I think we once discussed renaming the "Plant Identification" forum to ensure it is not used for indoor plants, which was rejected on the basis of climate variation since some of the temperate world's indoor plants are grown outdoors elsewhere. All well and good, but people continue using the Plant ID forum for indoor plants. The text preview when you rest your cursor helps with this, but not when the question is just something like "what is this?". I think indoor plants keep ending up there because the Plant ID forum comes first as a user scrolls through the root menu, and there is nothing to contraindicate them posting there. So I wonder again whether a name change could be considered. Possibly "Garden Plant Identification" (as opposed to "Houseplant identification)?"
The corollary to Indoor Plants Identification would be Outdoor Plants Identification. Maybe have to go with what is indoor and what is outdoor in Vancouver to have some sort of necessarily arbitrary basis for separation. Probably the way it is now is the best it can be, with Indoor Plants Identification mopping up some of the tropicals but the rest just having to be put on Plant Identification by those so inclined.
Hahha! Right on RonB! I agree with KarinL, the forum titles shoudl be more specific. Such as instead of Plant Idenification, in it's place we'd have Outdoor Plant ID, then right BELOW, Indoor Plant ID. As right now, Indoor ID is wayyy down the page.
I removed my previous pithy remarks while rewriting my response several times, in case anyone wonders later where the quote "new unlabeled 2 inch pot foliage etc." came from.
Well I was trying to evade Daniel's previous objection that what is an outdoor plant in some places is an indoor plant in others. That's why I thought "Garden Plant" and "House Plant" - so that tropicals can be addressed as outdoor plants if that's what they are - but the headings aren't parallel now, maybe they don't need to be. But it is a thought that maybe they should be closer together. To tell the truth the new forum headings and their organization is not doing that much for me in its altogether, but mostly it doesn't cause me problems... except in the case of plant ID.
There won't be any changes until the new version of the forums software is out. It is currently in Beta 5, there still needs to be Beta 6, Release Candidate 1, RC 2, RC 3? and then the gold release (so we're looking at April / May). I will likely update the forums when RC 1 comes out, as it is then "ready to go live". How this affects this particular issue is the ability to add thread prefixes. I'm thinking once that's possible (and, I'm hoping, can be made mandatory), we can look at a fairly big forums reorganization, with emphasis on how ID threads are handled. Here are many of the other changes in the works, some affecting users, some affecting how the forums are administered.
Cute baby, love the cat, but don't see any of that as a replacement for logical forum headings. Indoor plant questions on the Outdoor Plant ID forum are most often posted by first-time or one-time users. They won't take the time to figure out the intricacies of the forum software and how to manage their relationships within the community. Change is still welcome, but old problems will persist if not specifically targeted.
My idea, in a bit more detail, is to force (if it is possible) people to use thread prefixes. Those thread prefixes would not be "Question" or "Notice" or "Important", but rather (on the plant identification forum), "Indoor ID", "Wildflower ID", "Garden ID", "Florist ID" etc. That may eliminate the need for an indoor plants ID forum altogether. For those who find the Indoor and Greenhouse Plants forum first, of course one of the thread prefixes could be "Identification" (along with "Plant Care", "Pests", etc.).
Hi, I'm writing as a person who jumped onto this site as one of those 'clueless' folks who wanted help with the identification of my indoor office adoptees. I was under the impression that Plant ID was for all plants, and poof! I started a new thread. It seemed pretty simple, but I can understand that the indoor plant ID's undermine the integrity of the Plant ID's goal. Maybe there can be an easy-to-find link for "First Time User? Click here" and it would show some of the FAQ's...?
I was thinking of doing something along those lines with the Navbar Notices that will be possible in the new version.
Starli, at least you had the wit to put "office plants" in the title of your thread, if I recall correctly. That helped - I knew I would be of no possible use, so didn't click on it! Daniel, the navbar notice does look as if it will work reasonably well. If people take the time to read and respond to whatever the navbar tells them. I don't always respond to the notices even at my banking site, so.... But to me as a user, that option looks more technically complex and more reliant on technology, more subject to error or malfunction, and looks like it will require more action from the system and the user on every occasion. My own selfish objective in bringing this subject up is to reduce the number of clicks I have to make in a day, or in a site visit. It seems to me that the navbar will increase the number of clicks required of the new poster (or another six hours of programming by you and endless tweaking by an army of techies) in order to reduce the number of clicks I make, which does not seem a fair trade-off. In contrast, it seems to me that the problem could be alleviated entirely - virtually made to disappear, requiring no further software upgrade or programming - by the simple, one-time, unilateral action of inserting a single new word (either "outdoor" or "garden") into the thread title. That appeals to me because it means fewer clicks for everyone, and it actually makes the structure of the forums more visible to the new user, making them feel - I would think - more comfortable and more confident in the new environment. I remember back in the '80s (said the old crone...) when my department at work was evaluating our first software purchase. We were initially quite easily distracted and confused by the options available from the different software vendors. Fortunately, my boss's husband had some unforgettable advice: "don't be seduced by features you don't need." I see a lot of stuff in the software upgrade that you are evaluating that is interesting and impressive, but I wonder how much of it is really going to materially improve how the forums work - relative to simply having a cogent, rational organization and naming of topics. Coincidentally the ancient software in use at GardenWeb was just being discussed over there, with users a little irked about the lack of an edit feature and some other creaky aspects of what might have once been an advanced software package. So certainly one needs to stay in tune with the times. But at some point, I wonder if every forum needs every particular advancement.
"My idea, in a bit more detail, is to force (if it is possible) people to use thread prefixes. Those thread prefixes would not be "Question" or "Notice" or "Important", but rather (on the plant identification forum), "Indoor ID", "Wildflower ID", "Garden ID", "Florist ID" etc."" Daniels quote This method is used on several of my other lists. From the point of searching archives it is a sounder method. (sorry tis the librarian coming out) Liz
