Whether someone posts anonymously or with their name...it is what they have to say and contribute that matters I think. The content. As far as anonymous postings are concerend, I have rarely seen anyone abusing it given the nature of this site and that it is moderated. A place like DPReview, well anything goes but rarer now as forums are somewhat moderated. In the beginning, it was pretty much the wild west.

I find a great idea as Greg mentioned, that everybody would have to use their real name.
I would also request that everybody would have to use their location, at least the Country or State.
It would be easier to look up a bird if you want to know more about it and make a more educated comment.

Karl, that would need the photo to be taken at the photographers home location, which often isn't the case for many of the well traveled people here (not me though).

Neil, you have a point there, but it is still a good idea to put down the name of your home such as New Zealand or Canada and so on, IMO.

No objection to that from me

I don't see the need to insist on real names since virtually all members who don't use their real names as their posting names identify themselves via their watermarks or comments. Plus you can usually go to their NSN Portfolios or to their websites. Let's not introduce rules and regulations unless they really accomplish something.

Real name is one thing... but when you start forcing folks to put in their location you risk loosing members. I know this from experience. I used to be on another site that forced that down our throats. A bunch of us up and left because we felt that posed a security risk for us. They made it manditory to put in city and state. We said... enough is enough.

At that time I had a reptile breeding business and I had several thousands worth of animals. Why in the world would I want to make it easier for folks to target me if they saw something I posted that they wanted to steal. Same principal goes for the photography folks. Most people really into photography have five digits worth of photography gear. By announcing to the world where you are... it just makes it that much easier to find you if someone has less than honorable intentions. Add that to the full name and when you have those of us in small towns... it's real easy to find us because everyone knows you.

If you want to make a location manditory... I would request that it be limited to the state level.

You scared me. Now I removed the name of the city I live in. Still, I left the Country and Province.
It should be plenty enough.
Even just the Country would be adequate. All I want to know if it is North America, Europe, Africa, Australia, South America etc. This way I can pick up the appropriate Field Guide and look for the bird if I need to or want to.

Would be nice to get an email notification of comments to images we comment on. While it can be a pain in the bt at times, almost like the daily spam, it is also useful in seeing when someone stops in and has a useful comment.

Hey Mark,
user control panel >Board preferences>Edit posting defaults>"Notify me upon replies by default:"

I would really like to see birds go back to 48 hrs .... please.

Didn't mean to scare ya. The fact that the other site forced that down our throats scared me. Now I had a couple of choices. Lie about my location to preserve OPSEC, or leave. I eventually just left.

But it does bring forth a good point that most folks dont think about... and those in the larger city's are more insulated from that vs those of us in small communitites.

Another request to take the birds back to 48hrs please - allows for more prolonged reflection on images, and makes me think of the NSN Birds forum as a really special place where people take care to choose their best images for detailed scrutiny.
Otherwise awesome.

I don't know the possibility, but it would be nice to have some way to find when new threads are created to the boards. I like I'm sure many, use only a few of the boards on a regular basis, but if I saw something relavent has been posted to a less frequent visited site, I would likely go and check it out. But to open each site and check for relavent posts is time consuming for those forums of less interest to me. Don't know how to, but if possible it might be interesting to have the title and the forum indexed with the latest post at the top.

You asked for it!

Mark, in the forum of interest, right at the bottom left you should have a "Subscribe forum" link. You then get email notification when there is a new thread posted. Is that what you hoped for?

Larger image size would be just awesome.
48hours between posts sounds more than reasonable.

Best regards,

I concur with some thougths on here already:
1. max file width 1024px - 800px is still great for portrait height
2. Forum Runner support so comments can be made on pics on a mobile device

Would it be too crazy to ask if the galleries could be mixed into one general gallery forum? That way all the rest of the topics (wildlife, macro, etc) would get the same attention as the birds gallery... I know this is pretty unlikely to happen but I did in´t want to let go the chance to comment about this issue where Birds seems to be the ¨star¨... there´s has to be a way to improve participation in the other galleries...

I totally agree that there are not enough honest critiques here anymore.
People that want to better there photography and learn, don't learn anything by people patting them on the back. It might as well be Flickr and it was the critiquing and quality of images that set this site apart from the many others out there imo.

Thanks for the feedback!

The quality of the critiques is another issue and has less to do with the design or structure of the galleries and more to do with the community and whether or not people are willing to offer critiques that are useful and meaningful. I have always said that you get out what you put in. And if you want your image critiqued in a meaningful way, and you truly want to learn something, then all you need to do is "ask" and this community will deliver meaningful and friendly critiques like no other....What about a check box that deciphers whether you're interested in critique or just "sharing" ?

As for the image size we hear you loud and clear and with our proposed design we are looking at offering 940 pixels on the long side with 350KB to start with. I never understood why some sites offer 1024 or thereabouts but STILL require the images to be under 250k - THAT makes zero sense to me.

Thanks again!