The idea is not original.
I took it from a character of a Julian Barnes’ book, who sets down a kind of half-ironical list of the common places to avoid in the novels plots, taking - at his turn - inspiration for Mauriac’s “Mémoires”.
Taking that as starting point, I had the whim to apply this kind of principle to all the comments we leave to others’ photos, here in this virtual microcosm of the planet PBase, even though it might be equally valid to all the comments which proliferate in all sites of photography.
I discussed this approach with a friend, who is more cultivated than me and definitely more familiar with the capricious nuances of the English language and here are our conclusions, which are far from being definitive, since all should continue to evolve and progress as old Anassagora has tried hard to make us understand for many centuries (my two or three readers might remember my troglodyte features, which make me live in the present with an outlook on the past, ready to hide myself in my reassuring cave).
I’m guilty of many of the faults I’m going to stigmatize here, so I trust my words will be interpreted as an exercise in humility addressed to myself - first of all - to try to avoid in future the same flaws which have slightly annoyed me in others, but unluckily I have occasionally committed too.
Self-indulgence is the worst counsellor when we have the sincere intention to learn to do better, in all fields.
I won’t speak here of the purposes and the reasons for leaving comments on others’ photos.
I do think that all of us, theoretically, agree that it would be more correct and mature to leave a comment only when we are quite impressed by the quality of a photo or of a series of photos which are appealing for our sense of aesthetic or personal sensitiveness.
In reality it happens to be conditioned by other factors, as “do ut des” ratio or others it’s useless to mention now.
What interests me here is drafting a half-serious list of what it would be better to avoid in the form of a comment, the unbearable repetition and common places which deprive them of every credibility and value.
It should be totally forbidden to comment a photo of food by “Yummy” or “You makes me feel hungry now”.
People who dare to comment a photo of an autumnal wood by the words “Nice Colour” should be imprisoned until winter in a grey jail.
People who comment a sunrise shot by “Beautiful Sunset” should be forbidden to comment anything connected with nature and weather for ten years.
People who comment it doesn’t matter what by saying “Beautiful picture. Voted” should pay a fine of at least 300 euro (we accept payments in dollars too, by credit card or Paypal).
Of course people who comment systematically on all the new galleries with only one or two photos (at the very begin of a newly posted gallery) with comments like “Great series,nice start.Congrats! BV” must be condemned to study all Quechua dialects in a monastery on the Andes for three years and then forced to leave comments only in those languages.
(How can they know it’s a great series? And if all the following photos would be just snapshots of Auntie Molly on her birthday? It makes more sense if one is really impressed by a photo and adds in the comment that they hope to see soon other pictures of the same quality in that gallery. )
Possibly they’ll have a chance to take photos during the stay in the Andes monastery, so there will be a double advantage.
“Nice Image” - Nice image. The word nice should be banished from the English language.
It is a weak word, grey, anodyne, and means very little because of overuse.
I sometimes fall into the trap of inadvertently using it, but when I do I try to make it mean pleasant, pleasing, pretty, kind etc.... (oh, I have to hang my head...I do use “ nice” too often...)
People addicted to one word comments like "Exquisite. Excellent. Wonderful. Lovely" should say what makes it so, so such words deserve at least one qualifying line.
Otherwise they will be condemned to communicate with their family and acquaintances only by written limericks for a period of two weeks.
People who are frequent users of copied and pasted comments should be obliged to write a personal letter of at least 35 lines to all the addressees of their former copied and pasted short line.
«A very creative gallery." What does this mean? Is it the creative use of the camera? Is it the creative approach to the subject? Is it the excellent creative use of post- processing? As an Irish Cardinal once said to a student priest in a "viva voce" to defend his doctoral thesis while the student was discussing a point of argument: "Precise nunc!" We need a lot more precise nuncs in PBase!
I’m definitely guilty of abuse of the word “creative”, I’m ready to pay my fine, which consists in finding synonymous in my next comments and in being much more accurate in offering an effective feed-back.
All the people who leave insincere comments on patently awful images, calling them artistic, when they are clearly not, should be engaged by the municipality of the closest big town to their home to repaint walls disfigured by ugly tags (not graffiti, they might be a beautiful form of popular art indeed) and then they should receive sincere and very direct comments to their photos from the strictest and most sarcastic photography professional critics of the world.
Of course, people who cannot master the English language might consider these “rules” valid in their own language.
While it’s obvious that if they commit syntactic imprecision writing in a language which is not their own, they will be exempted from all sanctions for that.
I can allow myself to write this long and probably boring text only because I’m here in my cave where very few visitors come to peep; but at least listing these basic suggestions has encouraged me to do my best to not fall too often into those useless mistakes.
What would be good, I think, would be to write a true critical comment on pictures, pointing out what we consider its faults and good points.
It’s always possible to use the private comment option which could lead to a valuable exchange of views between commenter and posting photographer.
I notice with joy that already several people have started doing that, so we have bright hopes in our future...
Polite use of language would keep this exchange both civilised and fruitful.