City of Victoria Nature Events November 3, 2024 Guided Mushroom Walk 9am-1pm https://cityofvictoria.perfectmind....courseId=d06b4c8a-18c4-449b-a1a7-e4c92d7b406d
@Daniel Mosquin , isn’t there something against For profit advertising in the forums? They have been flooded lately with similar announcements. (I have to disclose that a couple of times in the past I chose to leave the forums in disagreement with their policies or the postings of certain members, but I came back. Recent shutdowns appear to have contributed to a dramatic slowdown in maple discussions, the main reason I joined the forums in the first place, I am considering leaving for good if this For Profit stuff is allowed unchecked. I would strongly recommend that the Maple Society consider another venue for their official online discussion forum [ @emery , this note is meant for you]). Any way, who am I to question how you run the forums… I just hope you find a solution preventing further shutdowns to retain your current membership.
Hi @Nik , I created and have maintained this fungi events list for the past ~12 years and I curate (to a certain extent) this list with the aim of ensuring no snakeoil / charlatans' events are posted, primarily with safety concerns in mind, given that people eat mushrooms. I post mushroom-related events as I find out about them, this list being one of my contributions to the mycophilic community in this region: I do this as a volunteer and I receive no benefit from the various hosting organizations for helping to advertise these events. I'm not sure I'd call events like City of Vic and similar ones "for-profit" per se, as they are typically break-even arrangements to ensure the naturalist gets a small honorarium, a low fee (tho sometimes zero) charged to participants to cover expenses, staff time, honoraria, etc. I am so pleased to see some local myco-experts taking on educator roles as we so need that in this time of dwindling taxonomists and naturalists. I might wish these groups would/could charge more, so that the naturalists could get paid more, for long term thinking around encouraging more folks, the next generation, to take on these roles, to make them more affordable to do so. Most gigs are unpaid, and most step into these roles as volunteers sharing their passions. North America mostly relies upon volunteer mycological experts to fill roles that are typically salaried or otherwise reasonably paid in European countries. It would be a mistake to aim to smother this sort of thing, both for now and for the future. I also think this should be moved to a discussion thread rather than sitting in an individual event posting: I'll move it later.
Copied this discussion into the Forum Feedback area. So, my understanding of "for-profit" is someone (or some entity) benefits in a way that enriches. And I'd go so far as to suggest that "enriches" means the accumulation of wealth beyond what is given in return -- profit. When I consider the infrastructure needed to support the City of Vic's web site that permits for registration, the expense of the bus, the safety of having a licensed bus driver and associated insurance, the organization time and a small amount of compensation for a naturalist who has spent a lifetime accumulating the knowledge without compensation, this is pretty far from anyone or any entity profiting. I'd like to live in that ideal world too -- but until society changes radically, it is what it is -- and it isn't "for-profit" by my definition. Thanks for all that you do on behalf of biodiversity and the naturalist community, @Frog And thanks @Nik for being willing to assert that there could be a better way.
Oh, and on the topic of shutdowns -- everything seems to be back to normal after the recent set of attempts to correct the issue. Disk space size is holding steady for consecutive weeks. I'd like to keep the lights on here to give some people an option for a place for discussions that isn't laden with ads like Facebook, which has pretty much captured the forum discussions market.
Hi @Nik I don't disagree - education should be free. But in our current sociopolitical & economic circumstances, because housing is not free, nor food, nor accessible medicine and so forth, if we ask educators to work for free all the time, they won't have time to *be* educators anymore, they will have to find other work to pay for the housing, the food, and so forth. I think we are better served by fighting/transforming the broader system that pushes education costs, rather than going after underpaid & volunteer naturalists and other educators.
I believe you both missed the point I was trying to make. I have nothing against for-profit events or their promotion. I simply think a university forum dedicated to discussions about plants/fungi/nature is not the place for them. Sorry. It doesn’t matter who collects the small fees, it IS For profit. As to the shutdowns issue, I am sure UBC has an IT team capable of providing all the support needed. I am still puzzled as to why you are not asking for their help… Someone mentioned three strikes in another post here, and I think this is the third one for me. Don’t get me wrong, I think the forums were wonderful, and I will likely continue checking them out every once in a while, but I will not be a contributor.
UBC has an excellent IT team, but it is impossible for them to support every unique set up. There isn't even a fee-for-service model with regard to supporting what I would need. It's either figure it out on my own, or drop the service. Looked into using cloud-based hosting through the forums software vendor, but due to privacy laws, we can't allow for retention of Canadian data on non-Canadian servers, so that's out as well. Anyway, my issues to resolve, not anyone else's.
Thank you Daniel Mosquin for eloquent responses I am wondering if - when this forum community was established - was there a statement of mission / purpose simply asking if it is a good opportunity to revisit or otherwise I certainly appreciate kind, safe and generous informative dialogue here on this forum yes there is a lot of maples and blossoms - I think it’s fun to learn of other interests - I certainly have - thank you all
I am referring in general to how much opportunity to learn within these forums - which I appreciate example - maple people showing their new young plants and cherry blossoms ! I had no idea til informed sternly :) that I was all along referring to PLUM blossoms as cherry blossoms - now I know a detail to look for I think it’s fun to connect in a kind informative fashion here and I thank you
I really don't care whether posts about 'Fungi Events' are technically for profit or not. People are fascinated by mushrooms and these one-off events likely produce only enough 'profit' to provide seed money for the next year's event. The concern about 'for profit' advertising seems to be more about preventing businesses and organizations from using the Forums for free advertising. There's a huge difference.
