What i don’t get and am constantly amazed at, is the selfish, ignorant and head-in-the-sand attitude by some here on RB. If you went off and started up your own website or business and called it something preposterous (or technically illegal), you would be completely in your rights to promote yourself and/or go through the courts defending a made up and non affiliated name to your hearts content.
What you have here though, is a COMMUNITY of people, ranging from the totally inept to the extremely pro, but ultimately this site is a community site that sells stuff, and we can all see and interact with each other (get it!).
By all means have as many groups as you like and let them be into things like the colour ‘RED’, or Still Life, or Left Handed Tossers, but how totally inappropriate is it to create any group with fictitious ‘industry sounding’ credentials, that are not affiliated to anyone or anything, and then set yourselves up as a bone fide organisation, that has the pretensions of credibility and in turn self promote and judge others work, based on those supposed ‘industry sounding’ credentials.
The fact that anyone here on RB would even consider having pretentious credentials after their name and how other people here may feel about this self serving attitude, just absolutely blows my mind.
If you want credentials, then EARN them in the REAL world where it’s tough, dirty, but when you get them, you just might deserve them, not bought over the Internet like one of those online degrees in Nail Varnishing.
DISCLAIMER:
And this is not pointed at any particular group, but at anyone with the laziness and self indulgence to take the short cut to the supposed top, by setting up any group with fictitious ‘industry sounding’ credentials, that are in fact just snake oil and mean nothing in the real world, or maybe they should be used in ‘Second Life’ where you can make believe anything, so i’m told (;→
aphoto4you
Oooooooooooooooooooops….i tell u i admire u for having guts to speak..In this kind a community usualy u get attacked and slammed and killed…But maybe because u are a man u wont get that….i am convinced this is still man world…But as far as those names…i dont know i am dumb blonde here ….i was told to do this and i just follow the crowd…i hope u are stil alive here in 2 hours lol:)
Darren Stones
Did you use spellcheck, Alvin?
Alvin de Quincey
I do not have a problem with anyone here and i understand how some/many may innocently or genuinely believe that this sort of thing is NORMAL, but i also believe someone needs to put another point of view forward and not just run with the crowd.
As said, i’m writing this as a reality check for anybody/any group, just like any of us here might critique someone’s work. It’s thoughtful but not with malice.
Alvin de Quincey
Sorry Darren, bashed it out… what did i bugger up?
Darren Stones
Maybe you could shorten Left Handed Tossers to LHT.
Alvin de Quincey
Ohhh, don’t tell me there’s a group here called that already??, or are you saying take the full word down to retain the piece?
Darren Stones
No, don’t take it down. It’s a good read.
I’m unaware if there’s an LHT group operating, but what will people do when they reach one hundred submissions to that group?
linda lowry
Must not have encountered these false credentials you speak of as yet, other than sometimes doubting my own, no wait, I don’t HAVE any;-)
Alvin de Quincey
Spontaneously combust?
SnowDog
Darren Stones LHT hmmm nice ring to it
Juilee Pryor
there was a forum post about this very thing in the arse forums some time ago…try this link
basically its the same group…. used to be RPA…. real photographers alliance then it was GLA…. global lens addicts…. now its IPA…. international photographers alliance….
this is from there group homepage
*Membership of this group is by invitation only. People wishing to be considered for membership must apply via bubble mail to the admissions host Robin Fortin IPA Your portfolio will be reviewed and if your work is considered to be of a consistent and commercially marketable standard then you will be invited to join the group via bubble mail.
Please note: The group currently has a long waiting list of applicants; therefore your application may take some time before it is considered. Please be patient.*
they are asked to put what ever the current lot of letters are behind their names to make it look more professional…..
Dana DiPasquale
LMAO. love it
Debbie Black
Fantastic! Well said Alvin!
AuntieJ
Don’t know what this is all about, but I support you anyway, because I hate it when people puff themselves up over a bunch of letters before or after their name. Just because you have a Dr., Fr., PhD, MS, etc w/ your name doesn’t mean that you are a decent human being. I know someone who introduces herself as “Ann Ass, MSW. You know what that means, don’t you”? If you don’t, you’re not worth talking to. I guess if you’re rich broad with a “title”, that entitles you to be rude, self-centered and exempt from compassion.
Julie, NBiP (No Body in Particular)
bidkev
Just found this and it’s brought a smile to my face as I had thoughts on this very same subject some while ago when a thread was referring to it, but I kept those thoughts to myself as it was one of my more “mellow” days. :-)
“By Invitation Only…………… from an amateur, unqualified body………..Doesn’t that just speak of control in it’s worst possible context……….I hate that shite!
Just how and why, should somebody who thinks up a name for a group and then allows admission to that group based purely on his judgement of the applicant’s art, be allowed to pursue that path when they have no credentials other than they “own the game”? And just who are they, to bestow upon themselves, letters that have not been gained through hard work and study but gained merely be being adjudged by an individual to be worthy of those (worthless) letters? Just who are they to attach to their name, letters that fraudulently infer that they have some sort of professional qualification?
I am absolutely gobsmacked that otherwise “normal”, well intentioned folk ,are hoodwinked, and consequently hoodwink other folk into thinking that they are somehow better qualified than others, simply because they have attached some letters to their name.
My wife is a RGN and GradDipHlthProm (has a graduate diploma in health promotion but she simply won’t use those letters after her name, even in a professional capacity on her business cards. When I asked her why, she says that most of the people with letters after their name (at her work) are the most bumbling, incompetent, arrogant buffoons that simply refuse to move over and let younger talent have input into the running of the hospital……….the heirarchy, whose main objective in life is to protect their status and position at the expense of new ideas. She refuses to use the letters gained as she feels that those letters are demeaned by the behaviours of those holding similar.
I’m not saying that’s how it is generally, or that those who earn their letters don’t deserve them, or shouldn’t use them, but I am simply speaking of my own, and my wife’s experiences.
The fact that others attempt to add status to their name by utilising letters that haven’t even been gained “through the system” or has no recognition via the tertiary education system or similar, is to my mind, ludicrous and laughable. Who are they bloody fooling? Nobody other than themselves. As my older son would say, “what a load of bloody tossers” :-)
Apart from that, I think that there’s some real crap let into that group anyway………I know,……………art’s subjective.
There, got it off my chest now, and anyway, I’ve got more letters than them.
kev ……….BRWDGATFTWPTBWTAN (Bloody reprobate who doesn’t give a toss for those who pretend to be what they are not)
ElanorMiller
Ah now I know what the IPA is, I was curious as I know someone who has that. As far as I knew, the only letters after your name as a photographer that counted were ones from the British Institute of Professional Photography. Gosh, it’s sad to know I have a pretensious idiot as a friend.