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From my own experience as a spotter, most of the Chinese spotters I met in real life are very friendly and are enthusiastic about plane spotting. But as planespotting grows extremely fast in China in recent years, planespotting communities in China have started to become toxic, according to my observation. I believe that small communities have the tendency to grow toxic when it suddenly grows much larger, and it is the case for planespotting communities in China. As hundreds of people floods in the community every year, most of which are young students, I have seen multiple incidents of stealing photos, comment battles for no reason, etc. This is not limited to JP. It has happened so many times already on Chinese planespotting communities, mostly in recent years, and mostly between new-joined spotters.
What I think the problem here is that many new spotters in China are taking things like total accepted photos count, photo acceptance ratio, and badges too seriously. And when a lot of spotters take these too seriously, it becomes the criteria for being a "well-recognised spotter". Some spotters occupy all their spare time with planespotting. Some students choose to skip classes so that they can take photos of special aircrafts. Some might even choose to steal photos from others just to make themselves look better. Planespotting is and should be a hobby where people share a common interest. It should not be something to prove that one is better than others.
What I think the problem here is that many new spotters in China are taking things like total accepted photos count, photo acceptance ratio, and badges too seriously. And when a lot of spotters take these too seriously, it becomes the criteria for being a "well-recognised spotter". Some spotters occupy all their spare time with planespotting. Some students choose to skip classes so that they can take photos of special aircrafts. Some might even choose to steal photos from others just to make themselves look better. Planespotting is and should be a hobby where people share a common interest. It should not be something to prove that one is better than others.
If they pay well, we all have plenty of photos to sell them : a landing with a burst of ten photos must leave seven or eight good ones, and only one for JP...
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