[Edited 2010feb02 by wcutler: This was the introductory posting for the now-deleted Festival Favourites Forum. Favourites will from now on be posted in the neighbourhood blogs where the trees live] This forum is intended for Cherry Scouts of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival, to post descriptions, photos and blooming dates of the trees identified as VCBF favourite cherry trees on the Cherry Blossom Viewing Map that will be posted on the VCBF website. Unofficial "scouts" are welcome to comment. For those new to the forums: How to Register, and How to Attach Images. To post to this forum, find the thread on the tree you want to report on and click reply on the last note. Or if you want to reply to an earlier note, click Quote and delete all the quoted text except for the specific point you're replying to (keep the tags that are in [ ] brackets). As this board consists only of one thread for each of the designated favourites, posters are not permitted to start new threads.
Re: Plans for this Forum Might consider naming and re-naming threads about specific kinds Prunus _____ so that people doing internet searches may be more likely to pick up on them. Some Japanese cultivar names are not unique to the tree.
Re: Plans for this Forum Hi, Ron. Thanks for your posting last spring. Does it work just as well to have the name in the body of the message, as I've just edited the first festival favourite to do? See http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=47956 . I don't think search engines know what's a subject line in the forum and what's body, and I'm certain my searches on the forum have brought up items that were just in the body. Though your posting was in the Neighbourhood Blogs 'Plans for this Forum' thread, I think it's more practical for the Festival Favourites and Cultivar Locations, the latter of which references postings in the Neighbourhood Blogs. I've copied your posting here to the Favourites forum, as it's here that I need to be reminded. And now it occurs to me that I can just go edit the Locations forum threads and put the names in.
Re: Plans for this Forum In fact, they do -- the subject line for a thread is used to create the web page title, and the web page title is quite relevant to search engine rankings.
Re: Plans for this Forum Uh-oh. Those subject lines are already so long, with the neighbourhood and location and more common name. Maybe there's not a character limit, so if I put the botanical name after that? I'll see what I can get away with. Thanks for the comment, Daniel, to remind me to do that. I've obviously already forgotten, but I'll edit this year's.
Re: Plans for this forum This forum will either disappear or will be closed to new postings. Scouts were finding it confusing figuring out where to post trees that happened to be a festival favourite, and the information about the locations identified as the best was missing from the neighbourhood threads. The 2010 favourites (selected by the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival) will appear in their neighbourhoods. There will be a list of the VCBF festival's favourites from every year in the Cultivar Locations forum.