The major "businesses" of our existing stock agencies have, with a few exceptions, had major software disasters (I'm thinking Fotolia V2.0, iStock's disambiguation after the Getty CV was introduced, most of iStock's "improvements" in search and every fall for the last several years at iStock) that rendered their site, slow, insecure, subject to credit card fraud (think that Christmas/New Year at iStock where no one was home for about 2 weeks).

These disasters happened with paid staff, corporate structure and in some cases parent companies with deep pockets.

What all the opining by those who don't have Symbiostock sites reminds me of is the type of comment and advice non-parents give parents about how they should be raising their kids. If only you do A, B and C, everything will turn out just fine. It's easy for them to say because other than being a kid, they have no experience on the subject - on the other side of the fence, as it were, as a parent.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but some are informed opinions and some are just hot air. Life is messy and sometimes you have to take that leap and give things a try - if I weren't willing to jump of a cliff now and then I wouldn't be married, I wouldn't have kids and I wouldn't have a Symbiostock site.

I'm well aware that everything could go tits up. I worked in software organizations for a lot of years and I understand most of the issues and risks involved. But listening to a bunch of know-it-alls sitting on the sidelines with nothing at stake just lobbing criticism and doom-and-gloom is irritating.

Let's just stipulate that the critics are wonderful sooth-sayers who have it all figured out and the rest of us with Symbiostock sites are the naive kids who just wont listen to your sage advice. You go and get on with whatever else  it is you have to do and let the rest of us work on our sites, or not, in peace.

Find someone else to bless with your great wisdom - please!


Really? Bunhill is about the only one making any sense, actually looking at things from a business standpoint. Others just seem to be coming to the defense of the person who clearly doesnt want to be bothered with it all anymore. How many times has the threat of abandonment come up? How many times have posts disappeared? What about the disappearing forum?


 

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