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Comment by Carpetsmoker | Hacker News Reader

To be honest, at least part of this sounds more like inane British "safety" bullshit to me. Jumping on trains is clearly wtf and unacceptable, but no tripods because "too dangerous"? Yeah nah.

If you're getting a lot of abuse then your system probably stinks, as, by and large, people aren't assholes or want to be angry. They just want to take their holiday snaps, you know.

So here's an alternative take: just let people take their holiday pictures. If you're really that worried about people getting stabbed to death by tripods or whatever then set of a "tripod area", or make sure it's at least 4 metres from the rail track, or whatever. So many more options than "no fun allowed!"

(Of course, all the British all really tired of being told what to do all the time, so give a British person just one iota of power and they will transform in to the most pedantic and inflexible person.)

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It's obvious you've never been to a place that has a wall of tripods setup. It doesn't have to do with being stabbed by a tripod, it has to do with a human taking up way more space than they should be in a crowded area. You're free to take up as much space as you like, but if you don't like people being upset at you (rightfully so?) then don't?

Let's take your tripping argument at it's face value, does tripping + trains sound like a good idea?

The better take is, if you don't like the rules you can simply leave.

> t doesn't have to do with being stabbed by a tripod, it has to do with a human taking up way more space than they should be

That was not the argument that was put forth.

> does tripping + trains sound like a good idea?

Yes, I've often seen people trip and fly 6 metres through the air in front of a train.

> The better take is, if you don't like the rules you can simply leave.

That's just a silly discussion stopper. As I already said in my previous comment, there are many more possible options than a "strict rule of no tripods". These kind of sites exist for people to enjoy their hobby and heritage, and the smart and empathic course of action is to enable that for as many people as possible, and if that includes tripods, then so be it, and that should be accommodated as best as possible. "Strictly no tripods", finger-wagging, and rulebook-thumping is unconstructive at best.

People using tripods are less likely to be aware of their surroundings than those who are holding their cameras -- think about it -- if you're using a tripod, you're probably peering into the viewfinder and hyperfocused on fine-tuning intricate settings on your camera to set up your tripod shot, right? If you're holding the camera in your hands, you at least have a part of your brain focusing on making sure you don't drop it or it doesn't get bumped out of your hands.

People like to complain about "health and safety gone mad" but there's usually a psychological component to blanket-banning things. It's usually the path of least resistance.

That sounds like an extremely flimsy post-hoc explanation to me.

> People like to complain about "health and safety gone mad" but there's usually a psychological component to blanket-banning things. It's usually the path of least resistance.

That doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, or even that it's the sensible thing to do.

In addition, after having lived in several different countries, I found that the extreme institutional distrust of everyone to act even vaguely sensible is rather specific to the UK, as is the almost gleeful willingness of the British people to enforce these kind of rules on others even in the most pedantic of circumstances. Other countries with fairly strong Health & Safety cultures – mostly UK-infuenced countries like Ireland or NZ – also have some tendencies, but people also tend to be more flexible and apply at least some judgement in specific cases, which is much rarer in the UK.

The original comment wasn't about if tripods should be allowed or not but people using them despite not being allowed.

Have you been to that place? Because it sounds to me that you want to solve the issue of people breaking rules by allowing them in the first place, when you might not even know any specifics of the environment where it's applied?

The railway exists to give all its patrons a fun day out. When people with tripods and massive lenses ruins it for the family who just want to take a quick smartphone family picture in front of the old train, then we have a problem. There have been multiple instance where the tripod guy has prevented a child a quick picture because they see their picture as more important.

Leave aside the safety issues. When people set up tripods so that they can get their picture, whilst denying others the same opportunity - it's not cool.

> There have been multiple instance where the tripod guy has prevented a child a quick picture because they see their picture as more important.

I think that there is virtue in patience.

That tripod guy has patience to setup the tripod and camera and carefully compose the shot for perfection because this might be his way to have a perfect Sunday.

Why do you want to deny this because somebody does not have enough patience to wait a little?

Children generally only take up the space for a few seconds, so being patient with them is easy. Someone who is taking their time setting up a tripod is blocking the space for significantly longer. If you want to close off a space for a while so that you can carefully compose the perfect shot, either do it somewhere remote or consult with the owners to arrange an appropriate time.

You seem to prioritize parents instant gratification. The fact that you may service large volume of them does not make it more right automatically.

I do not agree that photographing a child is certainly faster.

First you have to position your child and only your child in front of the object. This means that at the same time other parents and also tripod guys and girls can't take the picture.

So now instead of letting tripod users to take the picture and move on, they have to endlessly wait for the moment where no parent is blocking the view.

Naturally these two groups are in conflict and it is up to event organizers to realize this and organize two different kind of events.

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