Lately, I have received a number of emails and personal messages regarding the Coffee Corner on the Forum and in particular the Political Discussions.  A number of months ago these comments and reports to moderators were overwhelming both Chis and myself.  We made a decision at that time to shut down all talk on politics.

I shared our frustration and what we had done with Jeremy Roussak one of the attendees on our Antarctica workshop.  At that time he volunteered to take over moderating the forum and said he would like to try and re-open the Political Discussion in the Coffee Corner.  So, we gave it another try. 

The other morning I received another email from one of our readers.  And, this was the email that was the tipping point.  The email clearly articulated not only the feeling I was having regarding the Political Discussions but also echoed the many I had already received. 

I thus shared this email with Chris, Jeremy, and Debra and unanimously we all agreed that it was time to end the political discussions on the forum.  This site and the forum is about photography and that is what we should and will be. 

Therefore, we have implemented the following changes. Thank You, Jeremy, for articulating these changes so well.  Also, thank you for your continued moderation of the forum.  I hope these changes will make your job a bit easier and more pleasant.

The Change, By Jeremy Roussak

Political discussions have overwhelmed the Coffee Corner, to the near-exclusion of any other topics. They have been conducted with more, far more, heat than light. Entrenched positions have merely been restated ad nauseam and I for one have found them tedious in the extreme to plough through. Worse, the presence of such overt acrimony has driven away photographers who joined to learn, teach and talk about photography.

This last has led us – Kevin, Chris, Debra and me – to decide collectively that political discussions are tainting the Luminous Landscape “community” (in quotes because it is a word I cordially dislike, but in this context I can think of none better) to the extent that they cannot be allowed to continue.

Therefore, as of now:

• all political threads in the Coffee Corner will be locked;

• any new political thread will be summarily locked or deleted;

• the Coffee Corner will revert to being a board primarily for discussion of photography-related topics (LuLa’s raison d’être);

• topics which have no photographic element to them will be allowed – I see no reason why we should be precluded from discussing other matters of interest – but political discussions will not.

Whether a particular topic is “political” or not, and whether if it blends politics and photography it can properly be regarded as the (acceptable) latter and not the (unacceptable) former or is truly politics with a veneer of photography are matters which will lie within my discretion. For the avoidance of doubt (as we lawyers like to say), my unshakeable view is that in this context at least, climate change is politics.

I’m disappointed that this step has proved necessary, but there it is. The description of the Coffee Corner has been changed to reflect this new regime.

A forum for discussion of topics of a general nature, ideally related to photography but in any event not related to politics. Posters must conduct themselves in a civilized and adult matter. Inappropriate topics and/or posts will be deleted at the Moderators’ discretion.

A Reminder – Tips

The forum has some tools that many of you may be interested in.  These are listed the About This Site thread at the top of the Forum,

You can ignore certain members as well as boards.  So if you don’t want to read posts from a. certain member of don’t want to see a certain board follow these steps in Ignore Boards and Members 

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All the terms and services are shown here –  Forum Registration Agreement (Terms of Service)

We also receive a lot of questions on Display and User Names. 

Please enjoy the Luminous-Landscape Forum

Kevin Raber
July 2018