[tnfoto]

Originally Posted by Merkle923

...I ask: Please don't degrade this useful baseball photography site into the 5,000,000th "let me show you my card collection" place on the net.

... But the only relevance here of actual cards is the images they carry.

Originally Posted by Cusick

...In sum, my position is that baseball card postings should be OK on this thread if they are used infrequently and judiciously.

Originally Posted by dennis_keith

... I Don't agree with your point of view at all. It's elitist.

Originally Posted by Merkle923

...More importantly, I request an apology for the use of the term "elitist." Were I an elitist I would not have posted rare and usual images that I took myself or own the copyright to, including the McCarthys and the Dexters and the discarded Daily News shots. It's an unconscionable insult.

Originally Posted by Buster Narum

FWIW, I agree that Merkle's contributions here are invaluable and I completely understand why he is insulted after his generosity with us.

...As I said in a recent post, I think we need two threads. One that is STRICTLY for posting interesting and unusual photos and for handling the Topps vault releases as well as other identification issues - and another where those of us who just enjoy the general topic of baseball photos can post comfortably without any risk of being off-topic, redundant, guilty of not researching something thoroughly enough, guessing wrong, and so on.

I really believe that two threads would relieve the tension that seems very apparent here.

Originally Posted by FatJack

Not for nuthin' (please don't bite my head off), we have an existent thread called "Random Photo Colorizations And Cards". It was originally ortforshort's thread with some truly brilliant colorizations in card form, most (if not all) of which have since been removed (not to imply anything untoward). But it would seem to me that that thread title actually lends itself to, well, random photo colorizations and cards (customs, regionals...who cares). I would personally suggest that the only time a card should appear in this thread would be when someone requests a photo of an obscure player (or obscure with a given team) and such is the only image available. But that's just me. As you were.

Before I dive into this, let me apologize for my relative absence of late. Unfortunately, since early November my nearly undivided attention has been required at my clinic. I will remain likewise distracted for the foreseeable future but will continue to keep up with forum activity as much as I can. If you see something that you think deserves my attention, please feel free to message or email me in case I haven’t been able to visit the forum that day.

In addition to the threads I quoted above, over the past few weeks I have been contacted by several forum members who wanted to discuss the activity in our community—specifically in regards to this thread which, for ease of discussion in this post, I’ll call the “main thread.” As in the posts quoted above, most of the messages I received were civil but some were out of line. This forum is provided for identifying, discussing and sharing baseball player photos. Name-calling and disparagement will not be tolerated.

Concerns have been raised at several points over the nearly eight years the main thread has been active and we appear to have again reached a point where we as a group need to determine in which direction this thread will move ahead. We all have opinions and I am willing and would like to devote forum space over the next day or two to an open discussion about what I propose. Again, discussing issues and proposals is appropriate. Denigration and mocking is not.

To give some context to my proposal, I will remind everyone that this forum is in support of Out of the Park (OOTP) Baseball 18. At least in theory, if not in practice, posts outside of the Off-Topic forum should support or relate to the game. Toward that end, the main thread originated as a one-stop-shop for people who wanted to augment their gaming experience with actual images of the players depicted in the game. The primary work done in the early years of the main thread and its various precursors related to completing, to the extent possible, the Facepack (formerly the Gambo_and_TWil1 photo pack). This project extended to the filling out of Pegasus27’s Batters Pack and Pitchers Pack. The great success of this project has left in its wake what I believe to be one of the best and most comprehensive repositories of historical baseball player photos on the Internet.

A few months shy of eight years, and now just about a day short of seven million views, after its debut the primary work being done in the main thread relates to new-found images of players for whom we already have a photo. This is of necessity because the missing player list is now under 3% of all major league players, so new discoveries at this point are few and far between—although Chickalooza and Dto7 are trying their best to make me a liar here . Because of that, for the past few years I have allowed the focus of the main thread to expand into other worthwhile projects that, at least tangentially, continue to relate to the primary focus of the forum and thread. Principal among these has been the Topps Vault project. I believe that the TV project has definite value relative to our stated focus, in that new photos of hard-to-find players emerge nearly every week.

Overall the current main thread focus feels, to me, like it has found a decent equilibrium. As I see it, the current state of the thread appears to be frequent TV posts (mostly appropriate but some duplicative), other player/photo discoveries and upgrades thrown in whenever located, and a few requests here-and-there for various items.

Outside of those bounds, there are many other topics that do (or at least may) have enough value to a reasonable number of board participants that I would like to encourage their continued exposure—though not in the main thread. Colorizations, necrology, custom cards, Photoshops/logo changes, player age studies, and rare/uncatalogued cards all come to mind as topics that have at least a moderate following but do not have a place in the main thread. There are likely other topics and I welcome discussion about what may or may not fit in this admittedly non-exclusive topic list.

My proposal relative to this group of topics is to set up a “General Baseball Image Discussion” thread in the Mods, Photos & Quick Starts forum. I believe that a separate, less-focused thread would be a better catch-all place for many of the extraneous discussions that are now included in the main thread. Such a place would allow for continuing discussions and requests that could not adequately be supported or encouraged here, while this thread retains its focus on player photo discoveries, upgrades and identification.

With that, I'll open it up to discussion, reminding the group that posts, both related to this discussion and otherwise, should remain civil.