dpreview banning SmugMug - what can we do?

[onethumb]

[reposted from this thread on dpreview]

We just got an email from Phil Askey saying he was going to shut off and ban all links to SmugMug on dpreview. :(

We've tried hard (look at my dpreview post history) to provide relevant, informative posts about ourselves and our service without advertising in any way on the forums. But apparently we're getting in trouble because our *customers* are self-advertising themselves.

We'd like to see if we can find a way to make sure that doesn't happen. I'd love to hear any ideas you may have about how we can avoid catastrophe.

Here's all the gory details: http://blogs.smugmug.com/onethumb/

Thanks!

Don

[Mike Lane]

stupid stupid stupid. That phil guy sounds like a class a jerk to me. Maybe I'll use dcresource instead.

[dragon300zx]

The problem is the guys a jerk. There should be no reason why people can't post a link to their own websites. The only option he is leaving is that anyone who wants to post a link to their own website buy a top level domain and forward it with masking turned on so the smugmug.com address can't be easily traced. And since it's a free forum it would be hard for the users to force him to do otherwise. Sounds to me like he is trying to strong arm you into paying for advertising as if that site isn't full of ad's already. (No I have never been a fan of dpreview).

[DavidTO]

Well, just writing him off as a jerk isn't going to help at all, IMO.

Obviously, there's something going on that's not sitting well with him.

I tool around there some, but have never really cottoned to it, since the forums are mostly equipment oriented. I really have no interest in reading a forum only for the 20D, for instance.

But all that aside, I've never seen anything that I would consider SPAM on that site for smugmug. I don't think that smugmug's users are spamming--but they are petitioning hard. The problem is, smugmug can't be responsible for what its users post...and like Don says, there has to be some middle ground that can be reached to remedy the situation. Now if the guy's not returning emails, well, that's a different matter. You can't talk to someone who ain't listening...

[dragon300zx]

Originally Posted by DavidTO

Now if the guy's not returning emails, well, that's a different matter. You can't talk to someone who ain't listening...

Thats the problem. It's not writing him off as a jerk. It's a discription of his attitude. I have never had any interested to talk with the guy but from what I have read from doing searches on the internet before regarding issues that I have heard about going on over there he is very much a "my way or the highway" type of person who could care less about being fair. I know lots of people over their say they always get emails returned right away, that he is easy to deal with, etc, etc, etc. And I know of alot of people who say they never get emails returned, when they do they are short and rude, etc. Seems he either likes you, or has a grudge against you. From what I have seen he has always had a slight grudge against smug for some reason. This isn't the first time he has made a stink about smugmug users on his forums.

Search his news pages for news on the various web gallery sharing services. No results for smugmug, no results for pbase, surprise results for google (can't anger the gods after all), Results for Fotki (only gallery service he has advertising on his site), no results for photobucket, no results for snapfly, no results for picture trail, etc.

Hmmm see a pattern?

A recent post by Phil:


"Bob,

dpreview don't want smugmug's money, thanks, not after what Don's just done anyway! And frankly if we don't want them to advertise here they don't try and "get around" that by using their own members to advertise for them. Lots of photo sharing sites get lots of traffic from us and I'm sure they're glad of it, they don't feel the need to push their URL's even harder with codes like this. "

What Don did that was so horrible was to share with his users and the general public phil's attitude. The second line tells it all about how phil has felt about smugmug advertising in the past. Thats why companies like smug are far superior. They don't have an attitude towards their users, and potential clients.

Oh and when one of his users responds to his post, explaining how rude phil himself was to don not only in his email, but in refusing to respond to his requests to become an advertiser the whole thread ends up going away. Hmmmm.......

[Harryb]

I think its a dumb move. I have participated at DPR for years (its been rapidly decreasing lately) and Phil has always had a rather paternal way about him. Its his site but I just don't like his management style.

He won't moderate his forums which are filled with trolling, flames and general all around bashing but he has hawk like eye out for anything he views as "advetising". He recently nuked a popular thread on Ron Reznick's new DVDs w/o an explanation. I'm guessing that he saw it as a form of advertising.

Now on the DPR forums there is always talk of this camera, this lens, this software where folks are recommending that others get that gear. They have been numerous threads as to which is the best photo sharing site. Its the way things are and will always be.

It would be self-advertising (aka spam) if Don went on DPR and started a thread about Smugmug or if Ron Reznick started one about his DVDs. However when satisifed users of their products recommend them its not advertising. Phil claims to be unbiased in his reviews but when I see stuff like this in his news section I begin to wonder

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0606/06...podiscritz.asp

He has no problem putting up a blatant ad for a product under a misnomer of "News" Its kind of hard to see how he can then turn around and view the recommendation of products and gear by satisfied users as "advertising".

Its his site and he can run it at his whimsy but he won't be getting many more "clicks" from me.

[pmaland]

Originally Posted by onethumb

[reposted from this thread on dpreview]

Sorry, he's deleted that thread already.

[Mike Lane]

So I'm going to post my reply to his reply here:

Originally Posted by lanemik (from dpreview)

Phil Askey wrote:
> Don,
>
> I expected more respect for myself and for my private email to you
> than for you to publish it on your blog and draw attention to it
> here on my own forum. I expected you to reply to me and discuss
> it, to try to work out a resolution, but instead you've decided to
> try and turn my own members against me, that's very very sad and
> poor from someone in a position such as yourself.
>
> --
> Phil Askey
> Editor / Owner, dpreview.com

Did you or did you not send the following to Don MacAskill:

"Just to let you know that we will be blocking linking to smugmug from our forums due to the rapid increase in your ‘viral marketing’ technique of using ‘account codes’ for discounts. Numerous of our regular posters are now inadvertently promoting your site by placing such account codes in their signatures, this is considered to be commercial advertising and is against our posting rules. As we have no interest in banning such members we will instead be blocking any external linking or mention of your site."

To me, that does not sound in any way like you "expected [him] to reply to [you] and discuss [the issue], to try to work out a resolution." That sounds like a heavy-handed ploy to wring as much money out of Smugmug as you can. Furthermore, if you did send that email, you are now lying (misrepresenting it) to boot!

That is the very definition of poor foom Phil.

[cmason]

it seems very over the top to me. I post on other, non-photo related boards, and many of them have rules about what you can have in your signature. For example, many do not want links in sigs, or don't want commercial links, etc. Seems that the issue is policing the members, not smugmug itself.

Is the discount code the problem? No, dont think so, it again is the members, not following the rules.

[Budcub]

I owe much of what I've learned about Digital Photography to reading the forums and reviews on dpreview.com But I really have no intention of taking my link to my smugmug page out of my signature. If I find that its been removed from my profile, I'll just add it in manually when I post comments. If necessary I'll get around whatever roadblocks are in my way. I'm sure as hell not going to try and migrate all my stuff to flickr or pbase just to satisfy Phil. Not that there's anything wrong with those services, its just that I'm in bed with Smugmug and don't want to have to change.