Man to man, and admin to admin. This conversation needs to be had and it needs to be seen. My intent is merely in the spirit of heartfelt honesty and I present my thoughts, and the thoughts of others, both with us and not, from a perspective of (what some will call "questionable") integrity. We don’t know one another on a first name basis so I’m going to stick w/ "Hammer". You may call me Xander, if you like.



Hammer, I'm going to level with you here.
I think you're cool people, and many others that I associate myself with do as well. This site is in essence ingenious and the only one of it's kind at no mistake. But there's dissention in your ranks. There has been for a while now. But ever since Craig and others started going to Flickr it's been brewing over. We're known as the "Flickr gang" now and god knows what else we're referred to on MSN chat. Our migration had nothing to do with JDs outside of the fact that we no longer had to deal with the Elite.

The Elite. Or so they would like to think. There are a handful of members here who have apparently been here since the site started and they act as though that gives them some due sense of entitlement. They only rate pics and rarely comment much less post their own. But the second one of them does post a pic they all flock to it though like it's the best shot ever. Truth be told, any of the "Flick gang" could go toe-toe with said elite any day of the week.

You see years ago, while these elitists were hiding behind their instant messages and their inboxes trying to pass their “final word” on the pics, WE became each other’s support. Guys like Outrider, Scarrviper, Flatline, Roland_Thompson_Gunner, Dreadnok Dread, (to name a few, very few) became the main posters and were always trying to help each other out compared to the others sitting in rowboats shooting spitballs at the battleships taking over. We didn’t all start out good, hell, my earliest shots were crap! But we didn’t condemn each other for it. Instead we coached our new found friends and cheered on each new shot pushing ourselves to do better. As a result a brotherhood was formed and, yes, it stands today. True story.

Where the animosity or jealousy toward us stems from I cannot say, whether it’s one generation hating the next I don’t really know. But it’s there and has been for years. Now that quite a few people have moved to Flickr and only seldom post on JDs the animosity from the elitists has grown stronger. We exist without their self-fulfilling sense of approval, we’ve angered the gods and inadvertently at that. A line has been drawn but we didn’t draw it.

Hammer, you’re a Flickr user, hell you’re a member of Outrider’s O-Ring group, you know it’s ultimately aimed and based around the art and enjoyment of photography. That’s why we’re there. We aren’t anti-JDs. Oh, it’ll look like that from afar, and yes some people are fed up with certain members here, but ultimately this is where we all started out and hold no real issues with the spirit and concept of this site.
Right now for us Flickr’s the kind of place this spot has all the potential to be, an artist colony full of friends sharing a common hobby. Instead JoeDios gets riddled by internet politics and wielded like a weapon against those who would really just like to get on with the fun. Sad, but again true.

I expect full on that these elitists will standup and deny any and all accusations and truths brought on by this post and when they do, you, Hammer, will know good and well who they are (should they have the stomach to expose themselves). But I don’t stand alone and I speak for the dozens who have stood together over the years.

Should you like to continue this we can do so via PM, or you can visit the O-Ring and see that it’s all about the fun and the hobby. Certainly not about choosing sides or declaring war on one another.

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