Major Site Changes Coming

[Doug Jensen]

We don't want someone searching for how to make films to be presented with a wall of mostly high-level camera talk when they get here. We want to present a place which is welcoming for users at every level, not just top-level pros.

That may sound good on paper, but you might want to visit DVinfo and see what happened there. Nothing but crickets and tumbleweeds after the focus shifted from working professionals to wannabes and rank amateurs who often don't know one end of a camera from the other. I think Chris Young and I are the only "professionals" left who actually still try to educate the less informed. You can't rely on busy professionals to spend a lot of their time teaching basic principles over and over again. Nevertheless, sadly, our best advice falls on deaf ears because those people are hobbyists who don't really want to do the hard work of learning the craft and understanding what it takes to get professional caliber results. More often than not, they are looking for a "Easy Button" or a secret setting that will magically do the work for them. When they find out it doesn't work that way, they are out the door.

I guess I've given you enough of my focus group comments, so I'll shut up and watch what happens. But my bags are packed.

 

[Doug Jensen]

But the site as it is isn't very friendly to the type of person watching those YouTube videos, and we want to make it so it is more so.

Ha, ha. Chase them all you want. Those YouTube viewers that you speak of don't want to read text or engage in conversations. They want to be spoon-fed information from videos on their phone created by people who claim they are experts with very little dialog. Wow, I can't believe that is the new demographic you're gonna chase. This will be interesting.

 

[David Jimerson]

because those people are hobbyists who don't really want to do the hard work of learning the craft and understanding what it takes to get professional caliber results.

A site more geared toward learning the craft and what it takes to get professional results might help with that. Hence, what we're doing.

 

[ahalpert]

On the home page, 5 out of 12 sections are camera related (panasonic/HDLSR/sony/canon/other). They might just be planning on cleaning it up, where everything stays the same, but not on the home page, accessed via a catch-all "cameras" etc?

I find I exclusively use "New Posts", or google dvxuser + thread to find older threads, not much sifting.


In the spirit of the move you're going for (staying current, appealing to newcomers), is there room to tweak the title?

Business Office almost sounds like a joke. It goes without saying you conduct "business" in an office.

Is there something wrong with Pre Production, even if elements on either side of Production get their own sections e.g. pre production marketing, post production marketing (continuing the campaign)?

If you're going for a physical space vibe for an online platform (I'm a fan of the "cafe", but it's undeniably very "Cable Guy" (feels like it's from the 90s).

What about "office"? If comfortable giving up the physical aspect then "Business" works too.

Anyway . . . .

We created this thread with the intent to give everyone a heads up that site changes are coming, because just doing it would be massively disorienting.

We also had the intent of making things clear as we went along and when the specific changes were close to being implemented.

But a weird thing is happening in the thread, in that there a number of people taking things way out of context, or at least way out of proportion, and accusing us of doing a lot of things we have no plans to do, and others are seeing that and assuming these, in some cases fairly wild, characterizations are true.

They just aren't.

We are not eliminating technical talk. If all you want to do is talk about gear, you'll still be able to do it. If you want to mainly talk about cameras, you can do that, too.

In fact, we plan to make the camera chat section indexed and searchable for specific cameras. It's just not going to take up the screen real estate that it currently does, and it's going to be consolidated into something far more wieldy and manageable. Part of that WILL be taking the behemoth of camera sections and moving quite a lot of it to archives so that we can start with a fresher approach. Those threads will all still be accessible, so no information will be lost to any user. But there are a lot of dead branches needing pruning.

Because yes, it IS true that we want to shift the focus of the site away from being 90% gearhead talk and shift it back to what it originally made it a vibrant place, talking about the craft, art, technique, and just plain excitement of filmmaking.

We don't want someone searching for how to make films to be presented with a wall of mostly high-level camera talk when they get here. We want to present a place which is welcoming for users at every level, not just top-level pros.

And what we want, ideally, is to get someone new steeped in the technique of using a camera in general before getting into the technical details of specific cameras. We want them to learn how to shoot. Then they'll be in a better position to talk about the technical differences of equipment and cameras. And we want them to feel comfortable at any point along that journey.

I didn't really want to do this, because details are still being tweaked, but here's our high-level roadmap for site organization. There will be a prominent Gear Room section. There, there will be plenty of room for talk about gear, including cameras.

View attachment 5712192

This being said, if anyone would like to suggest ways for organizing the camera chat section, we'll be happy to hear it.

I hope this helps make everything clearer.

Thanks, David. I think this makes sense.

I'd echo Rob Norton in saying that I almost always use DVXuser by clicking on New Posts and also occasionally by doing a google search for a specific thread. But I think that cleaning up and reorganizing the splash page sounds like a good idea.

 

[JAMedia]

But the site as it is isn't very friendly to the type of person watching those YouTube videos, and we want to make it so it is more so.

So that is the target market? YouTubers?
Now that is a very wide range of people from one man and his phone to some YouTubers with a team of 20+ full-time people.
Those with teams of people are usually as professional as the "Hollywood" types here. The others are well....
So what are you aiming for?

 

[Doug Jensen]

I can see the marketing pitch now:

"Hey guys, after you get done watching this YouTube video from someone who doesn't actually work in the industry of which they speak, come on over to DVXUser and we've got a whole bunch of working professionals who are standing by to set the record straight and answer every question you have. Welcome!"

 

[David Jimerson]

So that is the target market? YouTubers?
Now that is a very wide range of people from one man and his phone to some YouTubers with a team of 20+ full-time people.
Those with teams of people are usually as professional as the "Hollywood" types here. The others are well....
So what are you aiming for?

As I said, people excited about learning and making films - or applying those techniques to whatever other specific videographic pursuit they're passionate about.

 

[Doug Jensen]

You know what would be interesting, to go back and count all the times a new member came on, asked a question, got some good answers, and for whaever reason was never heard from again. Not so much as a thank you to the people who took the time to answer, let alone any follow-up questions or back-and-forth conversation.

Count 'em. There's a lot.

 

[David Jimerson]

I can see the marketing pitch now:

"Hey guys, after you get done watching this YouTube video from someone who doesn't actually work in the industry of which they speak, come on over to DVXUser and we've got a whole bunch of working professionals who are standing by to set the record straight and answer every question you have. Welcome!"

^^

That, but not sarcastic, was always the philosophy of DVXuser going all the way back to the beginning.

 

[David Jimerson]

Anyway, there's been a lot of counterproductive noise in this thread, so it's time to close it so the noise doesn't overwhelm the signal.

If you have genuine questions or helpful suggestions (as asked for), please reach out by DM.

I'll leave things with a repost of the general description:

_________
Anyway . . . .

We created this thread with the intent to give everyone a heads up that site changes are coming, because just doing it would be massively disorienting.

We also had the intent of making things clear as we went along and when the specific changes were close to being implemented.

But a weird thing is happening in the thread, in that there a number of people taking things way out of context, or at least way out of proportion, and accusing us of doing a lot of things we have no plans to do, and others are seeing that and assuming these, in some cases fairly wild, characterizations are true.

They just aren't.

We are not eliminating technical talk. If all you want to do is talk about gear, you'll still be able to do it. If you want to mainly talk about cameras, you can do that, too.

In fact, we plan to make the camera chat section indexed and searchable for specific cameras. It's just not going to take up the screen real estate that it currently does, and it's going to be consolidated into something far more wieldy and manageable. Part of that WILL be taking the behemoth of camera sections and moving quite a lot of it to archives so that we can start with a fresher approach. Those threads will all still be accessible, so no information will be lost to any user. But there are a lot of dead branches needing pruning.

Because yes, it IS true that we want to shift the focus of the site away from being 90% gearhead talk and shift it back to what it originally made it a vibrant place, talking about the craft, art, technique, and just plain excitement of filmmaking.

We don't want someone searching for how to make films to be presented with a wall of mostly high-level camera talk when they get here. We want to present a place which is welcoming for users at every level, not just top-level pros.

And what we want, ideally, is to get someone new steeped in the technique of using a camera in general before getting into the technical details of specific cameras. We want them to learn how to shoot. Then they'll be in a better position to talk about the technical differences of equipment and cameras. And we want them to feel comfortable at any point along that journey.

I didn't really want to do this, because details are still being tweaked, but here's our high-level roadmap for site organization. There will be a prominent Gear Room section. There, there will be plenty of room for talk about gear, including cameras.

This being said, if anyone would like to suggest ways for organizing the camera chat section, we'll be happy to hear it.

I hope this helps make everything clearer.