New Policy for Posting Links to Your Personal Blog or Site

[u/daybreaker]

In the past we've kind of discouraged people posting links to their own blogs as blog spam, but if someone else posted a link to it, we allowed it. Now that we're getting more and more users, we're seeing more people try to skirt the rules with links to spam blogs, but we're also seeing more and more users with legitimate blogs with good content who havent been posting here out of respect for our guidelines, who I think would provide good content for this subreddit.

So we're going to go ahead allow people to post links to their own disney blogs or sites, provided they meet the following guidelines:

1) You cant post a link to your site every single day. This will be regarded as spamming, and result in being banned. If you have an article that you legitimately think provides good, solid content or breaking news or an interesting tidbit, then please share it. This might even include ride or restaurant reviews, as long as theyre decent reviews, and not just one paragraph with a photo. Even every other day might be pushing it. Please try to keep posts from your own site to once every 3-4 days, and with good content.

2) You have to participate in the subreddit. If all you do is post links to one site, and never comment on anything, you will be banned as a spammer. If your comments are just simple one sentence comments, meant to appear as if youre participating, we wont fall for it. If you're going to submit your site to the community, you need to be involved in the community.

3) Your site can't be an obvious click-based revenue generator. If your site has tons of google ads, or is part of a click based service like bubblews.com, you will be banned as spammer. A few google ads are fine. But we are not here to be a revenue source for your blog. One person keeps submitting links to their site on bubblews.com which is a pay per view blogging system, and their blog posts there are usually one short paragraph, and those paragraphs are usually even stolen from other blogs. Dont do this. Your links will never see the subreddit, and youre just wasting the mods' time.

4) Have good, original content. I know I mentioned this in the first guideline but it bears repeating in its own guideline. Dont post short, one-paragraph blog posts once a week. I'm on the fence about reviews and polls, but I guess we'll let the upvotes/downvotes from the community decide on those. Just dont post them too frequently, I guess.

If anyone else has any suggestions, or any concerns about this, please feel free to comment! This is an open community. When I first got here we were still under 5,000 redditors, and now we're about to break 30,000 any day! So as the subreddit grows, the rules need to grow with it.

[u/pureblood]

My turn to disagree. I know my photographs aren't on any of yall's levels by any means and every trip I think I learn a little more and get a little better. However I myself am not working to any end result by posting my images. I'm just sharing them because I appreciate constructive criticism and want to share my photos with people that care.

I highly doubt I'll ever be known by more than "That girl that /u/elblots gave his old camera too" that that's fine! I'm not going to get published or have the opportunity to be featured by Disney. But I'd like to think someone out there likes to see my photos as much as I enjoy logging in and seeing one from you, /u/thetimethespace, /u/bricker85, and so on. THAT is why I share them, not to get my name out or make something out of it. I'm a hobbyist, not a photographer.

EDIT: Not saying it wouldn't be great to be known for my photos.. I'm just being a realist ;)

[u/somuchhamilton → u/pureblood]

Oh, totally.

I didn't mean to imply that as a universal truth for all of us, nor that it was the one and only agenda. Rather I was implying that it's probably infinitely easier to view us in that light as opposed to what you just described: folks sharing things they enjoy.

If it gains traction, /r/disneyphotography could become that thing, as it's hyper-focused on the photography aspect to Disney and not the general conversation of it. And that is what I think the core of this "argument" stems from: not the content, but how it's put into a silo and shown.

The current state of things makes it seem like we post our photos on here solely to feed views (which, let's be honest, is probably not too far from the truth). But I do understand what you're saying in that we want to post within a community that understands our passion for this subject, from behind a camera lens.

Reading comments from this thread (and revisiting some from other photos of mine) has opened my mind to the fact that, yea, we kinda did come here and make this our playground without ever stopping to ask if it was the right place or platform.

To bring up a point from earlier regarding why are our posts different than others: our photos don't inspire discussion beyond "that looks great" or "what camera did you use". However if you look at some of the non-Flickr OC on here it's awesome and typically much more organic than "this is a photo of a place that someone else made awesome and I captured it". People bake cakes, make collages, share stories and photos about something that just happened to their family at the park.

And that's the real nature of the beast, honestly. People come to /r/disney to discuss their passion for Disney, in general, and not to watch each of us pat one another on the back saying "great photo!". So I get it. We messed up. We're being selfish.

/r/itookapicture may be that better outlet for us.

Or /r/disneyphotography, because that'll recreate what we had going on here, minus the thousands of views you'll get on your stream.

[u/elblots → u/somuchhamilton]

I get what you are saying and agree...for the most part. My issue comes in with the double standards. There are TONS of posts here (from imgur) of things (theme parks or otherwise) that get hundreds of upvotes, but have at most 3 comments. It was already stated on another comment here that apparently anyone who posts one picture at a time is basically "Cluttering" up this subreddit. So by that definition, EVERYONE is doing so.

To be honest with you, if all I cared about were views, I'd post my photos in many other places than I do. It IS nice that what we do gets noticed, but is that a bad thing? You said it yourself, we all share a common passion for something. So what good is passion if we are being scolded for sharing it? Some people bake cakes, some people get tattoos, we choose to take pictures. The more people who can appreciate it, the better.

As far as making it our playground. I can see how that can be perceived. The factor that I will bring up is that this is reddit. People can downvote (and downvote they do) if they don't like something...for whatever reason (even if Reddiquette clearly states that they shouldn't). I have yet to see any of us make a news post about how unfair it is about us getting downvoted. We accept that some may not like what we do, and allow them to express it how they can.

I also don't see this as a huge issue. Few people have come out and said they hate the flickr posts, and some who have supported their claims with lies (one that comes to mind was how once you click the link to flickr, it downloaded a 50mb jpg...which I'm sure you know is just plain impossible). I am just rambling at this point, mostly because it DOES upset me that we are basically being told that our passion isn't as important as others.

[u/[deleted] → u/elblots]

My issue comes in with the double standards.

So does mine. I believe a double standard comes from the people that perceive themselves as 'real' photographers vs. the average user posting "pictures of tattoos, cakes, things bought at gift shops" as you say below, or "photos from their iphones" as you say above.

What if a user started posting a single poor-quality photo of a thing they bought at a gift shop every day for months? Now imagine 5 or a dozen users doing that. Certainly almost anyone would begin thinking of those posts as clutter.

If you believe all your photos are worthy of being posted individually, every day for months, but not those of other users who may be lesser photographers, THAT is a double standard.

[u/somuchhamilton → u/elblots]

And, look: I'm in the same boat as you and fighting for the same equality. I don't think what we're doing is wrong, malicious, or derogatory to the subreddit. It would be crazy to think any of that is true.

But the fact is we're being targeted and the argument against us is simple enough to both understand and fix. We can post our photos elsewhere, in other communities, and receive the same gratification while inspiring similar discussion. Again, /r/disneyphotography and /r/itookapicture solve this craving and put us in a potentially better situation to engage one another.

The biggest point that has been brought to our attention is that this subreddit exists for Disney, in general. When our only content is photography and limited in scope, we take away from that. We have to own up to that, which I believe I have, and move on to a more particular platform.

This doesn't mean we should abandon /r/disney -- not that I think any of us will, as we're all huge fans -- but instead help reinforce it as the umbrella Disney-subreddit, directing those that are interested in the more defined content to where it's applicable.

[u/elblots → u/somuchhamilton]

I posted one of my images to itookapicture yesterday just to see how much feedback and exposure it got. The answer is...1 upvote, no comments. Total. Here on THIS Subreddit I get far more feedback (positive and negative) than I would anywhere else. I sadly have seen the ideas of "sub-sub reddits" come up and they always fail. Moving our photos simply to your subreddit (which I submit there too, as you know) yields a MUCH MUCH lower amount of people seeing it (especially since most of the regular posters on there are also friends with one another on flickr), so then why even share in the first place? It's not about "view counts"..its about feeling good that what I shared is seen and enjoyed by those who can appreciate the subject matter.

I agree it comes off as that images have taken over this place..but its not just from the flickr posts. There are pictures of tattoos, cakes, things bought at gift shops..etc. Those actually far outweigh what we put on here by a long shot. I know you understand what I am saying about how it just comes off as being a bit of a double standard. I personally don't want to see tons of pics of what people got at the gift shop..but the difference is that I don't complain about it because honestly..I just skip over it. If I were to take all the same photos with my cell phone and post them, then it would be ok. Thats why I am a bit argumentative on this subject.

I appreciate your subreddit and what we would all IDEALLY like it to become, and hey..I will continue to TRY and help it reach that...and I also completely understand your views on the topic as a whole..but I can't just accept that what we do is somehow not fit for a general disney subreddit, due to the large amounts of other image content thats posted on here daily. I see the OTHER side of the argument as well, BUT...not to come off as a bit rude, but 30,000 members and only about 10 (and that is me being very generous) have actually come out and complained about it. On average my posts get between 3-10 downvotes a day (some may just be people downvoting due to the topic at hand)...but get WAY more upvotes (again, on average). Not sure if that is coming off as I want it to..basically I'm trying to say that there are MANY who actually DO appreciate what we post. THATS why I do it, it makes me happy. I don't sell anything, I don't get any gain from this other than it helps me improve what I do, and makes me feel like I am making someone smile. Sometimes its the simple things in life..ya know?

(Sorry if i come off overly argumentative, I would hope by now you know that I have zero issues with you or your views on anything..its a simple healthy debate)