Comment moderation and user opinions (on Nofilmschool)

[Andrew Reid]

Let us not forget this video [by DL Watson]. 

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 He was banned by Andrew for no reason other than Andrew himself fell for it. It was a good Pepsi challenge for us all and illuminated some good points. There was a nice discussion going but the guy was banned and his thread deleted.

 

Less Pepsi challenge actually, more con trick, and an attempt to bring the forum as a trusted knowledge base into disrepute. If you'd tried the same on a sports field you'd be charged with bring the sport into disrepute. My job on EOSHD is to protect the quality of the resource from outside interference. I'm simply doing my job. If someone is blatantly misleading people and speaking total crap and has everyone fooled, my job is to nuke that kind of bullshit in the butt. I don't care if you call it censorship or wielding an iron fist. It matters to me that this forum does not mislead people.

 

D.L Watson was attempting to justify his purchase at the expense of the creditability of the whole EOSHD forum. Every poster here who has contributed something useful to the forum, had their combined contribution which was years in their making and of mine, knocked for six by this guy simply because he wanted to prove that 8bit was as good as 10bit because he'd backed the 8bit horse and wanted to be right, and us, wrong.

 

I endured several pages of misleading bullshit in his thread... him mishandling the Blackmagic footage and claiming it was from the GH3, so we'd all point at the 8bit footage as looking weird, so he could come on several days and pages later to wag the finger at us saying how idiotic we were and that actually it was the GH3 which shot the best looking footage and that we had confirmation bias every time we heard the word "Blackmagic".

 

In short, a sick joke. You have to protect the truth and one way to do that is to simply delete the bullshit, and ban the bullshit generator so it doesn't keep coming down the pipe.
 

Andrew, I respect your site and what you do at EOSHD

Thanks!

[gloopglop]

*some bullshit*

[Mark Isah]

I second the fact that genuine conversations/debates are unicorns on the Internet. Like I wrote, nofilmschool is a really beneficial website for filmmakers in general. But there's no denying the blatant unwarranted moderation of user opinions especially on the posts that I've linked in my original post. Regarding Shane Hurlbut, the man is full of knowledge and his contributions in his discombobulated website is extremely helpful. Naturally, there are people who disagree with his opinions and thats perfectly fine as long as they don't gravitate towards personal attacks.

As for the comments on the Shane Hurlbut posts, they were civil and non-threatening. A few lads didn't like Shane's choice of cameras and they voiced their opinions. That's it, plain and simple. Why should the comment section be closed for that? And yes there was a person who shared how Shane treats his crew members, albeit what he said wasn't positive (in the context of how Shane treated his crew members), there was nothing wrong with what he said. After what happened on the sets of Terminator Salvation, there were people expressing their displeasure in Shane's treatment of crew members. Whether that is true or false is up for discussion. I do agree it slightly out of place to disclose that in the comment section but still the man should be allowed to voice his opinions.

But what stood out to be was the deletion of a user's comment who simply asked why the comment section was closed. What's up with that, is asking a question against nofilmschool.com's site policies?

[Damphousse]

Let us not forget this video. 

>

He was banned by Andrew for no reason other than Andrew himself fell for it. It was a good Pepsi challenge for us all and illuminated some good points. There was a nice discussion going but the guy was banned and his thread deleted.

[Andrew Reid]

I remeber that thread and I remeber posting that I thought both videos didn't look good.  That guy wasted everyone's time.  Some of us have day jobs and we don't have the time to participate in whatever games people want to play on the internet.  Finding a good demonstration clip with 24p, 180 degree shutter, image stabilization (IS, tripod, monopod, steadicam, etc), proper lighting, proper grading/lack of grading, etc is so rare we really don't need jerks posting fake videos.

 

Most BMPCC footage on the web looks terrible.  People seem to have a problem nailing the focus or getting stabilization.  But when it's done correctly it is beautiful.

 

I agree with you there's a lot of bad test footage out there. What we can't have is a second layer on top of that which is misrepresenting itself as something insightful. If the time wasting video wasn't bad enough, he was driving home an agenda that was fundamentally flawed. For years users of this forum have been earnest in their effort to share the truth and seek the truth, then some D.L Watson snake oil salesman comes in out of the blue for weeks has people fooled. To show that all the control you have over a raw image is moot and you can do it with any DSLR. It goes against everything I believe in. The more power and control you have, the more you can execute on your talent.

 

Sure there are some who don't have the time, or don't have the curiosity to find out if Magic Lantern raw or Blackmagic raw will allow them to expand their skills into grading or inspire them creatively and I am fine with that. Some people just want to point a camera, grab the image and pick up the cash.

 

Also the old saying 'with more power comes more responsibility' is definitely true here. The pocket form factor does encourage people to shoot without a rig or tripod more often than the other cameras out there, so I agree with you stabilisation is often not done right - either on the day or in post. A bit of slow-mo or Warp Stabiliser can make a difference with footage shot handheld, as can keeping the focal length towards the wide end.

[Andrew Reid]

I second the fact that genuine conversations/debates are unicorns on the Internet. Like I wrote, nofilmschool is a really beneficial website for filmmakers in general. But there's no denying the blatant unwarranted moderation of user opinions especially on the posts that I've linked in my original post.

 

As for the comments on the Shane Hurlbut posts, they were civil and non-threatening. A few lads didn't like Shane's choice of cameras and they voiced their opinions. That's it, plain and simple. Why should the comment section be closed for that?

My theory is as follows... and perhaps Joe can take this opportunity to defend himself, as it's an open forum after all and I haven't deleted his comments as he has done to me on Nofilmschool before!

 

Most blogs have a business model where they are of service to someone.

 

Some are at service to their readers, and this is my preferred model of running a blog.

 

Some are more at service to their advertisers, big names and big companies.

 

The constructive criticism had to go because it didn't quite gel with Joe's 'advertorial' for Shane.

 

When something does not look right in an advertorial setting, like a critical comment, it gets pruned.

 

By the way... Over the Black Friday / Cyber Monday weekend, I lost virtually all faith in the ability of bloggers to resist the temptation to put their economic interests ahead of the product itself. The editorial is the product. The information, a service to the readers. Why f*** this over for the sake of a quick buck???

 

I honestly felt like turning off my internet connection last weekend. I had 100's of blog posts in my RSS feed which I rely on to keep me informed about the world of DSLRs rammed with deal after deal, discount after discount, affiliate link after affiliate link, on top of being sent numerous emails from US retailers persuading ME to do the same.

 

Guess what I won't, because it's short sighted.

 

It seems almost every blog on the internet is shafting their core service to readers in order to make money.

 

There are better ways to make money, like being of service to your readers rather than purely of service to advertisers. If a blog is subservient to advertisers and big name DPs... the readers will go elsewhere and with no readers you cannot even be of service to advertisers.

[Mark Isah]

Thanks Andrew. I share the same notion as you.

 

I hope someone from nofilmschool.com could share their side of the story. Benefit of the doubt is still up for grabs.

 

I was feeling down that my Internet went awol during the Black Friday fiasco but after hearing your story, I'm rather delighted. I would've been miffed. I still remember back in the days when my mailboxes were raped with flyers, brochures and the whole nine yards from businesses wanting a slice of my salary. Old school RSS feeds, if you may. Beleaguered to death I was. Sad to see that translated into the interwebs. Sleazy and cheap. 

 

Playing the devil's advocate, I kinda understand the need to kiss ass ever so often. I should know, I ran an online forum for the local filmmaking community. It never took off unfortunately but I reckon the experience was more or less the same.

 

Its just that nowadays, the kiss ass-ery happens at the expense of the readers/users. And I believe the majority of us share the same conviction when it comes to being used. I stopped being a human billboard for apparel companies a long time ago. 

[Matias Goinheix]

I don't hate NFS. With time it went from being my main source of information to be a blog I check weekly to see if there's any original post of my interest. It was the blog I started reading back when I was beginning with DSLR, and it helped me a lot, I learned and I was exposed to many other blogs and websites thanks to them.

 

I think they are a divulgation blog. I don't know if that's the word in english. There is divulgation press in every field; science, arts, politics etc. So it's not a bad thing, far from it. It's very helpful. I do find original posts in their blog from time to time, and when that happens I read them with enthusiasm, but their re-blogged content is usually old news if you follow several blogs.

 

Having said that, I do feel that the comment section is filled with beligerent fanatics who spread their negativity and it's not good for anybody (I have been caught on the negativity whirlwind on ocasions). The authors are too defensive when someone makes a critic and even though they deny it (and I won't put their word in question), most posts about products do feel to be biased and writen in an ad-like form.