Hi Mariano:)
I agree. Things have changed, sometimes change is good - but I don't think it's working here. This is just my opinion, of course. I still log in everyday, sometimes to enter pics, sometimes to vote/comment, and to just look around. Since this site was created I have been witness to the decline of entries in many of the communities I have joined. There are some fabulous communities and I have left some to join new ones. I agree, I think it has something to do with the number of communities. At first it was wonderful to have so many choices, then it got a little overwhelming! Whenever I log in and see the recent winners I'll click on one that catches my eye to see which community they are from, some I have never heard of or not even bothered to go look because there are too many and I am not looking to join anymore! I wonder if more merging of the similar communities would help? Even mixing the languages/countries and making the translation available for the community titles/competitions? I love the international aspect of this site and think it's marvelous having contacts in all part o sf the world - especially seeing these places I have never been through the eyes of another photography enthusiast!
So, yes - I agree - it's changed, lost it's passion I think, but having said all that - I do log in daily:)

Dear friends: I would like to share the reply from the inpi.re web site regarding this matter:

"Hi Mariano,
We don't really feel responsible for the fact that many members couldn't help themselves and created too many communities. Obviously it's not your case, but this issue has been very ironically pointed out by people who administrate 3 or more communities themselves. Many seem to believe that creating a community will be enough to attract instant activity, not realizing that the activity on the website is not a resource that can be divided indefinitely.
We've already increased the cost of creating a community by several orders of magnitude to try and address that problem. Maybe we could add a running cost to a community (X points per month that have to be paid by the members of the community) and have communities for which "the bill" is not paid disappear automatically. But frankly, from past experience, adding more rules and more systems is unlikely to fix a behavior issue.
It's a community website, our opinion is that the community should solve the problems it created. There are enough tools available for members to do it in that particular situation. Any community administrator can shut down his/her community or merge it with another one. You're free to contact the admins of inactive communities and ask them to shut them down or merge them with others, if you feel like that's the solution to all problems. For the most inactive ones, you can even send an email to the administrator to get ownership of the community and then delete it if you please. We could be back to a reasonable amount of communities compared to the amount of active members, it's just a matter of people making the effort to actually clean up the mess and realize that it's better to have less communities."

It looks like it is up to us. I have ideas. I am sure you may have some also. I need to get the group together and have no idea how. I would like to share ideas, plan and implement them. Or see this great site go to waste. I am in. Are you?

I think the introduction of the higher cost create a community came far to late. There are some daft duplicate communities and ones that are just not distinct enough to justify themselves. I have a few communities, but believe they each have a distinct proposition and I have actively sought to merge some others with them - sometimes succesfuly and somtimes merger ideas falling on deaf ears.

We have too many inactive and nearly inactive communities. The idea of charging administrators points is a good one, but I think it should be restricted to inactive or nearly inactive communities thus flushing them out. I don't think administrators should be penalised for running successful communities... it's not so important how many one administrator has, rather that the communities themselves should be well supported.

I'm in Mariano - let me know what I can do to help....

I agree Gordon - no sense trying to shut down the communities that are unique and active. I think it is in the best interest of the future of 'our site' to somehow decrease the number of communities, especially those that have been inactive....so what do we do - will we fall on deaf ears if we contact the administrators directly or on their community discussion many of these have been inactive for months...
I have not looked for a while, but I can imagine the numbers are ever increasing...

I think the inactive ones should be just shut down by the inspi.re team... inactive for a month and they go.
To encourage active communities maybe administrators should be charged 500 points per month, but receive about 20 points for every photo entered in that community during the month, capped at the 500 it cost them for the month. Thus communities with even a modest amount of entries cost the administrators nothing, inactive ones cost them. If the administrators don't have the points then they should be shut down. That should flush out most of the least active ones...

I'm sorry. Count me out.
This live thing, seeing what everyone is doing has killed it for me. I gave it a shot to see if it would sit with me okay but it still doesn't. I can't help but feel the eyes looking over my shoulder. I did an experiment the other day, I know exactly what a member uploaded to where and if I wanted to I could have given 5 stars to all pics for that person come voting time. Now whose to say someone isn't doing this already?
Navigation is up the spout, So much clicking to find this discussion for a start.
This is not for me. Once the pics I have up are finished. I am out of here. I might come back to the forum to say hello but that is it. The fun is gone now. No more anonymity. Bye.

TeAnne : Please read the original message of this thread. I do not understand what you are refering to. We need to reduce the communities in order to vote with honesty and obtain points to share our work. Were is the live thing?? You lost me on that one.

Would you agree to shut down a comunitie that can not obtain more than 5 upcoming themes or less than ten photos to compete. Should new comunities be screened or baned if they are more like a theme than a photo comunity or duplicate themselves?