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gwannouncements

GardenWeb needs your feedback!

gwannouncements
11 years ago

Hi everyone,

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

Comments (15)

  • albert_135   39.17°N 119.76°W 4695ft.
    11 years ago

    Some of the vbullitin features like new post and quicklinks seem to be quite popular and I use them often when visiting vbullitin sites.

    GW could use some way to speed up the loading of pictures. Some other sites force thumbnails or only allow links.

  • silverkelt
    11 years ago

    No! Please keep pictures as is!

    That is one of like two superiour uses of gardenweb.. the other is the way they flow the forum posts.

    If they changed either of those items, then frankly it would be exactly like the other garden forums.

    This is the place to see amazing garden pictures from people around the world. I HATE thumbnails and forced links, I DONT want to leave to see the nice picture, I want them in the post.

    Silverkelt

  • dancinglemons
    11 years ago

    I agree with silverkelt - leave the photos as is!! I usually post my own photos but I really like this new system. PLEASE no links to photos!!

  • kqcrna
    11 years ago

    The ability to post photos directly to the site is the best improvement I've seen in the years I've been a member. Even better would be the ability to load multiple photos at once within a post. It will decrease all the disappearing photos in old posts which have always made me nuts.

    Even better would be if GardenWeb would stop censoring mention of/ links to other legitimate, useful gardening websites. I just tried to post a link to Watchdog to another thread where I was prohibited from doing so and told I was posting spam. As a long time, loyal GW member, I resent that. Accept the fact that yours is not the only useful garden site on the web. Competition is a fact of life, and if you make GW a great site, members won't defect to the competition.

    I am not trying to promote a competing website. I am in no way affiliated with DG, and I'm not even a member there. But I use watchdog faithfully because it is the best resource around for honest appraisals of vendors by gardeners who have had dealings with those vendors. I should be able to share that useful resource with my friends here if, in truth, GardenWeb wants to promote sharing of useful information among gardeners.

    I might mention too, that Dave is no longer affiliated with DG, but he does have new garden websites. I post links there to GardenWeb with no problem. Those sites encourage sharing of knowledge and information among gardeners.

    This particular forum has been a fun and informative place for me for many years. You should ask yourselves why traffic here has decreased so much in recent years. Policies like censorship drive people away to places where they can truly share ideas.

    Karen

  • kqcrna
    11 years ago

    AND:

    A way for members to edit previous posts


    Karen

  • kqcrna
    11 years ago

    Tamara, I was hoping for some feedback from you about links to external sites.

    Karen

  • silverkelt
    11 years ago

    I think thats silly.. frankly daves garden is superior for rating of suppliers, but thier forums are terrible and you have to be a member just to look at them.

    probably All things plants are more of a direct competitor in terms of eyeballs, I like this one much better then that one, but I also know of dozens of people who used to post here, who only post of thier now. Dont as me why, they are not superior in a # of ways including pictures.. its hard to see thumbnails and again I really hate clicking on and leaving a site to see picture after picture.

    Gardenweb is a very good forum and superior to anything else I go and preview, its the only one I normally post on (though Ive posted on daves garden, all thing plants, gardenstew and mydaylilies as well) I just like this site better.

    If it was up to me, I would junk all of the conversation and gallaries, just keep one forum for each section. You can always post OT in any forum you want.

    I wish there were more poeple posting on certain forums, but alas its the way it is, if you go ask for peony advive on the peony forum, you just dont get much , but you can ask the same advise on the cottage, perrenial forums and get more movement.

    Silverkelt

  • kqcrna
    11 years ago

    I'm not sure I understand, Silverkelt. Do you think I'm silly for wanting to link to Watchdog, or are you saying that it's silly for GWeb to censor to such links?

    I no longer belong to Dave's Garden, I left when he did. But I still use Watchdog, and in fact, I wouldn't dream of ordering from a new vendor without checking Watchdog first. And I still use Plantfiles, too.

    I don't mind thumbnails at all, and people on dial-up seem to want that.If you click a thumbnail on ATP you simply enlarge the photo, you don't leave the site.

    I've always liked GardenWeb too, but honestly, some of these dumb rules are exasperating. ATP does permit links to other sites and I find that helpful. I moderate a couple of forums there, and I can tell you, spam has popped up there but it's quickly deleted and the poster banned. I am only one of many moderators but we run a pretty tight ship where spam is concerned. Maybe GardenWeb needs to allow outside links to other garden sites but moderate forums more closely.

    Frankly, I've spent a lot of time on GardenWeb over the years and I've never seen much of a spam problem here, either. Spam is unlikely to come from members like you or me
    Spam pops up from new users who join then immediately post their spam.

    Karen

  • silverkelt
    11 years ago

    its silly of gardenweb to block a url to a different site. I wouldnt call any poster silly..

    I dont see much problem with spam here honestly.. a few here and there, the pop up links they love to place at random are sometimes annoying. However, with some tinkering or exchange of web browers like firefox, alot of it goes away.

    Silverkelt

  • kqcrna
    11 years ago

    I agree, with Firefox and adblock plus I never see pop-ups.

    But the policy to prohibit outside links would (supposedly) prevent users from posting spam ads within a thread post.
    I've seen that happen here, but really not much. I don't think it's possible to prevent that.

    Karen

  • ladyrose65
    11 years ago

    I would like to ability to search within a forum, not all the forums. For example: I would like to look up delphinium in the "Wintersowing Forum", not get feedback from all the forums.

    The ability to add more than one picture would be nice, esp. when spring and summer come. I have to use flickr.com to load my pictures.

    Also. the ability to control the size of the picture and place headings and titles on the pictures.

  • albert_135   39.17°N 119.76°W 4695ft.
    11 years ago

    Ladyrose85, do a Google search on ~ delphinium wtrsow site:gardenweb.com ~ and see if that is close to what you want.

    Some vBulletin sites are putting these instructions in their stickies. Having worked on computer searches in a previous incarnation I should think that instructions for using Google would be much easier and cheaper than fixing the search here.

  • barbe_wa
    11 years ago

    Ladyrose85, there is an option just below the "search" box that allows you to mark "this forum" or "entire site". It works for me, but perhaps doesn't for you.

  • gwannouncements
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Hi everyone!

    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

  • indiana_matt
    11 years ago

    Here are some of my thoughts:

    I know lots of us have photos on Flickr and other photo sharing sites, but it might be nice if we could have a photo album for each person. So, if someone wanted to see my garden, they could go to My Page and click on my Photo Album to see my photos.

    An RSS opting would be nice. I would like to "subscribe" to, say, the Seed Exchange and get each new post as an RSS feed in my e-mail.

    Could we have Avatar options? A visual icon by each user when they post would be nice.

    I seem to have a hard time remembering how to update my trade list and other account info. When we log in, it might be nice if our Avatar icon is displayed at the top. We could lick on that to go to our info.

    Maybe we could have more of a profile page. I know this isn't exactly Facebook or YouTube, but a simple profile page might be nice.

    Along with the profile page, we could have a "five star" rating system for uses who participate in the exchange forums. The stars would indicate if you are a good person to trade with. Everyone else could rate you on your profile page with 0-5 stars depending on how each of us do with our exchange. Also, people could still post a comment on us and the comments would have a place on the profile page.

    I'm a graphic designer (although I don't really design websites) and would love to help out on occasion with any web graphics you may need. Just let me know and I can see what I can do.

    Indiana.Matt
    Matthew

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