Or just me. In trying to find the 2012 Windgate Festival of Speed (your home for North Scottsdale‘s finest cockshow) I found this website: Desert Motors that he runs.
Image (c) Patrick Ernzen/desert-motors.com
An occasional feature there is called Valley Sightings. I appreciate the efforts of shooting from cars, especially when you have that glorious “holy shit is that what I think it is?” moment where you either whip out your camera or the moment is gone. I’ve been doing that shit since at least 1980, as 5 Canons, an HP 318 and 3 Minoltas 35 mm can attest. So, I sent some praise as a comment to the December “Valley Sightings.”
Raoul also sent a question as a comment. The guy (Ernzen) has some skills – the planned shots show much more talent/skill/patience than our staff presently possesses or is able to exhibit. The random shots seem to be cut from the same cloth as ours, but with better technology. So Raoul simply asked what he kept on board for those spontaneous moments.
Both of those comments lingered, while “awaiting moderation.” Then, they disappeared. Not postworthy, I guess. In sampling the site, i found no posted comments at all.
So, two questions:
- what is the (impossibly high) standard to get one’s comment out of purgatory? Geez, I get plenty of hits from a mere trackback to Ferrari. This is the internet, not the Parasite Valley WASP Club for MENSA baccarat players.
- Why even have comments? Isn’t the point (of websites that exist to feature one’s work) to get feedback? Is Desert Motors a paradigm of self-fellating for it’s own sake? “I like cars and take pictures. Worship me in silence, lest you disturb my muse”
Here, the only thing we purge is obvious spam. Hatemail is fine. Mail from haters is fine (I did close the comments on that particular thread after about 7 years – sue me).
I thought about responding to his request for content.
Own a car you’d like to see in the magazine?
Hosting an event you’d like covered?
Contact us and let us know! We need vehicles, we need content and we need your feedback!
But then I thought:
- I’m already desperate for my own content. More importantly,
- Why open myself up for rejection (again) from one guy when I am already here at my own joint, with my own gang of sycophants and lunatics, waiting for more rejection from the other 6 billion earthlings?
- (unless there are stipends or licensing fees to be had, that is…)
Patrick Ernzen here. Found this post and felt obliged to comment. Long story short, it’s nothing personal, I just get a LOT of spam… like, dozens of comments each day. So, rather than have all that spam clutter the site, I chose to have comments require approval. Truth be told, the ratio of real comments to spam is something like 250:1, so I tend to miss the actual comments and end up accidentally ignoring them. Nothing personal.
no worries, Patrick. We enjoy your work.