Some time ago, we disabled the ability for members to hide their photos from other members.  I have reversed this change and once again, you may choose the "Album can be viewed by: Me Only" selection in your album's properties.  We recognize that at times members may wish for their photos to be invisible, perhaps as a result of unfair criticism, harassment, or personal reasons.  In these situations, sometimes people have opted to permanently delete their albums, which cannot be easily reversed.  Now we hope that members wishing to take a break from the site will take advantage of the ability to hide their photos.  Keep in mind however that Lighting-Gallery.net is meant to be a community where we share, and is not intended for personal file storage.  We expect this option to be used sparingly and temporarily.  As always, if you receive an offensive comment, please report it to the administrators for review.

Sounds good to me, Thanks...

I think a lot of the mayhem happened because of the members who continuously add senseless comments, each of which is not formally offensive, but they just cause gradual loss of interest as they keep showing up. Not because of specific offensive posts. Members might have not wished to have all the nonsense happen on their pictures

Just throwing this out there Ash, even if your not an admin or a mod, all it takes is a few members who actually care about the site to comment to put the nonsense posting back on track, even something as simple as posting "And back on topic" in the beginning of a post works, and in return by helping the mods out doing this also gives them more time to work out the other bugs popping up with running a website.. But like Patrick said if you get an abusive comment they should be the first to know about, after all they have the power to ban a user if needed, while I hope they don't need to , they can, its really just a few mouse clicks and done..   

I am not about discussions going off topic, but instead about single posts which often are formally on topic, but simply cause a loss of interest. Like members who stick in some standard response (copied from elsewhere)

It did not look like bullying. The posts i recall looked more like some sort of sick OCD to post all the facts about every thing being discussed. I dont even think that those who were posting had any pleasure from it, other than satisfying the OCD..

trencheel303, I'm good at distraction tactics as well, and I've never felt bad asking people for a source of the "facts" they are spouting and will even suggest things like google.com to help them out, and I do other things like reading every single post they have ever posted, and showing the errors of there ways by digging up the past, that stops most dedicated trolls quickly especially when you post the URL to there post contradicted what ever they are now claiming with there own words.

Now I hope I never have to do this but I will if they are abusive or annoying, I also don't take offence in anything said on the internet directed at me so they can call me a backseat mod or an assortment of other names, I've worked on construction sites I know they all and I know them in several languages as well, and when they do this I think like this, A. I have done my job right and B. if they are attacking me they are not attacking someone else who might just walk away so it's all good and I'm not going anywhere, anytime soon...

Also if the good members here stand there ground it really doesn't make for a good time for the one or two trolls who happen to visit..       

Imagine you posted a pic of a lamp, and somebody comments something like in which direction it is screwed into the socket

 - What they say is technically correct

 - What source can you cite for something like that ?

 - What they say is not a personal offence to everyone, but very much so to everyone's intelligence. But there is no forum rule against that

If it's the first time, ok fine, second / third time well then it's time to pounce and ask them directly why they keep posting this information and provide the URL to show they are posting repeatedly, so this will either enrage them so they are focused on my posts which is good, or make them happy someone actually read the last posts so they will post somewhere else.

Or you could add the distraction and ask them if they know of any left hand thread lamps (yes they are rare but they do exist) since they are well versed in Right hand thread lamps and I will keep asking them until I get an answer, just like they do and I don't forget these things for some reason so they will either go and find one or go away.

But it's hard to say the best way to act, normally I will read the last 100 posts from them, well if they have that many to read and this allows be to figure out the best course action, and sometimes there posts will tell you if they are younger or older, are just being annoying or just uneducated so you really have to act on the fly, and sometimes I might take hours to reply and sometime it seconds it kind of a balancing act and nothing is 100% perfect..

Sometime it also works to return the favor and post on there images, there quotes ( this is not the most recommended idea but it's an option)   

And about the sources, I don't provide them, I simply ask for them, normally this more for the member that keeps quoting things that are blatantly wrong, or mis-leading, or  done in badfaith

Sounds like a good idea..

Only time I could see myself using that feature is if I was updating/editing/changing stuff & wanted to temporarily 'turn off' an album until I was done..

Only time I could see myself using that feature is if I was updating/editing/changing stuff & wanted to temporarily 'turn off' an album until I was done..

That's what I have done in the past, especially when the photo needs to be cropped in some way. 

That's what I have done in the past, especially when the photo needs to be cropped in some way. 

I actually ended up creating a private album since that last post...I use it as a temporary holding bin for some uploads, before they get released for public viewing in my other albums.

Disclaimer regarding the 'Me only' setting to anyone who sees this now or future.

The 'Me only' setting is not really a private setting and all the sites administrators / webmasters can fully see everything you put in your private albums, in fact so much so that it appears as normal to them along with everyone else's posts. It is important to keep that in mind and do not abuse or put things you don't want others to see because once you do it will be seen. In general this shouldn't be an issue to the common member.

I discovered this when a moderator shared one of my hidden pictures to a forum, not being aware that i had it hidden away. Thankfully it was just some bulb which I deleted entirely once discovered. Since then I have not used the me only. I understand and accept the importance of the admins being able to see all the files, but I'd like to see a disclaimer or something letting newbies know about that. Me for example, 7 years on this site and only recently found out about that lol

I knew administrators & webmasters could see the "private" 'me only' albums, but I don't care...its not like I'd be hiding anything there.
As mentioned, I only use it sometimes - as a temporary holding spot before releasing a pic for general viewing.

I know, unfortunately most other members do not know and really there isn't a way for them to know formally.