Is Luminous Landscape based in the US? or at least the Americas?

Toronto, Canada area...

LL is based on the internet.

MR lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He's a Canadian.

I'm curious as to why you are interested. I am always intrigued when people see the internet in national terms.

It does get relevant when there's talk about quality of service centers, legal issues, times of global events, hours of good light, names of camera models, attitudes towards photography, status of the fine arts photography market, availability of useful products and many other reasons.

-Lars

And it's not a State Secret either...

Cheers - Rob C

But then looses its relevance as soon as you realize that a lot of the content on LL is provided by international (meaning non Canadian) authors.

Cheers,
Bernard

Well, MR's content is obviously CA-based, but it would be nice to know when content comes from unexpected corners of the world.

-Lars

LOL thanks everyone for the replies to the question. As for the reason for the question.... well... I've been participating on a couple other photography sites, and for personal reasons that I don't feel it would be appropriate to discuss here, I am determining the national location of sites before participating.

Not to be prejudicial or anything at all... just trying to avoid some, what I feel are, cultural personality differences.

Again, thanks for the replies. I appreciate it very much.
Curtis

I think you would find that most of the participants on the forum are Americans, but there is a healthy and delightful contingent of people from pretty much everywhere. It is one of the aspects of the internet that pleases me - so many points of view.

Interesting statement. Since you brought it up, let's flesh it out a bit more, and leave it for the moderator here to either halt the thread or move it to another section.

You are certainly at liberty to visit or avoid websites at your discretion. However, if you are saying that you eschew participation in websites based in certain nations solely on that basis, without regard to the content of the sites in question; and that "cultural personality differences" can be generalized to groups rather than attributed to specific known individuals; then I'd respectfully maintain that you ARE being "prejudicial". If I've misunderstood, set me straight.

I don't know you, obviously, so I can't judge your character beyond the extent it's revealed in your post; but your question struck me as contradictory and, well, strange.

Since you brought it up....

Actually, Mike, I guess some might view the statement I made as being prejudicial, but it really isn't intended that way. It's, I guess, intended to be more stereotyping than prejudiced. It's not that I personally have any prejudice toward those that I'm talking about. I just know that for whatever reason, the cultural difference between them and me, frequently seems to lead to misunderstandings by both parties due to differences in wording, what is and isn't rude, what is and isn't humor, etc. Though my beliefs in those areas may differ from someone else's, it in no way makes either necessarily right or wrong. I also, truly don't like to be rude to anyone, and equally I don't like to be treated rudely. Yet, I have found myself becoming rude in response to what was perceived to be rude treatment, and being treated rudely in response to what was perceived to be rude treatment by me. So I prefer to try to avoid places where there seems to be an abundance of those with whom the issue seems to arise the most. Again, it's not a prejudice per se, as I feel no anger or hatred or anything of the sort toward those I'm speaking of. In fact, I'm quite disappointed that I've reached a stage where I feel I want to look elsewhere for a place to participate. I greatly enjoyed several conversations, and the amount of knowledge and experience there were also wonderful. But I have seen so much of this issue... and not just with me, with several others who don't seem to be participating there any longer either... that I have decided that I won't participate, but rather sit back and enjoy what knowledge I can pick up there by just observing and reading forums, tutorials, etc... but not participate. However, I do want to participate, so I seek other places to do so.

I hope that made sense. :-)

Well, as they say, chacun a son gout.

bingo!

Whatever works for you, but I'd say that the discussions here tend to be a lot more fact based than what can be found on many other forums.

The very spirit of this forum tends to reduce greatly the potential for heated discussions, whatever the cultural background is.

My view though, based on numerous exchanges with international students in Europe/US/Japan from the early 90s, has always been that there are much deeper differences between people belonging to different social layers in a given country, than there are differences between people of similar background coming from different countries.

The key skill is really to be able to evolve in a "multi-background" environment. Languages and nationalities are a lot less relevant than we are taught to believe by our nationalist education systems.

Cheers,
Bernard

I don't think I've heard either point put quite that way, nor quite so perfectly. I appreciate the response greatly.

Cheers to you,
Curtis

..and in addition I would also add the level of educational attainment, based on my experience of moderating sports car forums.

In todays wired and multi cultural world it has been a real eye opener for me to see how well so many nationalities get on so well with a common denominator of just wanting to have a community. Just on this thread you already have 4 nationalities but it's been civil, polite and helpful. Almost makes you think that there might have been some grain of truth in the whole anarchy concept.

That said you do have to pick your place as you say, DPreview is not for the easily offended for example!

Absolutely! Well spoken Bernard!
Bob.

Chop your long posts into paragraphs or I'll be tempted to say something rude.

;o)

Where is LL? This would appear to be an obvious question, yet the thread goes on and on. So I decided to have a look at it.

I don't know if this has been mentioned before in the thread, but the 3 most prolific posters on this forum are the Super Administrator, Neil, who has a massive 8,914 posts, presumably mostly hidden.

An American GI by the name of Jonathan Wienke, 4023 posts, and an obscure Australian by the name of Ray, 3,606 posts.

Michael is way behind with a mere 2,523 posts .

Why did the phrase "Quality, not quantity" suddenly pop to mind?

Random thought, I suppose.

Not a random thought, Bob, but a perfectly valid thought. Unfortunately, quality is subjective, so one could argue till the cows come home whether 1000 'quality' posts is more significant than '10,000' mediocre posts.

The only indisputable facts here are a matter of quantity. Just as 'physical' location is also a matter of quantity.

If you want to determine the location of LL on the basis of most frequent postings, then Neil should be able to provide the answer.

I guess here is also a cultural factor at play.

Some of us come from countries with rather different education systems in which written communication is taught differently from others. Therefore acceptance of other people's culture includes not only acceptance of their ideas and opinions but also of their communication style (and proper paragraphs breaks)...

And I did not even mention the use of a foreign language... Having had to learn English, I could do with some indulgence from native English speakers in those matters.

I travel a lot and can attest that there are cultures which are made more colorful by people who are able to talk non-stop for minutes on end. Those folks must have an extra set of lungs.

Of course, I rarely totally understand what they're saying.... ;o)

On a more serious note, I (and I suspect others) have some difficulty reading off a monitor. One can't easily mark their place with their finger while they digest one thought before proceeding to the next.

Placing a blank line between thoughts provides a 'thinking place'.


(When you used the word "rude" I assumed you to be British. What is your native language and do you not use paragraphs when you write in that language?)

I haven*t used the word "rude" and I used paragraph separation, so I guess the question wasn't asked to me.
I actually agree that paragraph separation helps reading.

Sorry, confused you with the other guy(?). Both of you are using rather 'strange' user names and I didn't pick up on who was posting what.

Interesting. I hadn't realized I was #2 on LL for post count. Does that mean I get a cookie or something?

I've posted from California, Texas, South Dakota, Michigan, Deutchland, and Iraq. How does that affect the "location" of LL?

Certx, Where are you based yourself?

PS Rudeness is sth that comes with the misunderstanding that is part of the character of written digital media. email, posts on websites like these are often misunderstood. Use of emoticons can help a bit

PS2 While I feel this site is relatively polite by nature, I have been offended motre than once - and that had nothing to do with cultural backgrounds, but apparant silly questions posed by me!

Good popint. It doesn't show up on your posts but I guess there would be some record of it. I've also posted from Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Bangkok, Pokhara, Kathmandu, Bangkok and a few other places outside Australia.

I take it you liked Bangkok.

Given the exotic locations you post images from, I have sometimes wondered if you really are from Australia, or if you actually spend some time there.

I see. I wrote Bangkok twice. I guess my subconscious is telling me I do like Bangkok, although my conscious part might disagree .

Eric,
I have dual citizenship, British and Australian. However, I've spent the greatest portion of my life in Australia so can therefore claim to be mostly Australian. On the other hand, early experiences are often the strongest, so perhaps I'm still really British.... or just plain confused .