Too many photo's here?

[SirWilliam]

Hello all,
First of all - i love this site, there are many good photo's and comments. But as the number op participants grow, the photo's come in faster and faster - i can't keep up with them in terms of seriously looking at them and commenting / photoshop them. With this trend going on, if you post a photo, it will end op on page 3 after an hour or so. I think that this communiy has an optimum of participants - Should we limit they numbers? Is there some effective way to split the comunity in smaller parts ? Or don't you are that there is a problem here?

[Bayleaf]

I personally don't try to keep up with all the new photos as they are uploaded. It became impossible for me to do this quite some time ago. Eventually you see many of the photos and get a chance to comment on them. The ones you don't, someone will, so I don't worry about it so much.

[PiotrS]

I think sustainable growth is the answer, which I think we are achieving. Personally I wouldn't like to limit membership, as new members often bring with them original work of the type that may not have been seen here before (like your journeys by train shots for example!). You can already filter out photos by category (click on "categories" from the gallery page), if you want to concentrate your attention on a certain type of photo.

[Keitht]

I'm very new here so hope nobody objects to me voicing an opinion. I have already found the site and critiques to be of great value and wouldn't like to think others can't get the same benefits. I think the restriction to 1 image per day should keep things manageable.

Maybe if things do get too bit it would be possible to have the new images displayed on seperate pages by continent. I'm not a web designer so I don't know if that would be practical.

[adam]

"Maybe if things do get too bit it would be possible to have the new images displayed on seperate pages by continent."

It is possible to browse photos by continent, country, region, state/province, and city/village. Each sub region will be displayed on the left menu, towards the top. It's ordered from latest uploaded so one can browse new photos quite easily.

[Aegean]

I think the site is perfect in the way it is now! And they are so many different ways to see the posted photos that it is not any problem...It is in the spirit of TE to welcome new members!

[SirWilliam]

I fully agree with you. Aegean. This site is perfect the way it is now. So, how to keep it this way? I see a downward trend, okay, i am pessimistic. I just wanted to know if i was the only one who is bothered with this. Furthermore, it seems i gave the impression that i want to block off newcomers somehow, as if they are the problem. This is of course not so. I wrote: "Should we limit they numbers? Is there some effective way to split the comunity in smaller parts ?" I am not talking about restricting the newcomers, but about keeping communities small, for example, create a www.trekearth1.com and www.trekearth2.com site, forbidding crossposting. Not very elegant, and, i believe, also not very effective. But if nobody see a problem, we'd better close the discussion about a solution :)

[mdchachi]

I think we just need to resign ourselves to the fact that it will soon be impossible to keep up with all incoming photos (I long ago stopped trying). The site gives many ways to view subsets of the photos already -- by continent, country, city. By photographer. Chronologically. By camera equipment. By the various categories. By marked favorites. By least viewed. Even randomly.

So assuming the site infrastructure grows to handle the load, I think things are (and will be) fine.

[sam]

I think that "too much of a good thing" is not a problem that needs to be "fixed". Most popular websites were complex and heavily trafficked before we joined. Many here on TE were lucky enough to join when you could actually view (and comment on) every photo that was posted. But in the long run, with growth, that is not realistic. I don't go to photo.net or dpreview.com to read *every* thread, or any of the big photo sites to view *every* photo. It's not expected, and as TE grows, it shouldn't be expected here.

Adam gives us many viewing options. And no matter how often things get pushed off of Page 1, there will always be good stuff on Page 1. And Page 2, etc. And there's no rule saying you can't go to the gallery and immediately click on Page 17! Go for it. I would strongly advise against any partitioning of the site that involved "forbidding" cross usage.