Post-Flickr Blogging: Thoughts on 500px

For the past couple of months a portion of my energy has been dedicated to the back end of this blog. Namely, I am working on redesigning the layout and restructuring how my content is stored and organised – something I should have done earlier, and can't put off any longer. It’s a huge project, but once it’s done, the blog should be cleaner, more visually current, better suited for browsing content by topic, and easier for me to maintain. 

While it wasn't the main impetus, one thing that finally nudged me to get on top of the blog revamp was the "demise" (okay, redesign) of flickr. Like many bicycle bloggers and photographers, I've been relying on flickr for years to host, display and share my (thousands of) images. As someone with more than a rudimentary knowledge of the internets, I was aware of the risks of hosting images via a 3rd party provider. And even though I paid for a "Pro" account, I knew that I paid too little for the services I was getting and that the other shoe was bound to drop sometime. I expected this other shoe to come in the form of changes in pricing structure. Instead it came in the form of flickr, without a word of warning, dispensing with its Pro accounts altogether and turning into a dramatically less elegant, slower and harder to use version of its former self. I will not go into an anti-flickr rant here. But I will point you to this eloquent summary that reflects my own disappointments. To be clear, flickr still exists and my pictures remain on it, for now. But the service is not the same and I am seeking alternatives. 

One site that's come up in flickr refugee chatter has been 500px. Having met a couple of Irish photographers who use it, I finally gave it a try. I know that many visitors here are into photography and also seeking flickr alternatives, so I hope my feedback is useful.

A Canadian startup, 500px is a photo sharing site aimed specifically at aspiring and professional photographers. The design prevents users from dumping entire folders of images straight from their camera cards, encouraging instead a more thoughtful, selective approach. The layout is (for the most part) clean and portfolio-like. Users can organise their images into sets. They can also control which images show up in their photo stream/ entry page. This is a really nice feature, not available on many other photo sharing sites (which usually simply display your latest uploads first).

Uploading to 500px is a rather involved process. The system resists batch uploads, wanting you to describe and label each image individually before posting. This is fine if you are using the service as a portfolio of only your finest work, not so much if you want to upload your work in sets (as bloggers and event photographers tend to do).

Embedding pictures into web pages and blogposts is straightforward, with the code easily and obviously accessible from the main image page. However, it is not practical to use 500px for hosting images if your site receives heavy traffic, as the system limits users (even those with professional accounts) to 10GB of transfer per month. In layman's terms: If your blog is picture-heavy and receives over 100 unique visitors per day, you will likely exceed this limit. For comparison, this blog receives over 5,000 visitors per day, so hot-linking my images via 500px is out of the question.

As far as a professional portfolio display, 500px is great to use with one glaring exception: The intrusive likes/favourites/voting/comments system. Whether they want to or not, every user receives an overall "affection" rating that is displayed prominently in their header and is calculated based on the activity their pictures generate from other users. Every single image is likewise rated based on the likes, favourites, votes, and comments it receives. Aside from these ratings being distracting in of themselves (and, in my view, at odds with the otherwise professional feel of the site), they also invite spam and generic comments fishing for return likes. Such comments can be flagged (and moderators do remove them), but they cannot be deleted or disabled by the user directly, as far as I can tell. In fact, I would love to disable the entire "affection" system, but 500px does not allow it. Many others have echoed my concerns, and there is chatter of the ranking system being toned down in the future. I will wait a bit to see whether that happens before deciding if I keep my account (definitely not if the "affection" and spammy comment stuff is there to stay).

In short, I find 500px to be a mixed bag. As far as exhibiting photographic work, it could be a brilliant service if it weren't for the intrusive rankings system. It is also odd that the wonderfully easy to use marketplace makes it possible to sell downloads and "prints on canvas"(!) but not prints on paper.

As far as being of use to bloggers for embedding images into their posts... err, only if you have a lightly trafficked blog which you do not anticipate growing. Otherwise, no, 500px is not the right platform for that.

I will continue to explore other possibilities and report if I find anything interesting. But most likely, I will host images on my own server and may try to set up my own portfolio-type system for browsing (and possibly purchasing) interesting images. Flickr was good while it lasted - in particular for the online cycling and bicycle enthusiast community. Alas, nothing lasts forever. I thank you for your patience as this blog goes through its own changes, and, as always, thank you for reading Lovely Bicycle. 

Mind the Moderating Rules

I have a fairly hands-off moderating policy on this blog. At the same time, it is important to me that readers are comfortable participating in discussions without feeling intimidated by others. The policy so far has been to "approve all comments other than spam, unsubstantiated slander, inflammatory remarks, or blatant rudeness," and this will not change. However, I would like to elaborate on some of these terms.

Spam has become harder to deal with, as increasingly I find businesses using the comments inappropriately. Industry members are always welcome to participate in discussions. What is not welcome, is for a business to comment incognito in order to endorse themselves or criticise a competitor. I will remove those comments and will not deal with any company that uses such tactics. Comments promoting your business in response to a thematically unrelated post are likewise inappropriate.

Slander refers to posting malicious allegations against industry members and other individuals. (Example: "I heard Company X uses child labor to make their products." Another example: "Hey, I saw that guy beating his wife after the Podunk Brevet.") I cannot host random slander aimed at companies or persons; please take it elsewhere.

Rudeness seems like an obvious enough concept, but it can be a slippery slope. Criticism in itself is not rude. There are also comments meant to be humourous or tongue-in-cheek that can get misread by those who don't get the joke. I consider comments rude when they outright insult others or address them in a bullying tone.

Inflammatory comments are those designed to taunt a specific individual or to provoke a so-called "flame war." I do not always read comments thoroughly, and may not notice these until a full-blown hostile exchange is in progress. In cases like these, I may go back and remove the entire thread, no matter whose started it.

The way I see it, the less moderating I do the better. I hate being in a position of "allowing" versus "not allowing" stuff. Plus I simply have no time to carefully consider the wording of every comment. Long time readers get the benefit of the doubt more so than unknown ones. I use my judgment. Please use yours and mind the moderating rules.

Upheaval

I've been doing some major restructuring lately that I haven't been sure how to discuss. I finally bought a new roadbike and have been enjoying it very much. However I do not want to write about it yet. It has made me uneasy to realise that when I buy a bike it is seen by some as a strong endorsement of the brand. As I start to take my role as reviewer more seriously, I struggle with how to avoid or at least mitigate this. There are many great bicycles out there, and the ones I buy for myself are not necessarily "better." I've toyed with the idea of not naming the manufacturers of my personal bikes from this point forward, but that would introduce logistic difficulties that would border on absurdity. So I won't go that route. But I do think it's unfair to feature my brand new roadbike here while still in the grips of new bike bliss. I will wait to write about it until I am able to do so dispassionately.

Another big change, is that we now own a couple of folding bikes, which we've been riding for transportation almost exclusively. It is impossible to hide the brand, because of its very recognisable silhouette, and you will be seeing more and more pictures of them soon. The folding bikes were the Co-Habitant's idea and have been for years. And while I was not entirely on board at first, since owning mine I've changed my mind. The bike works for me, and I am especially excited to be taking it along on an upcoming trip.

In parallel to these purchases, I've been selling off most of my other bicycles. Aside from the financial necessity of selling bikes when new ones are acquired, it is clear that increasingly I am focused on long-term reviews of loaner bikes and on design projects (I've got two going on behind the scenes at the moment). There seem to be always bikes in my tiny apartment that do not belong to me, and so it makes sense to get my personal bicycles down to a minimum.

As someone who is both the author of a moderately known bicycle blog and a real-life person, I feel the need to be transparent about these sorts of things, but I also want to retain some privacy, which I hope is understandable. It's a very personal thing, to buy or sell a bicycle. I am looking forward to writing about new projects soon, and to posting lots of detailed reviews this summer.