Being labeled a "Lurker"
 

I was dismayed to have been shut out of this forum yesterday with the insinuation that I (and other like me) am a "Lurker". No, I don't post lots of content onto this forum, I didn't realize that was a prerequisite for continued membership. I very much enjoy this forum and truly appreciate all the hard work the posters, Admin & Mod's do here. I run my own forum (not adult oriented) so I am cognizant of all the work that goes into running one.

If one doesn't contribute with either time nor money there really isn't much to be dismayed about. I too was shut out for a while, but hey that's what goes around. Being labelled "a lurker" is rather prestigious, not everyone puts in the effort of viewing pictures of naked women to such an extent to become a lurker.

*sarcasm*

JMHO, I don't think there's anything wrong with being a lurker. Everyone doesn't have something to contribute. Frankly, I think most of the regular posters post for the benefit of the 'lurkers'. Posters certainly don't receive any pay for posting. I think most posters simply look for an acknowledgement of appreciation for their efforts which is done by the 'lurker' clicking the 'Thanks' button. Personally, that's the only gauge I have for determining whether to continue posting a particular subject. I post nothing but my original stuff, of which I have tens of thousands of pics, maybe hundreds of thousands on various subjects. I often look at the number of 'Views' and number of 'Thanks'. This brings me to the post above by 'danberose'. I couldn't help but notice that in the five years he's been a member, he's only clicked the 'Thanks' button 16 times. I'm sorry for being critical but if I'd been a 'lurker' for five years and only found 16 post that I 'liked', I'd probably just give up on the site.

I've found way more than 16 things than I like, of which you of course insinuate. What can say; I just don't hit the "thanks" button often. I fully understand that most regular contributors gauge the popularity of threads via this function, and also appreciate some thanks, but evidently I'm just not particularly bothered to use this function. After lurking for many years on various forums I've started to contribute via uploading files, and nice as it is to receive "likes" and "thanks" I don't really care about them and don't increase/decrease "output". However, I see it as "giving back" and also I only regurgitate what I find online, so your and my perception would differ. It's also quiet habitual; I sometimes think that I should hit the button more often, but then usually forget about it and only once in a while when something really makes me stop to think do I occasionally thank the uploader.

For what it's worth: thanks for putting in the time and effort of contributing frequently on this board!

*not sarcasm*

As for the feedback thing, I don't live and die by the thanks button, but when someone pm's me to say they've been a fan of my work for many years, that means a lot. For years, OCC did not have a thanks button. I monitored things by the "view" count on each pic. That said, if you like something, how long does it take to press that little button? Do it, even get into the habit of doing it if you want to see more of that type of pic. Thats the way I look at it: If you want to see more of that type of content, thank it as a way of saying "more please!"

Lurker is not a particularly flattering term. Fan would be better :) We post for the audience out there. Call them lurkers or call them fans of naked pics. Lurker implies someone who's presence is not that appreciated. But I appreciate anyone who appreciates what I post. But I think to avoid being labeled a lurker, try to be more open in your appreciation. That way you can go from lurker to fan and still not have to worry about the fact that you don't post material yourself. Lurker also implies silent....so just be less silent..:)

In fact, this has given me an idea - I thought: what would happen if I started a thread down here in this section just for silent lurkers. I could call it "The lurker's corner-speak up!" or something. It would be for anyone who just wants to express their general appreciation for OCC and for the content that they like. As a feedback mechanism, it would be something I would look at. What do you think?

Klondike

I find that I click "like" if I save a particular pic, or series of pics. I also do so if I take the time to enlarge it and admire it for a while.

I just do not understand when I post a zip, and get hundreds of views and only a few thanks.

I can agree with most of what Klondike says. Posters generally are posting for the benefit of others. But in my case the 'views' and 'thanks' are a bit more critical. I don't mean to insinuate that I'm special. Heck, my post don't even come close to the numbers of Klondike, Pedro, and some of the other regular posters. I don't post in what I call 'mainstream' threads(upskirts, beach, flash, candid, etc.) which have a huge following. Instead I post primarily 'biker' related stuff. Yes, I have other stuff, old girlfriends, many of who were dancers that I plan to post in one of the hardcore groups someday. But I wanted to keep it all grouped by topic. And I had hoped to generate interest and postings from other bikers. There's a lot of cameras at these events. Yes, I could have busted up the pics, posting some in the 'candid' and some in the 'flash' threads and received more views and thanks. In fact, many people are posting 'flash' pics from motorcycle events in those threads, probably for better exposure, when I wish they'd contribute to the 'biker' thread.

What makes the 'views' and 'thanks' so critical for me is the effort. I know, poor, poor Charlie. No, seriously. When I started posting here I started posting pics from scans from basically 3 Harley events before there was 'digital' and was working my way up, I think I got to maybe 2005 or 2006. I recently decided to back up and do a few 'black' biker events for variety, starting with the Black Bike Week in 1997. I had originally scanned them at 800x600, 150dpi. That was 'the size' back then. In preparation I re-scanned, from negatives, about 400 pics at 1200dpi for starters. When I was posting the 'Harley' stuff I was getting 20-30 thanks on each post. Since I started the 'Black Bike Week' post(currently 12 post) the number of 'views' and 'thanks' has dropped significantly. As of this moment no post has generated more than 13 'thanks' and none of the last 8 post has generated more than a half dozen 'thanks'. Is it the quality of the scans? Is it a lack of interest in 'black' events? Is it the lack of tits(black events are all about the butts)? I'm not really sure. But regardless, the time and effort to clean the decade old negatives and scan them is wasted if people aren't appreciating them. It's a whole lot easier to just post the 'Harley' events, especially the 'digital' ones. I'll continue with that 'event' until I finish the ones that I've re-scanned but I won't re-scan any more unless I see a change in interest, although I might post some 'digital' ones to see if the scan quality was the issue, which I don't expect to be the case.

As for Barmixer's comments, I agree whole-heartedly. I'm 65 now and don't really collect porn anymore. But occasionally I see a special pic here and there. If it's special enough to dl to my computer, I owe it to the poster to 'Thank' him/her.

Charlie, guys like you are an extremely valuable commodity at OCC. I hope that the lack of thanks will not deter you from continuing to post from your vast collection. When you dangle terms like "tens of thousands" with reference to how many pics you have taken, my pulse quickens a bit. It would be my privilege to have in my collection the complete works....

Klondike

Lurker?
 

Damn it!!! I guess that I'm a "Lurker" also! :(
I look at at hundreds or maybe thousands of photos everyday
and I only click "Thanks" a few times a day and to top that off
I don't have many posts. So, if looking and not posting makes one
a "Lurker"... I fit the bill. However, I don't steal the photos here and
post them elsewhere. So, maybe... I'm not all that terrible.

Mudbug

Klondike; I understand where you're coming from and I've almost "doubled" my "thanks" in only ;) a couple of days.

Charlie; all though the biker stuff isn't exactly what really excites me, I still applaud your efforts. Regarding the issue of your declining "thanks", perhaps you could open a poll with a few options of the various biker pictures you have and gauge which category has the most amount of fans :). Of course I can relate to your problem on a more general level: it doesn't feel very worthwhile to put in a considerable level of effort which is largely unappreciated.

However, I wouldn't go so far as to agree with you that one "owes it to the up-loader" to thank them. I do spend a fair amount of time on this board from time to time, and so many threads contain duplicates and triplicates, and viewing the board in it's entirety quadruplicates, quintaplicates (I thank google for this word) and so forth. I'm in no position whatsoever to be annoyed at this, all though "between the two of us" it does kind of irritate me slightly, particularly when the file name has been changed. There is a difference between original up-loaders and those who merely regurgitate. I can't understand why someone who downloads something has to change the name of a file, often to something like "1543559916" before uploading it again. I don't know exactly how common these two opposing practices are, but many times the file name is the same, and many times the file name has been changed. Personally, if I were to frequently thank up-loaders (I'm by no means claiming that this is the reason as to why I've barely thanked anyone during 5 years - that would be really lame), I wouldn't thank anyone that uploads downloaded material after re-naming it - unless it was an incredible picture and also very rare. This board is administered in a friendly manner; some other boards have dislike as an option. Largely speaking, I don't even see the point in thanking people for regurgitating stuff that is as frequent as an ant in an anthill.

As I said in my previous post, I've recently started to re-post stuff on various forums that I've found online. However, I only contribute where I see a genuine need. A few days ago I uploaded many videos in the rapidshare section (my only contribution during 5 years on this board, mind, and also the reason why I posted in this thread - in order to "amass" 10 posts before being allowed to post url's) belonging to the same thread and where almost all of the files had been deleted for a long time. I'm going to do the same with a couple more of those threads in the coming period. Personally I don't give a rat's ass of how many thanks I receive (all though my ego will cause me to check on it from time to time), as I'm "giving back" and my contribution is in many cases trifle in comparison to the effort of the original up-loader. As I said,; our perspectives are very different.

LOL, I don't think you'd want the 'complete works'. I hope you noted that I said, "of which I have tens of thousands of pics, maybe hundreds of thousands on various subjects", especially the 'various subjects'. I'm not a professional, never had any camera courses, but I always loved taking pictures and have sometimes found it to be a ticket to other things. In the late 60's, while working in the nearby 'metropolis', I'd sometimes happen across a car wreck to and from work. I'd stop and shoot a few pics, then sell the undeveloped roll of film - delivered - to the newspaper. Sometimes they'd use it and sometimes they'd just tell me it was over exposed. I also shot pics at the drag races and car shows. When I got my first coverage in one of the hot rod mags I thought I was king. Once you get a 'tear sheet' it's easier to get a 'press' pass. All I ever wanted was to get up close in the pits at the drag races. I've got over 2 dozen 16"x12"x12" boxes that are full of negatives. Of course some of the rolls are not fully exposed. I didn't understand how to use the camera settings but I knew how to focus and when to use the different ISO types, so when ever I'd move from sun to overcast I'd change film, lol. I'd buy film in bulk to save some money and process the negatives myself. I'd then use a lupe to see which ones to have printed. At one time I had 3 14" rolls of sleeves for negatives. It wasn't until the mid 90's that I bought a Kodak S20 negative scanner, the best non-commercial scanner ever made. Unfortunately the software for it doesn't work with anything beyond Windows 98. So I had to buy another scanner or use one of the older(full) computers. Fortunately a few companies still make scanners that will handle the older 2 3/8" x 2 3/8" negatives and the even older 2 5/8" x 4 1/4" negatives. I've still got the Brownie 'Hawkeye' camera that I used as well as a carton of blue Sylvania flash bulbs. Am I a pack rat or hoarder? What's the difference, lol?

Anyway, I used to shoot anything and everything, girls, cars, fireworks, motorcycles, buildings, animals, family, you name it. When I retired in 2002 I started scanning some stuff in my spare time when I wasn't working in the garden. A few years ago I gave DVD's to family members with several thousand family pics. My count of 'tens of thousands' of pics of the 'adult' nature is speculative but I think realistic if not conservative. I base it on the fact that I've been riding bikes for what is now 50 years. For the past 40 years I've attended an average of a half dozen 'big' biker rallies each year in addition to other events. I used to carry at least 8 rolls of film to each event, many times more. Since the advent of 'digital' I used to carry a whole carton of floppy disk, and 3 batteries, when I was using the first Sony Mavica, in addition to the 2 Minolta 650's. And later when I started using the Olympus E10 and the current Canon, I carry 2 disk and 3 batteries. For example, the Black Bike Week event that I'm currently posting from was shot in '97, thus the FC97xxx file names and consist of 824 pics of which I've re-scanned about 400. When I originally scanned them I used PowerPost A&A 11b to post them in one of the 'alt.binaries.black' newsgroups, so they've been posted elsewhere before in a lower resolution.

BTW, Mudbug, you need to go back and edit the last sentence in your post to say 'NOT' all that terrible, lol. I've said it before but it can't be said too often, many 'Thanks' to the moderators here. No forum can survive without the support of a good group of moderators.

P.S.- Mudbug, I see you edited your post before I got this message finished, bravo.

i dont care a bit about the thanks or anything i post just hoping members will enjoy the stuff i post.

'danberose', maybe the word 'owe' was the incorrect term to use. My vocabulary is limited, mostly to words like ain't, y'all, this'n, and such. Maybe 'courtesy' would be more appropriate, frankly I'm afraid of misspelling words over 4 letters. But being from the South, there's some of us that are still big on that kind of stuff. If someone does something for me and I appreciate it I say 'thank you'. LOL, a young girl, probably 12 or 13, held the door for me the other day at our local burger joint. I felt kind of awkward going thru it given that I was brought up to hold the door for women and old folks. But as awkward as I felt, I'd have been a total 'sum'b*tch' if I had not said 'thank you', and as prim and proper as the young girl appeared, she probably would have been thinking, 'you ungrateful old bastard' if I had not. I'm thankful people are still being taught those manners. Even though the internet has allowed us to live our lives in secret I try to treat it as I would IRL.

Charlie - of course you're right that one should try to behave online like in real life, and also in affirming the importance of manners. I probably should try to discern between different up-loaders - those who are original and those who are not. Original up-loaders do deserve to be thanked. I'll try to improve in this sense. I don't behave like a complete toad online, but as contact is non-personal I suspect that many people act in such a way too. Hence the lack of thanks, for example. IRL most people say thanks when being given something.

Have been a member prior to the thanks button, a good idea that limits the wow she's hot comments, I tend not to remember to use it. I am not in the habit.

I am not really interested in thanks but i can see how it could make the poster feel like his effort in aquiring and posting a photo has not gone unappreciated.

So I think the thanks button is a good idea but those who forget to use it should not be considered too harshly. it is only those who purposely don't use it who should be chastised.

Not for nothing, I don't think anyone should be saying anything. I posted pics with absolutely no response, and didn't say a word, everybody chill!

Your 'history/profile' doesn't reflect what you just wrote. I see 4 post in 2 years, all just comments, no attachments, but 7 'thanks' to 1 of those comments.

You realize we can see your post history, right? :rolleyes:

How long must I be a "lurker"?
 

For how long is one labeled a "lurker", and thus banned from viewing images full-size? This has been the best forum I've found online the niche of exhibitionist and voyeur. Aside from flickr, and this forum groups a lot of flickr images into one place. It's neat that some members, such as Klondike, have flickr pages too and can give first-hand details about the situation.
However, I don't understand why the mods should ban somebody just because they've viewed a certain amount of images in one day. I guess I'll start doing "thanks", if that will give me chance of viewing more pics in one day. As for pics to donate, I have none. Unless i get them from elsewhere. That's what some users do, I realize.
For what it's worth, there's my opinion!

I guess that's me done with OCC and I'll have to stop recommending it to anyone as this leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

I do not have any original work, meaning I can do one of two things:

A. Re-upload everything I have downloaded here in order to bypass this "ban" which I'm sure will be frowned upon
or
B. Start uploading watermarked and pro images, which WILL be frowned upon.

There aren't many sites which meet ALL THREE of the following criteria:
Free
Watermark-less
Amateur
and that means I am unable to do anything but A. or B. above.

I'm not rolling in money, I sc**** by every month. I certainly don't have a whack of money lying around to "bribe" my way out of this ban.:mad:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Banned from OCC
Youporn will do

:(

You realize this "ban" is just a 24-hour test, right?

Fango

Being labelled a "lurker" isn't nice, I guess it could have been put better.

Lurker?
 

What is this lurker stuff? I do not have any original photos to post. Why don't they just make it a pay site and then no one will post.

Yeah its annoying but it is what it is.

My personal thoughts:

I "lurked" for a year before I made my first post. It took some time for me to get comfortable with uploading photos. I was posting on a couple of different forums before this became my favorite website. Here's why I love this forum:

1. The forum treats it's material (read: women and member's comments) with respect. The atmosphere remains positive because derogatory or inflammatory comments are not tolerated. Where else can you find that on the web?

2. There's an enormous depth of high quality posts. Most everything here has been built and maintained by volunteers (moderators, contributors, viewers, and the forum's owner).

That said, consider:

3. There's a cost to host, maintain, and deliver some 4 million photo, video, and ZIP files to 750,000 members.

4. There are no pop-up ads, banners, or other revenue generating gimmicks here.

5. Other websites exist. You are not required to come here.

In close:

6. I think this is a fantastic website. I am thankful for Alex's dedication, along with the other moderators who keep the servers humming. I am thankful for the contributors (whether they've made monumental contributions, or just a half-dozen original posts).

Bottom line (as a moderator):

7. There's an on-going need balance allocation of finite resources here. Instead of an abrupt closure or change, you are witnessing a thoughtful evaluation of how to manage resources to keep this forum strong and available for years to come.

Abac123, as far as I can see there are two easy ways not to labeled a lurker in the first place:

01 - Click the "thanks" button when you like or have downloaded something. It's called good manners and it bugs me a little that so many people here don't bother. EG: in the ENF section you're lucky if you get 1 "thank you" for every 20-25 viewing of a picture.

02 - If you like something post an encouraging comment. All it has to say is "Nice one" or "LOL" or "Thanks for that" or can be a link to other relevant content on the board. Again it's good manners.

But as Dognheat says above, the site owners are re-evaluating how this brilliant and FREE site is run, and IMO if that means getting a little stricter with those who don't contribute then so be it.

As someone who found this forum less than a week ago, but who has been a (contributing) member of many forums over the years and Usenet before that, I have a couple thoughts.

1. "Nice one" replies often get annoying. One celebrity forum I frequent is almost unusable because of replies that simply say thanks (it has other particular features that make up for that failing). The new posts list is about 80% older posts that have been bumped. This is why the thanks button exists. It's better to reserve posting for when you have content, or a useful or thoughtful comment.

2. My impression is that it's generally considered polite to lurk for a while before posting too much. That way you avoid being disruptive. This seems especially important given this board's apparent dislike of duplication (which I about learned by lurking). I could start posting today but I have no idea what's already here.

3. The thanks button is better, but it's meaningless if people just click it everytime they see or even save a picture. I don't click thanks enough myself, but I'd like for it to mean a little more than "I looked at this post and it was nice". That's what the views counter is for.

4. I contributed at another non-nude forum for years. It and a sister site eventually instituted a credit system. On the nonude site, this led to a lot of posts for credits. I had to leave the sister site because I had nothing to post. It looks like its doing OK, but it's very quiet since it's almost impossible to break in without original material to post.

5. Obviously, a site like this is expensive to run. I don't know what you've done in the past to raise money (see point 2), but wouldn't it be possible to raise money through smaller donations? The membership is too much for my limited budget, and I'm too new to commit that kind of money. I have no doubt that many are in a similar place.

Those are my thoughts.

is it me
 

is it me or am i not looking in the right places .
lots of photos are copy right on the net such as flickr. pbase .

To find photos that can be down loaded and posted on this forum is very hard.
Often when you find one or two which seem to new posts . When you log on some one has posted them . Before you can post yourself .

Its a shame they lock us out .
We are all trying to find items to post.

What fraction would be enough?

they need to fix something ....
 

You can click thanks all the way down the page and if you click one picture to have a better look ,, all the thanks are removed ... :confused::confused::confused: I bet there would be many more thanks seen if this werent the case...

@showoffzzzz

I certainly agree that a few people seem to be somewhat touchy. It's just a bit of banter, nothing to get upset over. I actually looked up the word "lurk" on an online dictionary, and much to my surprise a new definition has been ascribed to the word: "To read but not contribute to the discussion in a newsgroup, chatroom, or other online forum." So it doesn't really have an offensive undertone at all, all though this perhaps isn't common knowledge.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Lurk

I used to spend more time in the past looking at pics on various sites, and there certainly are a few similar sites to OCC, but OCC is by far the largest. As I spend less time today I very rarely visit them, but each site often offers some variety, which is nice if one "dedicates" an unhealthy amount of time to this hobby. Anyhow, I've began to try to remember to use the thanks button on all the forums I visit.

I've seen this too.
 

When you single left click a pic, it does go to the full size pic. If you use the back button though, it takes you back to the original page. Noticed this a long time ago. The simple fix is to right click and open in a new window. Another option is to view the page, click all over if you want, then go back and click the 'thanks' as you see fit. Another thing that sometimes happens is if you navigate away from the page before your 'thanks' uploads, it doesn't show up. I've also seen 'thanks' fall of if the post has been modified such as a moderator removing a watermarked picture.

I click the thanks for pictures that I actually download and keep. Some members seem to treat this like a video game though and will only post more if they get a certain number of thanks. I usually REMOVE my thanks from these, even if I liked their post.

The fact that this site hosts all the pics themselves is my favorite feature! The third party hosts are notorious for pop-ups, pop-unders, fake virus scans, and assorted other bullshit! When I click a picture on OCC, I get a picture. Not a video-chat ad, no auto run commercials for toilet cleaners and cold medicine. Just a picture in whatever quality it was uploaded in. Anyone who has ever had to re-install an operating system to recover from a virus can appreciate the value of a self-hosted site!

Thanks OCC!


Moderator's Note: I like your last paragraph and I feel the same way as a user of the forum. It is important to note that it is much more expensive to run a forum this way without financial support of advertisers. The pop-ups etc you speak of are the result of post for cash posters. These people do a good job of posting content and contributing to the forums, but they get paid to do it. It is very annoying and your point about OCC is that its simply an old fashioned free adult forum and when you click it you get it without a hassle.

I try not to be a lurker, but the posting standards here are pretty high and it is hard to find material of decent quality, is not a repeat post, or watermarked. Occasionally I find something that does seem original, but then I see another hot thread and get distracted! :p
I will try to reform and download any finds in a special folder. I don't have much money so I can't afford a subscription.

Case study
 

Have patience and the content will come to you!

I was essentially a lurker for almost 8 years. But I visit the site almost every day. I made maybe half a dozen posts in my first 6 years - over that kind of timescale at some point you're going to stumble over something on the internet which you know in your gut needs to be shared on OCC! And if you're visiting the site every day, reading the threads of the stuff you like best, and haven't seen it before, chances are it's new content.

But the real trick is to get a specialism or a niche. Pedro has the beach, Klondike has the nude runs, Dalquaz has the Dare to Bare teens (all original content of course), other people make a living scouring Youtube or Dailymotion or Picasweb or Rajce or a million other image and video sites on the internet for new content. Some members, I'm sure, just post pictures from the links other members post in OCC's Free Links section! That's fine, both the links and the images have value - some people like context and background, others just want to see the boobies.

I'm into Spencer Tunick, as a multiple-time participant so I usually know what is happening in advance and where to find the behind the scenes pictures before anyone else. I've posted a bit of content through that. But that kind of inside knowledge is hard to come by (and sometimes you feel a little bit duplicitous posting it). Now I'm the Winter Beach guy. I saw a series of pictures posted by someone else on OCC, of friends bathing naked. I thought they were fantastic, I didn't just save them and knock one out, I went to the original source to try and learn more about them, discovered vk.com, all the Winter Beach stuff and loads of other content that really ought to be posted here too! That's kept me busy over the last year and garnered me 5000 thanks.

All it takes is a bit of enthusiasm for a specific type of content, a little bit of effort and research and if you find a source no-one else is systematically mining, stake your claim and Be The Guy. But you also need patience, it might take you 8 years until you find it...

A long time ago when i found this site i had a source to mine, it eventually vanished and real life got in the way of porn hunting. But everywhere i used to go the hosts have died and lost all the content, the board tards were too much and amateur seemed to included every fake porno pic of someone less famous than Jenna Jameson.
OCC really is the best and i feel i should say thanks to all those concerned.

I just looked back through this thread which has grown quite a bit. What piqued me the most is this comment above which I wholeheartedly agree with. "The real trick (for a lurker wishing to become a poster) is to get a specialism or a niche". This is how I feel also. Its that way in life also. But really, for a lurker to become a useful poster, find a niche. You 'niche" posters (Of which I guess I am one also when it comes to Fremont, campus stuff) are worth your weight in gold. If all you are into is sexy ladies, maybe finding a "niche" will be a bit of a problem. But if its public nudity you like, or ENF, whole worlds can open up to you if you narrow your focus a little and get to know the search terms that are going to get you niche content. And also remember that to veteran collectors like myself, quality and freshness trump quantity every time. You needn't find a ton of stuff - just one fresh post every couple of months will do. the most recent example that comes to mind is the new Baker 13 run pics put up recently in the campus run thread. Thats a gold mine to me.

Niche posters have definitely made their mark here at OCC. Maybe the "modern era" of niche posting started for me around the time that 69|69 and Pennywiseguy started posting Russian event festival pics. We have numerous guys here now to thank for posting original and niche pics - dedicated collectors who, like daveduchovny, are very familiar with certain events.

I used to collect coins, and at the time, it seemed that no one could possibly make a lot of money doing this. The only way to do it was to narrow your focus and specialize in one area and collect only in that area. Then and only then could you acquire the necessary skill to buy and sell effectively. Well, its sort of the same thing here. :)
OCC is incomprehesively vast to a newcomer, but so is the net overall and the volume of new pics going up everyday. Fresh event pics are relatively easy to mine once you get to know when and where they take place. If the pics have the year "2012" attached and were taken in Nov, chances are they are fresh here.

Fremont threads have, for example, been getting smaller the last couple of years. This means that all a lurker has to do to make his mark at OCC in my mind is to spend an evening or two in late June cruising the net for the latest Fremont pics. In 2012, it only seemed like a small handful of members were actively searching for pics. We could have used more surfers..

Anyway, but thats just one small example. I surf a lot less than I used to, and so when I come here more and more I look to the output of the niche surfers in the E&V and ENF forums. Become one of those guys and I'll be eternally "thanks" - full..:)

Klondike

I have been a member here for less than a year. I visit the site inconsistently. I may visit 3 days in a row and I may go a few weeks between visits. I very much appreciate the regular contributors and I have become more conscious of hitting the thanks button. While I, of course, would have liked full access to the site, I am not in position to join. It is not a financial issue. I thought the compromise had been fair where I could view posted thumbnail and enlarge them but I needed to join to access video content or larger files.

However, I visit today and find I can no longer click on the thumbs and enlarge them. I hope it's a glitch but I fear it isn't. I will likely return a few times to see if things have returned to normal. Im not optimistic. My tastes steer me toward the amateurs and the old Polaroid types. Without being able to enlarge those pictures, it takes away from the enjoyment and therefore, my motivation to visit.

Therefore I want to thanks the many contributors that make this site what it is. It's you that create the traffic. You are the reason this place exists.

Thank you for your polite and complimentary message. We're currently doing another in a series of 24-hour tests. You will be able to download files and pictures again tomorrow.

Fango

I'm disappointed to be labelled as a "lurker" too. I don't have anything to contribute, and I don't know where I'd find material in the first place, but I enjoy the website and the community spirit here. I visit regularly.

I too felt that the 'pictures for free, pay for the videos' subscription model was fair.

I appreciate the bandwidth and storage requirements of a large website like this though.

No Longer a lurker !!!
 

I am getting the hang of things , So to speak..... Myself after having been here awhile
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