Re: [Leica] The LUG

[Jim Brick <jim@brick.org>]

All I can say about the various subjects that have roared through the LUG,
is, there are some really passionate people, who believe in their stance,
usually from decades experience. And there are people that lurk. And those
that simply gripe and argue. With hundreds of LUGgers throughout the world,
everyone has an opinion, correct or incorrect, about nearly everything. And
when someone writes of how great this LUGger was and how terrible that
LUGger was, that too is simply a single opinion. Look at those who gripe
about multiple answers to posts. They don't know how the "world wide"
Internet works. But most of us simply ignore the gripes knowing that there
is absolutely no solution and it's a waste of effort to go through lengthy
explanations. With new LUGgers always arriving, it gets very old re-hashing
the same old subjects. Of course, it's new to the new people.

When a person is really passionate about a particular subject, there
usually is a really good reason. Quite often rebuttals are thrown with only
nanoseconds of thought. Verses perhaps decades of intense involvement. What
periodically nearly drives me away, is when you know something is
absolutely right, from a lifetime of experience and study, and someone
screams and yells, from ignorance, stating emphatically that the opposite
is true, you sit back and say "what's the use." Why an I attempting to
educate someone about something when it's obvious they are not interested.
They seem to be in it for the game.

It is impossible, via an e-mail list, to exhaustively dissertate full
knowledge about a subject. A lifetime of work cannot be stated simply. I
know, from personal experience, most of the subjects that I have
passionately argued on the LUG, I barely scratched the surface of imparting
meaningful knowledge. I suspect the same is true with Erwin. He finally saw
the handwriting on the wall (American colloquialism.) I've about reached
that point myself. You find that people believe something because they
heard it once, and they want to believe it.

You also find that when people quote pieces of your post, it is quite often
taken totally out of context. You did it yourself in this post that I am
responding to.

I am very passionate about photography. I read, study, do, teach, get
involved, everything. I used to bust my butt to dig out the information
that people need. But being denigrated after so much looking-up,
researching, attempting to find easy concise answers, and then seeing all
of the mis-information that is passed over the LUG (very dis-heartening,)
it is real easy to see why people leave the LUG. I personally no longer
enthusiastically participate.

This very post, will draw flack from someone. I don't care. I spoke from my
heart, and a couple of years of LUG experience. Lurking is nice.

Jim


At 06:48 PM 8/12/98 -0700, you wrote:
>I admire anyone who wants to take on the subject of a FAQ for the LUG  group.
>
>For example lets take (gasp) filters.
>
>Bokeh ---  
>
>As regards Oddmund:  Wow.
>
>Mr. Gandy is no longer a group participant.
>
>Anyway good luck.
>
>Regards,  Bill Larsen  ohlen@lightspeed.net
>