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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 (25)

  • Carol love_the_yard (Zone 9A Jacksonville, FL)
    11 years ago

    Tamara,

    Being able to upload photos and subscribe to threads was a big boon! Loving the changes. My suggestion is that it sure would be nice if you would add HTML capability.

    Thank you for providing such a great service to our Florida gardening community. It has brought me years of joy!

    Sincerely,
    Carol in Jacksonville
    Member since 2002

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    Something I would like to see is are more Mobile-friendly format. While I do most of my forum browsing at home on my computer, there are times when I am out and about and I want to check in on a topic, especially when I am in a nursery or somewhere else that is relevant to conversation I had read before, but the current format of how the links to the forums is set up makes it very... frustrating to use on my phone. It seems I am constantly accidentally clicking links to forums while trying to scroll down to the ones I am interested in, even when I am being quite careful. I finally broke down and made different shortcuts for each forum I tend to browse on a semi-frequent basis rather than having to deal with the main topics list.

  • derbyka
    11 years ago

    When updating the search engine, it would be great to be able to search multiple word phrases. For instance, if I wanted to search "winter vegetables" in the Florida forum, I get everything associated with winter and everything associated with vegetables.

  • Carol love_the_yard (Zone 9A Jacksonville, FL)
    11 years ago

    Hi Derby,

    Boolean searches (ability to perform AND, OR, or exact phrase searches) are already available. I put a link to the instructions below. Let me know in a separate thread if you need help.

    Carol in Jacksonville

    Here is a link that might be useful: GardenWeb Search Help

  • whgille
    11 years ago

    Hi Tamara

    Thank you for hosting this site and for all the improvements that have been made. It is a great place where all of us that love to garden can come and learn new things every day!

    Silvia

  • wallisadi
    11 years ago

    I'm happy......:)

  • RetiredFlorida
    11 years ago

    I would like to be able to click on a person's username and see their past/current posts. I'm not a stalker, per se, but when you find a very knowledgeable gardener, there is a lot to be learned from their postings usually and thus being able to see their posts collectively would be nice.

    Another nice feature would be to upload multiple images without using html, that or allow users to create "mini" personal galleries to point to without having "scientific names".

    Keep up the good work, look forward to more improvements!

    Darren

  • Carol love_the_yard (Zone 9A Jacksonville, FL)
    11 years ago

    I second both of Darren's suggestions! Those are great!

    (Darren, I have found a good work-around to find posts by a particular user: you can do a Search on their username. It works fine ...unless their username is a common gardening term like "Rose"! LOL!)

    Carol in Jacksonville

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    Yep, that's how I learned to love/hate TomnCath. I did a search on his name and saw all the pictures of his backyard. Gary too. Jerks... both of them.

  • brute
    11 years ago

    Be still, my racing heart! You mean to tell me there are more improvements on the way? Technically speaking, this site has lagged behind the rest of the internet by at least a decade. If there's a more primitive site out there, I haven't seen it.
    Until very recently, uploading a photo here was a nightmare. Fixing that was a great leap forward. However, you've still got a long way to go to finally bring us into the 21st Century.
    This is still the only site I visit nowdays that still has those annoying oldtime pop-up ads.
    The Florida Gardening page is very important to me because as far as I know, it's the only "Florida Gardening" forum on the internet. I'd sure like to see it modernized.

  • tomncath
    11 years ago

    Hi Tamara,

    Nice to see a post by you ;-)

    I love the new enhancements but miss the "old days" of being able to search the archives back for several years. As it stands now if I don't clip posts I think I may want to review down the road I won't be able to find them much after about twelve months or so :-(

    Tom

  • Carol love_the_yard (Zone 9A Jacksonville, FL)
    11 years ago

    Oh boy, yes! Please move Tom's suggestion above mine! I forgot about that one... archiving posts a longer period of time (or can we be greedy and say "forever"?) would be HUGE!

    I know, I know... I keep chiming in with "Yeah, what he said!" but I am so enthusiastic about this thread and the hope it brings! Please forgive me - I will try to hold back after this one. :)

    Carol in Jacksonville

  • shuffles_gw
    11 years ago

    What I would like to see is for the matches in a search to be put in chronological order starting with the most recent.

  • RetiredFlorida
    11 years ago

    Not sure how the archive works here but I have found postings by searching on google that go back to 2005.

    Thanks Carol for the work around, I knew there had to be a way. I forgot to check the box for email replies when posting in another "forum" and was trying to follow up.

    Darren

  • Carol love_the_yard (Zone 9A Jacksonville, FL)
    11 years ago

    Darren, yes, many times I have had to go searching for my own old posts to see what advice I had been given... that I have since forgotten! :)

    Carol

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    Could we get the option to edit our posts? I find myself sometimes giving a chain of 3 or comments because I keep coming up with things I want to add to a conversation that could have been added into one statement. Thanks!

  • tomncath
    11 years ago

    Could we get the option to edit our posts?

    That used to be possible too, but in this day and age of erasing incrimination I doubt that is going to happen....

  • mrs_tlc
    11 years ago

    Love the Gardenweb! My suggestions would be similar to a previous poster's regarding those annoying pop-up ads. Very annoying. Most importantly, maybe some sort of virus firewall. I actually got a virus that crashed my computer from this site last year. Pretty upsetting, but I obviously am back anyway ;)

  • scents_from_heaven
    11 years ago

    I will admit that I have not been here much lately because some of us would like a slit where one site would focus oon total garden material such as landscaping and leaning more towards plants and not vegetable gardening. The other site would be for vegetable gardening in Florida. I would like to see the logo plant changed to reflect a more modern look to the page. I would personally like being able to have my picture be posted as part of my name so that when I post people can see what I look like along with my name. I sincerely like HTML capabilities along with the back archives that go back at least a minimum f ten years. I would like the capability of placing a picture of a plant I am seeking to match with one in question in a sise by side comparison so that the person seeling an ID can see what we are referring to without having to give a link. There are more suggestions but I am too tired to think at the moment. I would like Thanks for the improvements thus far.

  • DunedinDan
    11 years ago

    Another vote for increasing the length of time archives are kept. Lots of good info is no longer accessible.

  • abnorm
    11 years ago

    Good News.....A new GW "Editing" function is being tested over in the Hot Pepper Forum

    Here is a link that might be useful: Editing your post

  • RetiredFlorida
    11 years ago

    Editing would be great!

    I'm thinking something like a friends list would be cool too. For someone who has short term memory problems, it would be nice to be able to see friends and maybe the forums they favor or add a special note next to their name "great propagator", "hibiscus specialist" etc.

    Darren

  • 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

  • SusieQsie_Fla
    11 years ago

    I love this forum and tell everybody I know that they have to check it out!

    One thing that I hate is the AdChoices green letter words with the double underline. Don't ask me why it bothers me - maybe because I read alot, (and I'm old) but my brain wants to "accent" those words and they trip me up.

    And I, too, would love to have all the old posts from 10 years ago easily accessed.

    Thanks for all your hard work!

    Susie

  • Irma_StPete
    11 years ago

    Susie said what I was thinking... I hate seeing words emphasized by the "system" - not by the writer.
    I loved visiting GW for many years; after I update to a new computer, I will again be visiting and even start posting pictures.
    Thank you, GW, for the improvements now and to come.
    Irma

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