Jumping in to start moderating this forum, I am quite surprised to see just how neglected this place has been. Here are some thoughts...

The Report button now works
I clearly have no idea why this feature has been "broken". In fact it wasn't so much broken as improperly used on the receiving end. Once I got a few settings correctly set and checked to see if it worked, I fell out of my chair when I found a few hundred (!) reported messages in the list.

I have removed many of the most recent (going back into mid 2009), and think I will leave the older ones, hoping that nobody goes back to revive any of them. If that should happen, it can be deleted once it surfaces again.

Why do spammers love OG?
Mystery time. There are shoe spammers on one of the other boards I watch, but nothing to match what I see in the history here.

I am now able to do a fast job of removing anything that needs to go. You don't have to send me a PM, you can just click the Report button. You don't need to add any lengthy reason in that new window, just say "spam" or" abusive" or whatever.

Abusive?
Yes. I confess I expected a gardening forum to be a nice polite, tea-sipping collection of folks whose most rabid thoughts were reserved for leaf-munching critters! Oh no. I find a number of reports about name calling and insulting retorts! Wholly guacamole, people, the key word here is respect! Disagree, but do it with a level of (forced) politeness. I can (and will) edit any final bon mot the ruins an otherwise nice reply, but that's not really my job; just save me the trouble and don't go ballistic.

- - -

Q: This place should be a lot more active!
Why do you think it's so quiet? Is it Winter Doldrums? Don't gardeners have slow-time activities (beyond garden planning) that are garden-related and need discussion?

Note: I just checked and at 8:30am there were 125 users online at Backpacker, and 48 online at Bicycling. Here? Two members (and I was one of them) and nine guests!

Is there anything more you wish this forum offered?

Q: I see a number of people who sign up, post a few times, and disappear.
Do you think the lack of moderation has made people drop away? Are questions asked and answered and then a noob doesn't come back?

I don't yet see any questions about Native plants.
Maybe I'm missing something. When Spring starts, will there be questions about "What's this flower?", or are OG people mainly about landscape plants and vegetable gardens?

I'm just looking for ideas to help get a little more activity going on here.

Feedback invited.

It usually picks up when spring starts and people can be more active in their gardens. (Not me, this is a very busy time in the southern CA garden!)

There have been several super hostile people over the years, and unfortunately they have chased away some of the old regulars one by one. We couldn't seem to get rid of them for the longest times, and that was why they had such bad effects. Maybe that will change now.

Speaking from my experience with OTHER forums... I have personally signed up for a particular forum to ask a question, then drop out until I have another question (sometimes never going back). I've done this when I first got new pets (chinchilla, geckos, etc - where there isn't much info out there). In most cases, I've just not been as "gung ho" over the topic as those in the forum... but I got my answer from people who know their stuff. So a lot of the "sign up, ask a question, leave" folks probably just don't have "the bug" yet.

Here... I'm one of the crazy garden folks and I LOVE to talk about my garden. My friends don't give a hoot about plants... so I come here to share my stories. I think we all do. Gardeners - especially organic ones - often get seen as too "earthy" by non-gardeners. At least that's been my experience. Gardening, though becomming more popular, isn't seen as a "cool" hobby or pasttime the way things like backpacking or sports are, by mainstream folks - especially in my generation (30's).

That's my two cents on the subject anyway.

But yes... it picks up when we're all actually OUT THERE in our gardens. Not as many questions or things to brag about when the gardens are dormant.

I don't do a lot of posting as I read all of the thread and if I can't add anything worthwhile I won't post. I see people who haven't been on this forumn as long as me who have 10 times as many posts as me, but if you look at their post its usually trivial or repeat of what someone else said. Enough said.

Yes winter doldrums. Some garden forums are worse.

It seems like when native plants are brought up on forums or in magazines it makes some get heated up about invasive species since a plant may be invasive in one area and a nice garden plant in another area- or as my boss calls them 'evasive'.

quote:

Originally posted by jenniferch.:
There have been several super hostile people over the years, and unfortunately they have chased away some of the old regulars one by one.

Exactly!

Also, I think you will find that most of us talk primarily about vegetable gardening, though of course it's likely that we also plant some flowers. My guess is that the term "organic" draws in more veggie growers. People tend to think more in terms of organic edibles than in terms of organic flower beds, not that they necessarily should..

Hey Steve, We used to have a button at the bottom of the topics so you could just click and the next topic would come up...didn't have to go back to the forum title and then click on a topic...any chance of getting that back?

quote:

Originally posted by bp2grow:

Why do spammers love OG?
Mystery time. There are shoe spammers on one of the other boards I watch, but nothing to match what I see in the history here.

You think Rodale spam is bad, you should see the forums on some of the "Condé Nasty" forums. The biggest spam problem we have is that people insist on commenting on it, which keeps it active.

quote:

Abusive?
Yes. I confess I expected a gardening forum to be a nice polite, tea-sipping collection of folks whose most rabid thoughts were reserved for leaf-munching critters!

Ha ha ha. Welcome to gardening on the edge. Sucka.

quote:

Why do you think it's so quiet? Is it Winter Doldrums? Don't gardeners have slow-time activities (beyond garden planning) that are garden-related and need discussion?

Agree with the above assessment. When planting season starts for the rest of the continent, you'll see more activity. Those of us who come here for sociable reasons are still around. Those who come for advice and to commiserate will come back when they need that.

quote:

Q: I see a number of people who sign up, post a few times, and disappear.
Do you think the lack of moderation has made people drop away? Are questions asked and answered and then a noob doesn't come back?

Yes, I think that's true. Personally I don't think we're extremely "sticky." It's all related, really. If a new member doesn't see active, interesting posts, they don't hang around long.

quote:

I don't yet see any questions about Native plants.
Maybe I'm missing something. When Spring starts, will there be questions about "What's this flower?", or are OG people mainly about landscape plants and vegetable gardens?

I think most of us already know that it's ideal to have native plants in one's landscape since we're all chintzy about water use. But it's a big continent, so what's native to me in So Cal is useless to someone in Ohio or Toronto.

I occasionally see "what's this plant/weed" posts - as well as "what's this bug?" Bear in mind, we have a lot of experienced gardeners who know plants and don't have to ask that question, particularly about something growing on their own property. It seems to me that's more a hiker/trail person question, not a gardener question. I know what my plants are. I planted them. And I'll bore you to death telling you about them.

And yes, OGers are mostly interested in edibles. In fact many here are professionals, i.e. market gardeners, who sell food in their local communities and feed their neighbors. However, whether we're into edibles or ornamentals or trees or whatever, our "meat and potatoes" topics are things like soil structure, siting, weed control, coping with wildlife, water conservation, etc. So in that regard it doesn't matter whether we're talking about potatoes or plumbago.

quote:

Bear in mind, we have a lot of experienced gardeners who know plants and don't have to ask that question...

Ah, excellent point.

Every year in the Backpacking forums there will come a flurry of photos with requests for ID help. I keep trying to encourage hikers to learn about plant family characteristics because, along wth simply learning the wildflowers, they might be able to report invasive populations of weedy intruders.

I'm glad to have your input. And for fun, do you know how plumbago relates to the guy who comes to fix your kitchen drain?

That's too easy. Plumbago is a disease of arthritic plumbers.

PS: Nice post suasoria.

while at it you should fix the password restore option since it does not work correctly. the emailed new password does not work and you forced to either get new account or stop posting.

Hi bp2grow,

I started collecting Organic Gardening magazines about 4 years ago. My stepfather finds them for me on Ebay, or I find them at yard sales. Just received some more old issues to add to my collection from the 50's at Xmas. Not sure how many I have now, NOT ALL, but a big dent has been made. My own subscription started in 2003.

Anyway,



I was under the impression that there is an index that you can use to look up articles from past Organic Gardening magazines. One index goes from the present to 1984, I think. Also there is supposed to be one that goes back to the beginning in 1942.

I was hoping you could look into this at headquarters, and report back your findings.

And if you would like to start a houseplant forum and a native plant forum, that would be nice. You could start the native plant forum with some pictures from your own experience.

Just thinking, ya know?

quote:

...there is supposed to be one that goes back to the beginning in 1942.

HQ replies that there is no such index. Bummer.

And yes, I will create a section for House Plants and another for Native Plants and Cultivars. Sound good?

strange but there is an index to og that goes back to 1969

quote:

Originally posted by bp2grow:
I will create a section for House Plants and another for Native Plants and Cultivars. Sound good?

Hey try it! If we can't play nice, then you can decide what to do.