Boatnerd Discussion Forum

There are not dozens and dozens of facebook groups posting up to date daily great lakes shipping photos.

This was the best one until it was switched, after many years,from public to private a few months back.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1221586927916381/

I don’t know what Facebook group you are referring to as there are dozens upon dozens now with many members and photographs, and several of them are still public. However, Facebook has its problems and there are very good reasons to make a group private. Recently there has been a major rise in spam and bot pages that will steal and repost people’s photos with no credit given as if they were their own. Even if spammers aren’t permitted into groups, if a group is public they still have access to any images posted in there. Facebook has not done anything to solve this problem.

Guest wrote: February 19, 2025, 8:15 pm That facebook groups decision to make the photos private and not public was IMHO very unfair.

And i wish they would reconsider and at least make looking at the photos public again as many of us are boycotting facebook and with good reasons.

As an admin of a few facebook pages, we went private to reduce the amount of fake/spam accounts that would swarm pages at times. Like on here, it's not paid and we have other commitments/paying jobs, so anything to reduce time spent monitoring everything, we set them to private.

Once again, feel free to volunteer

That facebook groups decision to make the photos private and not public was IMHO very unfair.

And i wish they would reconsider and at least make looking at the photos public again as many of us are boycotting facebook and with good reasons.

Guest wrote: February 19, 2025, 1:48 pm The facebook group has gone private and i am boycotting facebook so i will not be creating a facebook account just to view their ship photos.

Can we not get a Daily News Photo gallery going again on boatnerd like the old days?

Volunteer to help out with it then

Guest wrote: February 19, 2025, 1:48 pm The facebook group has gone private and i am boycotting facebook so i will not be creating a facebook account just to view their ship photos.

Can we not get a Daily News Photo gallery going again on boatnerd like the old days?

I totally agree. I have never and will not still use Facebook. Too many reasons to list here (and no I’m not an old geezer nor “technically challenged”. Would love see it come back. Have been using Boatnerd from day one almost.

The old daily "news" gallery on Boatnerd typically took non-compensated volunteers an hour or more per day to create and post. And most of the photos submitted were honestly not newsworthy. They were just snapshots of vessels seen and photographed by someone in the past few days.

Not only did creating those galleries burn out numerous volunteers, but as the use of social media increased, the number and quality of photos submitted here decreased. Like it or not, social media platforms are near ideal for posting user-submitted photos. With one or two clicks, anyone can upload a photo. That is not true with a site like this that requires moderation, creation of captions, and standardization of image sizes.

Your disdain for Facebook is understandable, but by choosing to boycott it, you are also greatly limiting your access to some wonderful photos. One option that many use is to create an account under an assumed name with no real personal information attached to it. Make up a believable pseudonym, add any arbitrary birth date and a random location. Most Facebook page administrators don't care if you use a fake name, as long as you behave yourself. And that greatly limits Facebook's ability to mine data from you and your account.

The facebook group has gone private and i am boycotting facebook so i will not be creating a facebook account just to view their ship photos.

Can we not get a Daily News Photo gallery going again on boatnerd like the old days?

Facebook is your best bet these days. Unfortunately they seem to have gone with select photographers on here these days.

What are the best websites to visit for daily news photo updates of great lakes ships? Boatnerd used to have a good one but it seems to have gone. Not interested in joining any facebook groups to look at photos. Thank you in advance.