As you may have noticed, we've been sprucing up the site a bit. Among other things, we've added new ways to upload photos and email notifications of post replies. We are still cleaning out cobwebs and weeding some areas of the site, but we are also working on some bigger projects like a better search engine (yay!) and a mobile app. We'd also like to get some feedback from you. What enhancements or additions would you like to see? What do you love? What do you hate? Think big and small!

We can't promise the moon, but please know that we will read and consider every one of your ideas and suggestions. We appreciate your loyalty and dedication to our site and we know how important your community is to you. Help us make it even better!

Please use this post to offer your feedback. But, as always, you are welcome to contact me directly by clicking on my profile page.

Best regards,

Tamara Amey
GardenWeb Community Manager

Thanks!

You asked and we listened. Today we are very excited to be debuting our newest feature -- post editing! To use this feature, go back to the post you wish to correct and you'll find the link under the 'My Clippings' links on the right side of the page.

I want to give a special shout out to all the testers who tried to break the editing tool. ;) Your feedback was insightful and invaluable. Thank you!

You may have also noticed that we adjusted the login cookie awhile back so that you should not have to login repeatedly.

Stay tuned -- we have more cool things in the works!

As always, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Best regards,
Tamara

Before iVillage took over this website, Spike had created the foremost Internet gardening forum bar none. Not long after iVillage took over GW, y'all lost some of the key gardening gurus to what I consider to be an arbitrary ban hammer. When the (volunteer) talent left, the regulars went and found them elsewhere on other forums. Of course the banned gurus never returned, but for the most part the followers never returned. Your liberal banning spawned a fledgling industry of Internet gardening forums. Thanks to the experience and expertise of your former gurus, some of these forums have overtaken y'all in page views and are thriving today. With that in mind, have your policies changed or is there any thought to giving warnings to people so they can reflect on their deeds and possibly change the nature of their messages before the final hammer falls? And please don't shoot the messenger.

Yes you can now easily add one photo to a message. Of course if you know just a little HTML coding, you can do a lot more, but for those who are not there yet, can you change it so members may add more than one photo per message? I see members posting message after message after message just to post the photos which help to illustrate their issues. That is not a user friendly feature.

On a related issue, can you limit image upload size to 800x600? When someone loads an image that is 2600x1950 it expands the size of your window beyond the limit of the frame. That drags the text out sideways several screens making it harder to follow the chain of thought.

Can you add the ability to easily underline, embolden, italicize, and quote text?

Can you change your profile policies to REQUIRE members to disclose their location? Most seem to neglect even to fill in their USDA Hardiness Zone...which is completely worthless when helping someone who is having problems. The hardiness zone is only used to select plants. Fixing problems requires knowledge of the person's location. Zone 7 extends across the entire spectrum of soil profiles and environments which usually requires a solution tailored to the specific location. And the location often must be pretty specific. For example if someone lives in San Pedro, CA, a community built on the south face of an abrupt escarpment, is going to have much different issues/solutions than someone in Torrance (5 miles away). Quite often getting this information from a member is the critical component to a solution. And quite often it takes several rounds of questions and replies before they give the necessary information.

Can you find, and prominently list, the moderators for the forums? If a member posts advertising or otherwise becomes unruly, who do we mention it to? Spike used to be the go-to person but became overwhelmed with the success of his baby. Moderators were never prominently named but we knew who they were because they were posting all the time. Now if we want to post a FAQ to a forum, who do we contact? If I'm not mistaken, the moderator of this forum has not posted here since 2009 and not much for the two years prior to that. I like the guy - he's just moved on. I've tried using your Contact Us notifier with no reply. We need a named person in charge of each forum.

Can you make it easier to post a link to another URL? I understand your concern about posting links to other forums, but if someone wants to see a tool, or needs a source for a certain product, it is really helpful to post a link. Again, if you know a little HTML it can be done easily. I'm suggesting you provide message tools to make it easy for those without the HTML skills.

That about covers what comes to mind. Looking forward to your changes.