There's no question about it - there are many wonderful sites on the net that contain a wealth of knowledge about various photographic aspects. From a camera wiki to personal blogs, sites with alternative photographic methods, communities, directories of projection lenses, collections of old fonts - in fact, almost everything is available and yet it is not without its problems.
Many of these things are put online by enthusiasts on personal sites. Apart from the difficulty of finding many of these sites in the first place, they can disappear overnight because the operator may have lost interest, run out of money for the server costs or perhaps have passed away. And then the site and all its knowledge is lost. The Internet Archive does try to save a lot of the old Internet, but we know that the more it is nested in subpages and lots of images, the fewer it becomes.
In a conversation with a colleague, we developed a vision of a central platform where as much of this knowledge as possible can be found - with databases that let you search for cameras, lenses and more and display information about them, blogs with personal experience reports on specific filters, lenses, films, how-tos on various photographic techniques and a community for exchanging ideas. And the big difference is that this should not depend on a single person, but there should be a superstructure that is independent of individual people, so that the departure or passing away of one person does not lead to the end of the project.
I know that people say that if you have visions, you should go to the doctor, and perhaps such a wish is completely utopian. But you shouldn't throw in the towel before you've even tried.
That's why this forum was created - to bring together people who also find this idea exciting and to see whether and how something like this can be implemented.
Therefore, the sub-threads here should be about the following things:
Many of these things are put online by enthusiasts on personal sites. Apart from the difficulty of finding many of these sites in the first place, they can disappear overnight because the operator may have lost interest, run out of money for the server costs or perhaps have passed away. And then the site and all its knowledge is lost. The Internet Archive does try to save a lot of the old Internet, but we know that the more it is nested in subpages and lots of images, the fewer it becomes.
In a conversation with a colleague, we developed a vision of a central platform where as much of this knowledge as possible can be found - with databases that let you search for cameras, lenses and more and display information about them, blogs with personal experience reports on specific filters, lenses, films, how-tos on various photographic techniques and a community for exchanging ideas. And the big difference is that this should not depend on a single person, but there should be a superstructure that is independent of individual people, so that the departure or passing away of one person does not lead to the end of the project.
I know that people say that if you have visions, you should go to the doctor, and perhaps such a wish is completely utopian. But you shouldn't throw in the towel before you've even tried.
That's why this forum was created - to bring together people who also find this idea exciting and to see whether and how something like this can be implemented.
Therefore, the sub-threads here should be about the following things:
- What features are we interested in immediately / in the long run
- What content should be available
- On which platform / CMS can this be done
- What is the appropriate legal form for the operating organization
- How can it be financed?
- How to get others on board who already offer exciting content on their sites