It’s been a long time coming, but we’re finally going to do some restructuring in the Corner Forums. But with almost 50,000 threads and more than 350,000 posts in the Feedback and Critiques Corner alone, it’s going to take some time (if you haven’t already, make sure to thank a mod today).

Right now, on top of the Critiques Corner, we have 18 Feedback Corner sub-forums. For a while, we thought it would be better to have more subject-specific forums. And, for a while, it worked well. Unfortunately with so many forums, it became confusing to old and new members alike. It has gotten to the point where the line between critique and feedback became so blurred that even the mods and myself had a hard time explaining the difference. Sub forums with so many subjects became confusing, and some went all but unused.

So here’s what we’re going to do: we’re merging the Critiques Corner and the Feedback Corner to become simply the “Critiques and Feedback Corner” (duh, right? - I think it gets the point across ). In addition, we’re consolidating the 18 sub-forums down to 6: Landscapes, Urban Scenes, People, Macro, Wildlife, & Miscellaneous. I know it will be a little strange at first - especially for those that have called the Corner home for a couple of years or more - but in the long run, I think this will make it easier for everyone.

But not every photograph we take is one that we want to have critiqued. Sometimes (if not most of the time), the photographs we take, we simply want to share. A couple of years ago, we thought the Galleries would fill this need. Unfortunately, the Galleries just aren’t “social enough” for what most people wanted. Sure they’re a great place to show a bunch of photos, but it’s off the beaten track a little, and maybe not quite as user-friendly as the forums. Because of that, we’re also introducing the Photo Sharing Corner - a place where you can just post up photos to share with the community. No critiquing, no feedback - just sharing. To make it a little less “free-for-all,” the Sharing Corner will be split up into 3 sub-forums: People, Places, and Things.

So now that all that is out of the way, it’s time to make it happen. Over the next couple of days, starting today, some of the forums will be closed and moved around. We’ll try not to make it last longer than we have to… but moving almost 50,000 threads, even with almost 20 of us, will take some time. So don’t be concerned if parts of the forum are locked up - we’re just getting things set up.

As the new forums begin to open up, I’ll keep everyone updated here on the Corner Blog, as well as through PhotographyCorner’s Twitter account.

We’d love to hear your feedback on these changes - feel free to let us know what you think in the comments.